Ward family ripped apart by the Texas church massacre: 'She lived for those kids'

Lorenzo Flores, left, and Terrie Smith weep in remembrance of those killed in the shooting at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas, Nov. 9, 2017. (Photo: Rick Wilking/Reuters)
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas — It was Joann Ward’s sixth wedding anniversary, and she already had the perfect day in mind.

A mother of four, Ward had the afternoon off from Theresa’s Kitchen, the tiny restaurant inside the Valero gas station where she worked a few hours a week. And though relatives had offered to watch the kids so that she and her husband, Chris, could get away for a few hours, Ward waved them off.
“She wanted the family to be together,” her father, Bill, said.

Ward, 30, was youngest of nine kids from Castroville, Texas, a small town west of San Antonio, and had grown up wanting a big family of her own. After a few years of ups and downs, she had finally met Chris, whom relatives described as her soul mate. According to friends, Ward saw their anniversary as a celebration of the life and family they had built together. There were her two daughters from previous relationships — Rihanna, 9, and Emily, 7; the daughter she and Chris had together, Brooke, 5; and Ryland, Chris’s 5-year-old son from another relationship whom they were raising full time.
“She was a wonderful mother,” her friend, Terrie Smith, recalled. “She lived for those kids.”

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