Joan Frances Moylett was born in Ozone Park, Queens, New York, in 1932, back when it was, well, like it is now, a quilt of recent arrivals and their children. All four of her grandparents were immigrants, two from Germany, two from Ireland. She excelled in school, was voted Class President and Most Likely to Succeed. She was starting to impress the faculty at St. John’s when she met Joe Hogan, an older man working in the Brooklyn shipyard after the war. Her family didn’t like Joe, he was rough around the edges, but Joan knew they could build a life together, and they did. They raised eight children, seven boys and a girl. Joan actually did most of the raising while Joe hustled, rising from cleaning ship boilers to an office job, a college degree, and the suburbs. From Hicksville, Long Island to Arnold, MD to Lancaster, PA and finally West Hartford, CT, neighbors and friends marveled at the controlled chaos in the Hogan house. Joan was the steady, constant, calming stream patiently smoothing the jagged rocks of her husband and eight children. You never really knew what was happening next, but you could trust a Hogan kid to get the job done and be polite while doing it. Mom’s gifts were many, but at her core she was a teacher. Her curricula included academics, athletics, ethics, and life skills. She had magic in knowing when to be firm and when to be forgiving, when to pull the police officer aside and when to let the consequences fall. When to scold a poorly cleaned bathtub and when to skinny dip with the grandkids. There was strength in Joan, but there was mostly joy.
Eight kids would be enough for one life, but after her youngest started elementary school, she restarted her college career, finished her bachelor’s and master’s degrees and began a 15 year career teaching at Gideon Welles middle school in Glastonbury, Conn.
Retirement meant a return to Annapolis, where three children settled, surrounding Joan with a few of her beloved grandchildren. She was a docent at William Paca House and Garden and a volunteer at Quiet Waters Park. A devoted Catholic, she participated in the Eucharistic Adoration and was a regular reader of the library at St. Mary’s Parish. Even after a long life away from the city, you could still hear her New York drawl when she talked about her beloved Brooklyn Daw-jers.
Joan is preceded in death by her husband, Joe Hogan. She is survived by her younger brother, Thomas Moylett of Bluffton, South Carolina. She is also survived by all 8 of her children, 19 grandchildren, and 13 great grandchildren, too numerous to list, all shaped by her teaching.
There was always a wink to Joan, even in the last days. As her mind clouded with age, the one way to see the true Mom was to make a sarcastic joke, test her wit, get her to look a little sideways at you. She was generous. She was hilarious. She was brainy. She was tough. She was the best mother anyone could ever hope for. She lives on in all of us.
In lieu of flowers, please donate to Covenant House of New York or the Global Down Syndrome Foundation
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