Josephine "Jo" Boyd

Josephine Boyd (“Jo” to her friends), a long-time Fort Collins resident, passed away in her home on November 8th, 2022. She was 95. She was born Josephine Watson to Leonard and Mae Daubney in Saint Paul Minnesota on Feb 19, 1927 and earned bachelor degrees in chemical engineering and business from the University of Minnesota. She completed a doctoral program (University of Minnesota) in microbiology while working as a chemist for the Hamm’s Brewery. She married William Lee Boyd on January 6th, 1956 in Fairbanks Alaska and assisted him in his research cataloging attributed of microbes in the Arctic tundra in Barrow (Utqiagvik), Alaska. During her career, Jo worked as a waste-water treatment plant operator for the City of Fort Collins and a technical writer for the Hach Company, but it was after retirement that Jo began to embrace her love of knitting. She travelled to the Shetland Islands, New Zealand, Iceland, Scotland and other locales in search of yarn to display her unique talents. Some of her sweater- creations featured the designs of Native American art, wildlife or intestinal parasites. She would become excited when friends gave birth as it was another opportunity to knit another sweater or hat (machine washable of course) and share her love with a new generation. No good deed was ever shown to Jo without her reciprocating the gesture with knitted goods. Up until her early 90’s she enjoyed exploring the Fort Collins trail system on her bicycle and would sometimes visit her favorite brewery before pedaling home. Jo loved to tell stories about her family in Minnesota, growing up in the depression, her popularity in college as she received free beer while working at Hamm’s, her meat loaf recipe, living with her husband and three children in a Quonset hut with no flushing toilets or her 58-year residency in Fort Collins. Jo may have passed, but her stories live on. She is proceeded in death by her husband, William, and survived by her children (Samantha Daubney Boyd and Laurence Samuel Boyd) and three grandchildren (Erin Lee Stanton, William Hays Boyd and Swiler Eleanor Boyd). A celebration of her life will be announced at a future date.

Josephine "Jo" Boyd

November 8, 2022