Joan was born in Windsor in September 1926. Her early years were spent in Brussels, until the outbreak of war, when she was sent with her sister, as boarders to St Joseph’s Convent, Abbey Wood. She completed her studies in Cold Ash, then taught for a few years before entering the D.J. novitiate in France in 1953. She later taught in High Wycombe and Rickmansworth, with a much appreciated study interval in Rome in 1968. On her retirement Joan moved to the retreat centre of Massingham St Mary, before taking on the role of assistant librarian in the Franciscan Study Centre in Canterbury. By 1987 she was back in Rickmansworth, taking on a post in the Heythrop College in Kensington as well as editing Signum for the Catholic Information Office. In these various roles, staff and students appreciated her unassuming manner, her insights and her witty rapports. In later years she returned to serve again in Norfolk until Massingham’s closure. Then it was back to Rickmansworth again for a few years until Brook House was sold, when she moved up the hill to Blakenhall, still serving the community and translating for the Congregation website. In 2009 she moved to Westgate-on-Sea, where her health gradually deteriorated until she was welcomed to the Cumberland Care Home in Herne Bay in 2014. Joan was a quiet, gifted and sensitive person – hard-working and thoughtful for others. She would say “I just want to be ordinary”! We thank her for that, for who she was/is and for her faithfulness.

“In our end is our beginning …” (T.S.Eliot)
“And all shall be well
and all manner of things shall be well” (Julian of Norwich)

Mass of funeral at 1:00 pm on Wednesday on August 12th in the church of Birchington, Kent
Burial in Margate Cemetery at 2.30 p.m.