JoAnn Cartwright Belz, 85, of Texas, formerly of House Springs, died Sept. 23, 2019, in a hospice home in Willis, Texas. Mrs. Belz spent her childhood on her extended family’s farm in Arkansas and helped her parents with their mercantile store. She graduated from Arkansas State Teachers College (now the University of Central Arkansas) in Conway, Ark. in 1956 with a teaching degree and taught at Northwest R-1 High School in Cedar Hill, where she met her husband. They moved to Cuba in 1962 and then to Plano, Texas in 1968. She took time away from teaching to raise her sons before returning to teach special education at Tioga and Collinsville until retiring in 2000. She had been a member of the Howe United Methodist Church since 1978. Born June 6, 1934, in Otto, Ark., she was the daughter of the late Florence Elizabeth Scholle and John Franklin Cartwright Jr.
She was preceded in death by her husband: Richard Belz, whom she married July 2, 1960, at the Mount Carmel Church in Otto, Ark.
She is survived by two sons: Richard Michael Belz of The Woodlands, Texas, and John Benjamin Belz of Houston, Texas; a granddaughter: Brittany Renee; two brothers: Jerry Cartwright and Lynn Cartwright; and two sisters: Patsy Kahn and Mary Tankersley.
She was preceded in death by a sister: Betty Cartwright.
Graveside funeral service is planned for Sunday, Sept. 29, at Hall Cemetery in Howe, Texas. Arrangements are under the direction of Scoggins Funeral Home and Crematory in Van Alstyne, Texas.