Joan S. Anthony, 79 of Sun City, Huntley, passed away at JourneyCare Hospice in Woodstock on Thursday morning, May 31, 2018. Joan was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer on July 18, 2017 and succumbed to this dreaded disease less than 11 months later despite the efforts of some of the best doctors in the country, including those at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston (U. Of Texas), which is rated as the best in the world.
Joan was born April 7, 1939 in Brooklyn, New York, the eldest of 3 daughters of Morton S. and Pearl (Podd) Livenston. She was raised and educated in New York, and worked as a legal secretary at a small Manhattan law firm where she met and later married Nelson Anthony on June 29, 1962 in New York. The couple made their home in Queens and Long Island, before moving to Orange County, California in 1974. They had two children prior to moving to California, their son Eric Anthony, born in 1964, and their daughter Sharon Anthony (later to become Sharon Pomeroy), born in 1968. Nelson was employed as in-house counsel with Mobil Oil Corporations’ Office Of General Counsel, and Mobil had a policy of transferring their people to advance their careers. As a result of Mobil’s policy Joan and the family lived in California, Illinois, Connecticut, and Virginia, from 1974 to 1990. After Nelson retired from Mobil, the couple moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1990 where they remained until 2007 when they moved to Sun City in Huntley, Illinois to be closer to their children, Eric and Sharon, and their grandchildren. Eric and Sharon had settled in the Chicago area after completing their education and starting families of their own. Joan and Nelson continued to live in Huntley until Joan passed away. Joan was always a “quick study”, full of life, inquisitive, adaptive, and eager to expand her knowledge and make new friends. She made sure that the many relocations the family had to make were not only smooth transitions, but opportunities for new adventures. Joan enjoyed dancing, theatre, gourmet cooking, Bridge, Mah Jong, Tennis, and travel, and was constantly adding new interests. For example, while living in Palatine she went back to School at Harper Community College and took courses to get certified as an Operating Room Technician, then went to work as an ORT at Northwest Community Hospital, until she and Nelson had to relocate to Connecticut and later to Virginia. Once in Virginia, she started a costume jewelry business which involved buying trips to New York, California and Texas to create resale inventory that she consigned to beauty parlors in the Oakton Virginia area where the couple lived. Her business grew by leaps and bounds until the couple retired to Las Vegas, when she gave it up and donated a significant amount of inventory to charity so she could pursue new ventures. On moving to Huntley, Illinois, she quickly joined tennis groups, organized a knitting group, and taught her neighbors how to play Mah Jong, in addition to the many social activities her tennis ladies engaged in.
Joan passed away just shy of celebrating 56 years of marriage to her husband Nelson, and she is survived by him, their son Eric Anthony and Eric’s wife Maria, and their three children-Anna Follendorf, Nina Anthony and James Anthony. Eric and his family live in Woodridge, IL. Joan is also survived by their daughter Sharon Pomeroy, of Park Ridge, Il., and Sharon’s children, Jake Pomeroy and Adam Pomeroy. Joan is also survived by her sisters, Cynthia Friend, of Houston Texas, and Audrey Knowlton, of Clearwater, Florida. Joan was preceded in death by her parents.
A memorial gathering will be held from 1:00 to 3:00 PM Saturday, June 9, 2018, at the DeFiore-Jorgensen Funeral & Cremation Service, 10763 Dundee Road, Huntley, IL. 60142. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Center Network (PanCan) at 1500 Rosecrans Avenue, suite 200, Manhattan Beach, CA. 90266 or by phone at 877-272-6226. For more information on the memorial service, call DeFiore-Jorgensen at 847-515-8772 or online at www.defiorejorgensen.com
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