Joan Moss Bailey was born in Monrovia, California with her twin sister, Judy, in November 1926. She was the daughter of William J. and Helen Davis Bailey. She was educated in Monrovia’s schools and later attended Stanford University.
In 1947, Joan married Alexander Crane McGilvray and started her family, raising two sons and a daughter. Initially, Joan was a homemaker, but she always had ambitions to work outside the home. She loved to sew and with her growing business acumen, created her own clothing business. Always independent by nature, however, she kept her eye toward a more established career in business. Her daughter, Lynn, remembers her often saying, “I’m looking for something where I am working smarter, not harder.”
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