NEXT month’s Yakkerboo Festival will be tinged with sadness after the death of one of its staunchest supporters, Joan Upton.
Joan devoted countless hours to the popular Pakenham children’s festival as a long serving committee member.
Joan was also a member of the Pakenham Probus Club, and lent her craft and language skills to Pakenham U3A where she taught English to immigrants and people suffering dyslexia.
Joan avidly supported the annual Pakenham Relay for Life and the aid organisation Doctors without Borders.
She also worked at the Tooradin Marine Life Centre.
Joan was born Dorothy Joan Hodgetts on 8 April 1941 in Redditch in Worcestershire, England.
At 21 she emigrated to Australia, finding work as a legal secretary. Through her work she met Bob Upton.
They married in 1965, and had three sons Paul, Jarrod and Robert.
Sadly, Bob passed away before Robert was born.
When the boys were finally all at school, Joan returned to study herself, completing her HSC and enrolling at teacher’s college.
Joan went on to teach for over 20 years – helping shape and inspire the minds of thousands of children. Even after she finally retired a decade ago, Joan continued to work as a relief teacher and tutor.
Joan was a devoted, loving, proud and supportive mother. She recognised the individual talents and abilities of each of her sons and encouraged them to follow their own paths.
She enriched her the lives of her boys with trips to cricket matches at the MCG, art galleries, museums and gardens. She also made the most of the great Australian outdoors with camping holidays at Wilsons Promontory, The Grampians and a train trip across the Nullarbor in her old Austin 1800 to Perth.
When her sons were aged 12, 10 and eight, Joan took them to Europe for three months. She had many trips back to England to visit friends and family over the years, and with her youngest son Robert living with his family in Singapore, there were many trips there as well. These trips sparked an interest in Asian culture, traditions and fashion.
In 1990 when Joan was in her late forties, she met and fell in love with Trevor Longmuir. They met through their mutual love of dancing.
They shared 26 years together many of them at their Pakenham home, Rose Cottage, where Joan took great joy in nurturing her garden.
Trevor was able to share Joan’s joy in welcoming grandchildren – Lenny, Allison, Billy, Michael and Jonah, Riley and Sophie, Talia, Neala and Imray.
Joan loved books, English TV shows and SBS.
She was always keen to learn new skills from learning guitar, making play dough with her grandchildren, photography and scrapbooking.
Joan loved cats and birds. She kept finches, colourful parrots and cockatiels.
In their final years together, Joan and Trevor loved to see movies, go dancing and travelling exploring Alaska, the Rocky Mountains, Canada, Asia, Las Vegas, Europe and outback Australia.
Joan died on Sunday 6 March. She was farewelled by family, friends and representatives of the many organisations she had been involved with at a funeral held at David W Bull’s Pakenham funeral home.
