Joan Mary Dronzek, 86, of Stuart, Florida, and Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts, passed away on May 24, 2021, in Stuart, Florida. The cause of death was Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Joan was born on November 16, 1934, in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, England, to Norman Richardson and Alice (Steel) Richardson, with one older sister, Elizabeth Ann. Joan grew up loving animals, due to her father’s job as an assistant to the town vet, and beautiful gardens, due to her mother’s gardening skills, which she inherited. After completing school at Wisbech High School and earning her Cambridge School Certificate, she trained as a nurse at North Middlesex Hospital in London. She subsequently worked at North Middlesex Hospital and Chelsea Hospital for Women, and most notably spent three years working at Harari Central Hospital in Harare (then Salisbury), Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia). To reach this job, she traveled by boat to South Africa and took a train north to Harare; she said one of the more amazing things she had seen in her life was the sun rising over Table Mountain in Cape Town. After she returned to England, she worked in London as a surgical anesthetic nurse at the Royal Hammersmith Hospital. It was in London, in 1968, that she met Elmer J. Dronzek, an American working for Gillette and overseeing their London factory, on a blind date. Joan and Elmer married on August 10, 1968. In 1970, after the birth of their two daughters, Anna and Karen, the family moved to the United States (along with their yellow lab, Hawkins), and made a home in Concord, Massachusetts for the next twenty years. There, Joan relished gardening, playing tennis with a close-knit group of friends, and hosting visits from her English family, especially her nieces, Wendy and Susan. She also loved quilting and other fiber crafts, and many friends and family members still cherish quilts that Joan made for them, the quilting done entirely by hand. After Elmer’s retirement in 1987, he and Joan established themselves in Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts, and Stuart, Florida, where they occupied themselves with tennis, golf, and the good company of great friends. Joan also loved reading, swapping books with her friends, and wrestling the daily New York Times crossword puzzle to completion. The community in the River Village complex in Stuart gave her a great deal of comfort after Elmer passed away in 2007, and her daughters are especially grateful for all the support they provided to Joan in recent years. Joan is survived by her daughters, Anna Dronzek (Wendel Cox) of Concord, New Hampshire, and Karen Dronzek, of Lunenburg, Massachusetts; and her nieces, Wendy Bushnell of Henley-on-Thames, England, and Susan Spash (Mark) of London, England, and their children. Joan was predeceased by her husband, Elmer J. Dronzek (2007), and her sister, Elizabeth Ann Hamilton (2010). Due to the current difficulties of travel and the far-flung locations of those who loved her, no service will be held at this time; a future celebration of Joan’s life is planned. In lieu of flowers, please consider donations to the COPD Foundation or your local humane society.
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