Helen "Joan" B. Baker Stevens

Helen B. “Joan” Stevens, 85, longtime resident of South Glastonbury, passed away on September 23, 2011, at Hartford Hospital. Joan was born on January 7, 1926, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the daughter of the late John Gower and Ruth Cleone (Parsons) Baker. She grew up in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. Joan attended Oberlin College and earned B.S. and M.S. degrees from Cornell University and an M.Ed from the University of Hartford. Joan taught in the East Hartford school system for many years, including Hockanum School. She had deep, wide-ranging interests and a strong desire to leave the world a better place than she found it. She cared deeply about children’s literacy and creative development, ecology, wildlife and the environment, and had a life-long love affair with opera and ornithology.She was a devoted member of the Congregational Church of South Glastonbury, where she sang in the choir, managed the annual giving tree project and inspired all who knew her.

Joan is survived by her six children: sons Douglas Stevens of Atlanta, GA, and John Stevens of Bolton, CT, and her daughters Terry Stevens of Fort Worth, TX, Nan LoBue of Statesboro, GA, Katharine Iuli of Rochester, NY, and Virginia Stevens of Cranston, RI; a sister Ruth Jean Reid of Downers Grove, IL, and six grandchildren: John Pendergast, Ernest and Audrey LoBue, Sarah and Emily Iuli, and Ian DiTommaso. Along with both her parents and a sister, Ann Baker, she was predeceased by her husband Bradley S. Stevens in May of 1992.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, March 3rd, 2012, at 2pm in the South Congregational Church of South Glastonbury, 949 Main St., South Glastonbury, CT. 06073. Memorial contributions may be made in Joan’s memory to the Maine Seacoast Missions in care of South Congregational Church or the Connecticut Audubon Society Center at Glastonbury, 1361 Main St., Glastonbury, CT 06033