Dr. Joanne Zweig Friedman

1942-2025

A clinical psychologist with over 40 years in private practice on the North Shore, Dr. Friedman helped hundreds of patients at her Beverly offices (first on Thorndike Street and later at the Cummings Center). Adventurous, innately feminist, staunchly independent, and spunky, Joanne embraced life with unyielding energy. Her passions included the arts (especially classical music and contemporary visual art), gourmet food, traveling, celebrating family accomplishments, and the family’s dearly departed Schnauzer mix, Daisy, who was rescued in the early 80s from the Northeast Animal Shelter in Salem. In recent years, you could find her and her partner Paul Mason (an amazing late-in-life love story) regularly dining at their favorite Marblehead restaurant, 5 Corners Kitchen, at the live broadcasts of the Met opera at Rockport Music, or at various museums and galleries in Massachusetts and far beyond. She was an avid gardener, practiced Tai Chi for many years (starting in her 50s!), played a ruthless Monopoly, Scrabble, or Backgammon game, and adored European travel. For a time in the late 90s and early 2000s, she made her own art, attending classes at Mass Art and participating in the Marblehead Arts Festival, even winning some prizes for her work.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, to Harriet Thomas Zweig and Frank Zweig, Joanne initially lived in the Ravenswood neighborhood above an ice cream shop with her younger sister Lynne. Her grandmother Ida Thomas’s house was down the street and around the corner and many other relatives lived nearby and in southern Wisconsin where her father was born. Her relatives included accomplished artists, musicians, gardeners, a chef, a bar owner, and much more–skills that showed up repeatedly in her own hobbies and interests. Her Aunt Helen in particular served as a mother figure to her. Joanne even played the accordion as a child and tween. The growing family moved to Morton Grove, Illinois, where her brother Frank and sister Julie were born. Misfortune in her early life likely informed her future career as a clinical psychologist. The trauma of growing up in a family where loved ones struggled with severe alcoholism and mental illness gave her firsthand insight into complicated people and relationships. Devising and implementing strategies to weather dysfunction, even when she was a little kid, established her adventurous spirit and extreme independence.

A chance entry into a local beauty pageant resulted in Joanne being crowned Miss Morton Grove, Illinois, in high school, something that was unusual for a nerdy, straight-A student and never ceased to amaze her. After graduating, a full scholarship took her to Chatham College in Pittsburgh although she always regretted that she could not afford to attend the University of Chicago where she had been accepted. In Pittsburgh, she met the father of her children, French professor Leonard Friedman. She was proud of her assistant director role for the University of Pittsburgh’s educational testing services while simultaneously a PhD student in psychology. Together Joanne and Leonard traveled to Europe, living in France and Portugal while he was on sabbatical and returning to the United States via freight ship stopping in the Azores and Canary Islands.

After moving to Salem from Pittsburgh in the early 1970s when her then husband got a teaching job at Salem State College, she initially started work as a staff psychologist for the Landmark School, learning some basic sign-language to better communicate with her patients. Later she established her private practice and began working for herself. Her dedication to her patients manifested in regular evening hours twice a week, Friday morning sessions in her living room, and many late-night and weekend phone calls with patients in crisis. She deeply loved her adopted hometowns of Swampscott (1975-1995) and Marblehead (1996-2025).

Joanne was the original free range parent to her children Anna and Jefferson, long before that term was coined. She taught them to be responsible, self-sufficient, and fearless. Everyone on Estabrook Road in Swampscott and the surrounding streets probably heard the dinner bell she used to loudly ring before dusk on summer nights calling her kids in for dinner. Collecting mussels on the rocks at Preston Beach (when you could still eat them), dragging sleds to the grocery store in Vinnin Square after the Blizzard of ‘78, and still being able to drive a stick shift in her 70s are just some of the fond memories of her spunkiness. She could always negotiate a good flea market bargain and should have given master classes on extreme couponing.

In later life, after her children went to college, she began frequent trips to Europe. First with her kids and brother and later with Paul, she visited Italy (many times), Spain, Portugal, England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Iceland, and even Trinidad and Tobago. She traveled around the United States too: mainly to Chicago and New York City multiple times a year to visit with her children and her beloved grandchild Eleanor but also to southern California and all around the East Coast. Even after suffering a badly broken shoulder in Apulia in 2015, she barely slowed down.

It is hoped that wherever her spirit may be Joanne is enjoying a box of her favorite ginger-penuche and meltaway candies from Stowaway Sweets with a glass of wine and Daisy at her side.

A memorial gathering on Saturday, October 11, is being planned. If you are interested in receiving details, please visit https://bit.ly/drjzfmemorial for updated information and to RSVP. Her family would also appreciate any memories of her (they can be submitted via the aforementioned link). In lieu of flowers, donations to the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund (https://curealz.org/) are welcome to help with research into this insidious disease.