Joan joined the Carroll Garden Club in 2006. We relied on her for her no nonsense approach to issues to be dealt with and with her willingness to give demonstrations and programs which she honed as a Master Gardener in Carroll County where she put most of her energy. She fell back on her long term experience as a science teacher to lay out how to do things with precision-–so she made a great lecturer. She put hundreds of hours into Grow It, Eat It, the Master Gardener annual plant sale, maintaining the demonstration gardens at the Ag Center and a host of other activities.
Joan in 2006
On a fieldtrip in 2007
She and her husband had a huge Victorian house in Finksburg with fantastic rose, perennial and shrub gardens with an emphasis on spring bloomers, especially back in the woods which are loaded with azaleas courtesy of her husband, Ken. One of our blog posts shows her gardens and we often had opportunity to see what was blooming when we met at her place to carpool.
Joan served as club secretary, but quickly—and reluctantly at first, was put into the position of President in October 2011 when the serving CGC President moved and the Vice President dropped out. She proved an admirable and efficient executive. Afterwards, she was Advisor and then handled publicity as she was a good writer.
Joan, being inducted as Recording Secretary in 2011
Joan loved growing huge hybrid tea roses and took exquisite care of them. We were often treated to her rose Show and Tells. She truly disliked flower arrangement, feeling she had no talent at it and would rather leave the flowers on their stems anyway. Preservatives in cut flowers from the shops made her sneeze, she claimed.
At Julia’s during her last meeting as President of CGC
Attending her well attended service at a Catholic Church in Glyndon, we learned that Joan was an ace at sewing and knitting, came from an Italian background in Baltimore and had taken at least one trip to Italy, was in an Italian cooking club and taught her children and grandchildren how to cook with flare and was in a scrabble club. As one garden club member remarked to me, “Why does it take the passing of our club friends before we know all the special things about them beyond what our club knows. Let’s make an effort to know our club friends as “whole persons” with years of interesting experiences and skills behind them and celebrate that now, shall we?
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