Joan Marie Moreau

Joan Marie (Trone) Moreau died peacefully on Friday, November 8, 2024. She resided in Lancaster, Pennsylvania at Willow Valley Communities over the last nineteen years. She is preceded in death by her husband of sixty-two years, George Thomas Moreau. She is also preceded in death by her parents, Jennie Margaret (Dubs) Trone and Richard Grove Trone; her sisters Gladys Trone, Mary Oaster, and Gloria Hubley; and her brothers Harold Trone, Donald Trone and Richard Trone. She is survived by her two sisters, Pearl Murren and Jane Hillman (Carl), and her sister-in-law, Mary Ann Trone. 

Joan is survived by her children: Jennie Moreau (James Caulfield) of Berwyn, Illinois; Mary Ann McGannon (Deborah Lung) of Lancaster, South Carolina; and Walter Moreau (Carolyn) of Austin, Texas. She will be greatly missed by her six grandchildren: Paul McGannon, Willem McGowan (Lindsay Culbert-Olds), Adam Paricio-Moreau (Lindsey), Alec McGowan, Maeve McGannon, and Gabriel Moreau. She is also survived by many nieces and nephews, who will miss her greatly.

Joan graduated from high school in Hanover, Pennsylvania and went on to get her Bachelor of Science in Business Education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, under the guidance and care of her older brother, Don. She also took some Master Level courses at Bucknell University. Joan and George lived in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, California, North Carolina, South Carolina, and then full circle, back to Pennsylvania. She enjoyed travelling to Hawaii, Mexico, and Europe.

Her greatest love was art and found her passion in fabric art and jewelry for many decades. She began working in traditional hand quilting with the classic log cabin and flying geese patterns, following in the footsteps of her grandparents from Pennsylvania Dutch country. She had one-woman shows in both Charleston, South Carolina, and Manhattan, New York. Her friends at Willow Valley in the last twenty years of her life knew and loved her desire to pass on her art through the Willow Valley Quilt Guild and her trunk shows. Her quilts cover the walls and beds of family and friends throughout the country.

Joan loved learning new things and found friends in everyone she met. She informally started Saturday Socials in her building so that the community could thrive for all the residents in the Garden Apartments. She was famous for her famous caramel-chocolate bark (“crack”) to celebrate any occasion. She took time to cook or bake an extra batch of split pea soup or fresh sourdough bread for any of her friends who were under the weather.

Joan’s mantra was to “never stop learning,” and she managed to join the modern age with her iPhone and iPad, which kept her connected to her friends and family, especially as her health was failing. She watched her shows that allowed her to imagine travel and good food. In her final months at The Glen, she would comment that she hoped she created her room as a “listening room” for others, and they loved her for that.

A celebration of her life will be planned for April 2025. Joan’s family would like to thank The Glen’s skilled nursing staff, who cared for her tirelessly in the last year. Her team members from Caring Hospice were her “angels” that were her strongest advocates.