Josephine “Jo” Walderrama Barrios Wahdan January 11, 1937 – June 1, 2015

In lieu of flowers, Jo’s wish was that donations be made in her memory to the Youth Alliance, P.O. Box 1291, Hollister, CA 95024. Memorial service with Veteran’s honors will be held on Friday, June 12, 2015,at 1:00 P.M., at the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery, 5810 Midway Road, Dixon, CA 95620. Reception will immediately follow.
 Josephine “Jo” Walderrama Barrios Wahdan, 78, of Roseville, CA, passed away peacefully, in her home on June 1, 2015.
 Jo was born on a stormy night in an old Model T on the way to the hospital on January 11, 1937, in rural Firebaugh, CA to Jose Barrios and Elvera Balderama.
 Her mother remarried and Jo was close to her step-father, Louie Villa.
 She grew up in the migrant farms, spending her childhood in King City, Soledad, Castroville, Salinas, and the fields in between.
 She graduated from Salinas High School in 1955, joined the US Navy under the GI Bill and was honorably discharged in 1957. She trained in Maryland before being stationed in San Diego, where she met and married her first husband and gave birth to her son, Dean.
 Jo was the first person in her family to go to college. She studied Library Science at San Diego City College and then earned a B.A. in foreign languages from San Diego State University in 1970 and a Masters of Library Science from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee in 1975.
 She met her second husband and they had two daughters, Laila and Nadia.
 Jo became a community librarian at the Milwaukee Library, creating a library for the Latino community, before relocating to CA in 1978. During this time, she was one of two Hispanic head librarians in all of CA. As the County Librarian at the San Benito County Free Library, she developed the Friends of the Library program and brought in the first computers.
 Jo retired after 25 years and moved to Temecula, CA and then to Roseville, where she enjoyed billiards, Tai Chi, and dancing.
 She was also an accomplished poet who spoke multiple languages, including Arabic, German, and Spanish.
 Jo was passionate about giving back to the community and fought discrimination and educational inequality. As a librarian, she initiated an adult literacy program, Japanese and Native American collections, and a bookmobile to increase access. She was a crusader for the Barrios Unidos program and co-founded the Youth Alliance.
 The California Legislature Assembly recognized her work in 2004.
 After she retired, she tutored many children and volunteered at the Temecula Police Station, Noli Indian School Library and Boys & Girls Club.
 Jo was a compassionate person who greatly loved her family, friends, and community. Her sister Anita remembers, “We were all very close. Of all the sisters, I feel she was the strongest.” Jo was particularly proud of her Mexican and Native American (Pima) heritage, volunteering at pow wows with the Tena Indian Council.
 Jo will be greatly missed by her daughters, Laila Wahdan with son-in-law, Nima Shams, Nadia Wahdan with son-in-law, Chaun Emery, her daughter-in-law, Lucy Burni, and grandchildren, Janan, Jasmin, Abed, Kai, and Jaydon as well as her siblings, Anita Zaragoza, Julia Aguilar and Louie Villa, Jr., and her cats, Snowie and Pumpkin.
 Jo is preceded in death by her parents, her son, Dean Burni, and her siblings, Frank Barrios, Jesse Barrios, Dolores Barrios, Guadalupe Vargas, and Vera Villa.