ACTON, Mass. – Jo-Ann Prince Ehrenfried, formerly of Concord, Mass., and Lewiston, died Jan. 2 at her home.

Jo-Ann Prince Ehrenfried was born in Lewiston on Aug. 23, 1926, to Russell L. Prince, owner of Prince’s Shoe Store on Bates Street, and to Clarice Rafnell Prince. Jo-Ann was an only child who had her own horse, raced her own sailboat and was voted “the best dressed girl” in Lewiston High School, Class of 1944.

Jo-Ann was a leader in her high school class, a show rider on her horse Cactus and a student of every facet of the dance, including modern, jazz, tap, ballet, improvisation, acrobatic and ballroom. When she was only eight years old, she was the ballroom partner of the young man, then 12, who was to become her future husband. They married 24 years later.

Jo-Ann was a counselor in a Maine summer camp, teaching swimming and diving, formed her own dance company and performed in numerous community-theater musicals, including “Show Boat” and “Kiss Me Kate,” choreographed and danced in a Bowdoin College musical that toured the Keith summer circuit, served as a dance instructor at Westbrook Junior College and was elected president of the Maine Council of Little Theaters.

Jo-Ann attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., receiving a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. She was a member of Delta Delta Delta sorority and performed as a dancer and choreographer and in a precision swim team. Returning to Lewiston, Jo-Ann did fiber analysis, using photomicroscopy, for the Bates Manufacturing Company. She worked for the Health and Welfare Forensic Laboratory of the State of Maine, doing forensic analysis, including radiation detection and providing evidence to the Maine State Police, also acting as a professional witness in court cases brought by the State of Maine.

On Nov. 30, 1958, Jo-Ann Prince and Albert D. Ehrenfried were married at Trinity Episcopal Church in Concord, Mass. and in September 1960, they had a son, James Russell and five years later adopted a daughter, Heidi Prince.

Moving from Maine to Massachusetts, Jo-Ann brought her creative energy and became an active and creative force. She expanded her dancing skills by commuting to Boston to take classes from the leading dancers of the day, Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Jose Limon, Murray Lewis and Talley Beatty, adding skills in modern, ethnic, Spanish, primitive and mime techniques.

Soon after her arrival in Concord, Jo-Ann volunteered to teach ballroom dancing at the Girl Scout House and started working with the adult education programs of both Concord and Acton, commencing a period of over 40 years, when she was the leading ballroom dance teacher in the area. Hundreds took her classes, some returning for advanced training, preparing for weddings, balls, cruises and just plain enjoyment. In addition to traditional ballroom dance (waltz, fox trot, tango, rumba and jitterbug), Jo-Ann, sometimes working with disk jockeys, introduced such dance innovations as disco, country, South American, Appalachian clogging, and the Macarena.

Jo-Ann also participated in theater dance in Concord. For the Concord Players, she choreographed and directed dance for the show “Little Mary Sunshine” and also for one of the most demanding of Broadway shows, “West Side Story.” For the Sudbury (Mass.) Players, Jo-Ann choreographed and directed dance for their production of the historical musical, “1776.”

In the midst of directing “West Side Story,” Jo-Ann’s house, was struck by lightning and nearly burned to the ground. Jo-Ann proved she was a trooper, came to rehearsal the next day to thunderous applause by the cast and helped produce a memorable show that played in Concord and traveled to Dover, Mass.

For Theater III in Acton, Jo-Ann both choreographed and performed in a number of shows, including “Can Can,” “Guys and Dolls” and “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.” She was also a principal organizer of “The Children’s Dance Theater of Concord” and served as author, choreographer, director and dancer for a dozen productions, that provided performance opportunities for dancers of all ages.

Jo-Ann also formed a liturgical dance group to perform chancel drama and helped to organize a unique dance variety show, “A Little Night Dancing.” This combined the best in widely-differing dance styles, ranging from ballet to Broadway, in a unique dance performance.

Jo-Ann saw Appalachian clog dancing performed on Boston television, tracked down the leader of the group, took a few lessons and was soon teaching Appalachian clogging to adults in Concord and Acton. She joined the performing group, called the “Yankee Doodle Cloggers” and was soon doing original choreography for them that was published in the national clogging press. Jo-Ann eventually became the group’s president and performed on TV and in concerts in New England and New York State, including a Bicentennial year celebration at the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.

In her years in theater dance, Jo-Ann proved she had a talent for choreographing and directing amateur dancers, making them look like a seasoned, professional team. She also did highly original works like the “Firefly” show where the performers dressed in black and on a blackened stage with a flashlight in each hand simulated a firefly. The performers had only a vague sense of what they had created, following Jo-Ann’s detailed direction, until they saw a video of their work.

For more than 20 years, she was a media supervisor at the Concord-Carlisle Regional High School, pioneering the new television medium and supplying Concord public schools with educational video, some purchased, some generated locally and some downloaded from a satellite dish that she operated. Jo-Ann hooked up complex electronic systems in classrooms, lecture halls and over transmission lines from her central station. She also catalogued a growing collection of programs, logged system-wide usage for historical purposes and attempted to discipline a widespread system to respect copyright law.

Jo-Ann also distinguished herself in graphic arts, through drawing and painting, which she began in kindergarten. She took a course in oil painting at William and Mary and has studied watercolor recently at the Acton Senior Center. Jo-Ann’s favorite subjects are animals and outdoor scenes and she has exhibited her artwork widely.

Recently, Jo-Ann ventured into digital photography and her eye for composition found striking subject matter in the yards, woods and byways all around her. She learned to process large prints on her home computer and the quality of her work drew immediate attention and won her major shows in Concord and Acton. It also lead to a large newspaper spread entitled, “The Simple Splendor of Jo-Ann’s World,” which was published in the newspapers of 18 communities west of Boston.

Jo-Ann has always been an accomplished sportswoman, starting at an early age with swimming, diving, sailing and horseback riding. Over the years, she added snow skiing, water skiing and golf and actively summered for decades on the shores of Lake Sebago in Maine. Jo-Ann was a member of the International Golf Club in Bolton, Mass, and played on the famous courses of St. Andrews, Scotland and on numerous courses in and about New England.

Jo-Ann was a member of the American Chemical Society and the Acton Women’s Club. She has been a member since childhood of the United Baptist Church in Lewiston and more recently of Trinity Episcopal Church in Concord. For over a decade, Jo-Ann has been an active volunteer at Emerson Hospital in Concord, managing the main gift shop on Friday afternoons.

For all her accomplishments, Jo-Ann has remained simple and modest and always kind, considerate and loyal. Whatever she has done, she has usually been selected to play a leadership role, always by acclamation rather than through self-promotion. She always held herself to the highest standards and was a taskmaster when putting together a performance, but in a considerate manner that made people want to follow her direction.

She is survived by her husband, Albert D. Ehrenfried of Acton, Mass.; a daughter, Heidi P. Ehrenfried and her daughter, Alyssa, of Acton, Mass.; a son, James R. Ehrenfried and his wife Marie, and their sons, Shamus and Samuel of Boxborough, Mass.; and several nieces and nephews, and cousins.

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