Joan Hill

Joan Berkheimer entered the world with her twin brother John in January of 1945 in Baltimore, Maryland, where her father William, an army engineer, and her mother Irene were based at the end of World War II. Soon thereafter, the Berkheimers relocated to their home state of Nebraska where Joan, John and their older sister Joy excelled in school. Joan was valedictorian of her high school class and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Nebraska in Omaha with a double degree in mathematics and biology. John was Phi Beta Kappa, class president, and a promising candidate for medical school. Unfortunately, John died tragically of colon cancer at age 22 during his senior year at UNO.

Joan taught high school biology at Northport High School in Long Island, New York for one year. Thereafter she returned to Omaha to marry Daryl Hill, her college sweetheart. Daryl worked in veterinary biologics, and Joan completed graduate studies in library science, becoming a reference librarian in the Omaha library system.

They welcomed their first child, daughter Dana in January, 1975. Shortly thereafter they moved to Kankakee, Illinois, where twins Brennan and Benjamin were born in 1980.

Throughout the early years of their marriage, Daryl and Joan shared a love for book collecting, and Joan began dealing in rare and collectible books. In 1984, the family moved to Thousand Oaks, California, where Daryl took a position as an executive at Amgen. Joan flourished as a collector and bookseller, focusing in the fields of fine and rare children’s books, Disneyana and original illustrator art. Over her career she amassed one of the finest collections in the world. She became a member of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America in 1984, buying and selling principally in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and London, and ultimately became the owner and proprietor of The Literary Lion Rare Books based in Thousand Oaks.

While maintaining her book business, she raised her three children in her academic tradition. Dana graduated from Claremont McKenna College with degrees in literature and psychology, and Ben and Brennan graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Ben with a degree in computer science and Brennan with a master’s degree in finance. Ben and Brennan currently work in computer programming at a medical device company in San Diego, and Dana follows in her mother’s footsteps, operating the Lion Cub Book Shop in Westlake Village, specializing in modern first editions and books into movies.

Joan excelled as a scholar, a book person, and most importantly, as a wife, mother and grandmother. She was the sun in our solar system, drawing everyone near with her warmth, wit, and fiercely loving spirit. She was the embodiment of all of our feelings of safety, love, and home. Joan made everyone she met feel welcomed and at ease. She was strong, beautiful, smart, interesting, and possessed an often wicked sense of humor. But beyond those traits was a person who knew simply how to love more unconditionally and with more passion than anyone we have ever met. She was everything to those that loved her – a coach, therapist, best friend, lover, doctor, warrior, advocate, and so much more. There was no pain in the world that couldn’t be made better by being around Joan. During hard times, she was the warm, comforting hug of home; the laughter through tears that made you believe there was an end to whatever pain you were suffering, big or small. During good times, she was the heart and soul of all of us. Her hugs and kisses, laughs and advice, her fierce protectiveness, her ability to achieve things when others would have given up – to describe these things with words is just not enough. To actually love and be loved by Joan would be the only way one could understand how truly special and beautiful she was; how golden and warm all the years we had with her were, how shadowed and sad our hearts are now without her.

She passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on March 16. Her passing is mourned throughout the book world, her community and especially her family and loved ones. There is a tremendous hole that will forever be in the souls of all of us that loved her, but knowing that she is watching over us allows us to hold onto some of the safety and love that her spirit always shone on us. While we are devastated by her passing, we know she is at peace with God.