Jo-Ann worked at St. Raphael's Hospital as an radiation therapist. She married Salvatore Passeggiata in 1974. She had one child, Nicole, in 1975. She divorsed in 1995 and remarried Carl Simanton in 1996. After she retired she lived in Vermont and then moved to Myrtle Beach, SC and then out to western Pennsylvania to be close to her daughter. Jo-Ann has three grandchildren Anna, Jimmy, and Grace. Her father Ray Barera passed in October 2013.