Joan Conroy

Joan was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1927, to Herbert and Anna Crowley. She was raised in Floral Park and Garden City, New York, with her sister, Janice, and brother, Herb. She attended the College of St. Elizabeth, in Convent Station, New Jersey, where she earned a degree in home economics.

While Joan was at St. Elizabeth’s, her good friend Ellen Conroy kept telling her about her smart, charming brother, Marty, a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross who had recently returned to America after serving in Europe during World War II. Joan and Marty met and were soon engaged. They were married in 1949.

Joan, who had been working as a high school home-economics teacher on Long Island, quit her job to start making and raising babies. Marty, who had been working on the editorial staff of Esquire magazine, quit and went into advertising so they could pay for those babies.

The ever-growing family, which topped out at two girls and six boys, lived in Fresh Meadows, New York; Old Greenwich, Connecticut; Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts; and Greenwich, Connecticut. In addition to feeding and washing all those children, Joan found time to volunteer as a religious-instruction teacher and pursue interests including art, music and literature. After the children started to grow up and move out in the ’70s, she worked as a substitute teacher in home economics in the Greenwich school system. In 1979, Marty, after more than two decades at the advertising firm BBDO, started his own corporate-communications business.

Eventually, the children finished college, and the couple sold the big Greenwich house and moved to Madison, Connecticut, and Captiva Island, Florida. They traveled extensively in Europe, fulfilling one of Joan’s lifelong dreams. She and Marty also took up golf, because it’s the law.

After Marty’s death, in 2006, Joan continued to travel, pursue her interests — including Italian, Jane Austen, yoga and even tap dancing — and welcome a stream of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to her two homes. Everyone has fond memories of trying to see the green flash at sunset on the beach in Captiva. Meanwhile, Madison became the site of an annual July 4th bocce tournament that lasted all day until the dinner and fireworks at the Madison Beach Club.

Joan ran a home based on the principle of the more the merrier. For the 22 years the family lived in Greenwich, the front door was never locked. Anyone was welcome to visit, and a long list of family members, friends and assorted strays did so and wound up staying indefinitely.

Through good times and bad, Joan never wavered in her commitment to her family, her marriage and her faith. She believed, as St. Paul wrote, that faith is a gift of God. It was a gift that she tried to share through her words and her deeds.

Joan is survived by her eight children — Ellen McNamara of Stamford, Connecticut, Janice Albert of Seattle, Washington, Peter of Decatur, Georgia, John of Vero Beach, Florida, Thomas of Madison, Connecticut, Dennis of Darien, Connecticut, James of Fairfield, Connecticut, and David of New Milford, Connecticut — their spouses, fourteen grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Joan was predeceased by her husband, Marty, brother, Herb, and sister, Janice, and her great-grandson Hank.

In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Catholic Academy of Bridgeport.

CatholicAcademyBridgeport.org/donate/.