Obituary of Joanne DeVos

Joanne Kathleen DeVos was born in Stamford, CT, on March 20, 1933, and died on Sept 13, 2019, at the age of 86. Joanne was a lifelong Stamford resident. She had fond memories of her high school years at Sacred Heart Academy in Stamford. During her youth she was an avid doll maker, which evolved to collecting dolls later in life. She graduated from The University of Connecticut where she studied social work and early childhood education. While at the University of Connecticut she was a member of a sorority and was honored when Eleanor Roosevelt came to visit and sat beside her at lunch.

Joanne Kathleen Murray married the love of her life, the late Joseph E. DeVos, with whom she had six children: Daniel, Kevin, Keith, Kendall, Dean, and Eric. Joanne loved spending her time preparing feasts for her family. Linguine with clam sauce, especially with fresh clams from Bongiorno Supermarket, was one of her masterpieces. Her special interest and education in nutrition was always at work in the meals she produced. Even her waffle mix was created with wheat germ and desiccated liver to the point that some of her children never missed a day of school. 

She was an avid artist, producing beautiful oil paintings, and also loved to dance. When Joseph and several of the children played in the Sound Beach Volunteer Fire Department Band she enjoyed being able to join in playing the cymbals. Joanne loved the color purple and almost always had some purple in her clothing like a beautiful purple scarf around her neck. Her parent’s love of the Boston Red Sox spread to her and her family. 

Joanne loved to be outdoors, whether playing tennis, spending time at the ocean, or walking around Stamford. Throughout the year she would often finish playing tennis with her husband at Scalzi Park and then walk from the Ridgeway shopping center down to the old Caldor’s and back. Typically she would park two shopping centers away from where she planned on shopping to get some good exercise. She truly enjoyed shopping, maybe her favorite pastime, and pursued finding that proverbial shopping treasure as others might pursue a sport, especially at her favorite spot Lord and Taylor.

Joanne loved the ocean. All family vacations ran up or down the East Coast; it didn’t seem the rest of the country even existed. Joanne and Joseph had a cottage on the beach in Old Saybrook, CT. This was a child’s wonderland and one of the few places she took out the easel to enjoy painting after having children. 

Joanne was always on the go in her professional life. She became a Connecticut state social worker after college and told many interesting, humorous, and sometimes harrowing stories of her home visits.

Once she had her first three children, she became the owner and director of Children’s Hour Nursery School, which allowed her to have her children in the classes there while she was at work. She subsequently started a second school named Brookdale Nursery School. She always searched for educational activities for the children, even taking them on an eventful train ride to New Canaan, on which one child became missing, but all was fine when he was found still asleep on the train. She loved to have animals to bring in to show the children, which led to the family having quite a menagerie including pet monkeys Jonathan, Jezebel and later Paul Harvey; two Yorkshire terriers (her favorites) Amanda and Apollo; many large yellow ducks, tree crabs; hamsters; and even for a short time a pet opossum.

Joanne and Joseph searched for many years for a business the six children could all help with. This culminated in Joanne becoming an owner operator of The Marina Motor Lodge, a family-run motel in West Dennis on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Here she enjoyed getting to know other motel owners, the locals, and the repeat guests over the years while collecting many fun, and sometimes dangerous, stories.

Once the motel years were done she became a realtor, working with Century 21’s A and B Realty office in Stamford for many years. Teaming up with people on tight budgets was her forte. She developed much satisfaction and joy being able to help a family find a home they could afford to own, even if on paper it might initially seem impossible. As children she and her sister Irene found a house that their family could move into.

In the last couple of years, one high point of each day was the dinnertime conversation she had with her friends at The Village at Mariner’s Point. She always greeted visitors there with a big smile and a hug, and she loved to see her family and hear stories about their lives. Her plants became a new hobby for her there, with true enjoyment gained from their beautiful flowering. Throughout her life she has always been overjoyed to spend time talking with her friend Melissa Macri, who initially introduced Joanne to her future husband Joseph.

She is predeceased by her husband Joseph Emile DeVos Esq. who died this past year; her father Andrew W. Murray originally of Franklin, NH; her mother Mary Dorothy (Santonastaso) Murray, from Newark, NJ; and her sister Irene Delores Vazquez of Cheshire, CT. 

She is survived by a large loving family of her six children and their families: Daniel J. DeVos and Alexandra Krauss of Stamford; Kevin J. and Janet L. DeVos of Trumbull, CT, and their children Gregory and Rebecca; Keith J. and Elaine L. DeVos of Johnson City, TN, and their daughter Alicia; Kendall D. DeVos-Herrfurth and Gerard J. Herrfurth of Lagrangeville, NY, and their children Elianna and Christian; Dean J. DeVos and Petra Zaranšek of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and their daughter Zora; and Eric J. DeVos of Warren, Massachusetts, and his children Emily, Anduin, and Daisy. Several nieces and nephews also survive her.

We wish to give a heartfelt thanks to Donna Galwey, RN; Louisa Woodward-Taylor, LPN; Carman Ruiz-Castillo; and all those with Encompass Health and The Village at Mariner’s Point, who truly made her last few years much better.

Friends may call at Lacerenza Funeral Home, 8 Schuyler Ave., Stamford, CT, on Wednesday, September 18, 2019, from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated on Wednesday, September 18, 2019, at 12:00 p.m. at Sacred Heart Church, 37 Schuyler Ave., Stamford, CT.

Interment will follow at St. John's Cemetery, 25 Camp Ave., Darien, CT.