Joan Crews

Joan Elise Dinkel Crews, age 88, widow of the Reverend Richard E. Crews since 2014 of South Kent CT passed away peacefully on September 23rd at The Hearth of Tuxis Pond in Madison, CT with family by her side.

Joan was born on January 13, 1933 to Frederic and Dorothy Dinkel and was raised in Fanwood, NJ. Joan graduated from Cornell University in 1953 and married Richard E. Crews (also a Cornell graduate) in 1954. Joan and Dick were married for 60 years. She started teaching right out of college in Newport RI, then Norfolk VA and Branford CT when Dick attended seminary school at Yale. When Dick took over St. Andrews parish in Marble Dale CT in 1964, Joan helped create a strong local community for many families at St. Andrews. In 1976, she became an English teacher at New Milford High School where she taught for over 20 years. As the devoted wife of Reverend Richard E. Crews she continued to be very active at St Andrews Marble Dale CT and South Kent School when the family moved there in 1982 as well as St. Andrews in Kent CT. Joan was very active in many local charities where she helped others in need. She was a devoted wife and mother who cherished time spent with her family and was a very talented pianist/organ player playing in several churches. She loved to read and spent many years working library sales, reading to grade school children as well as working on an immense library at home. Generous and kind to many, she will be dearly missed by her two sons Richard Frederic Payne Crews and Peter Benjamin Sturgis Crews, sister Gretchen Thielhart, and her grandchildren Alexandra, Nicholas and William Crews.

A Memorial Service will be held at 2:00 pm on Thursday September 30th at St. Andrews Church in Kent, CT followed by a reception/coffee hour at the Parish house.