Joan Brown Wettingfeld, former Bayside Times columnist, dies at 98
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TIMESLEDGER | QNS.COM | JAN. 31-FEB. 6, 2020 13
Joan Brown Wettingfeld, a historian,
teacher, journalist and lifelong resident
of Bayside, died on Jan. 11 in Flushing
Hospital. She was 98.
Born on Jan. 31, 1921, in Manhattan
to Joseph H. Brown — an educator and
businessman — and Ann Nemec — a
nurse at Lenox Hill hospital — Joan
and her two sisters, Audrey and Eileen,
moved to Bayside when Joan was 9 years
old. Joan attended PS 130 and began her
upper school education at Flushing High
School by being named Valedictorian of
the first graduating class of the newlybuilt
Bayside High School 1938.
Joan attended Barnard College,
serving as president of her class in her
junior year. “My father marched us to
Barnard,” she recalled in an interview
done with Barnard Magazine, “and he
told me and my sisters that we could do
anything a man can do. They gave me a
full scholarship all four years. I commuted
from Bayside and enjoyed school. I got
everything I could have desired.” She
was named Phi Beta Kappa and graduated
Summa Cum Laude with a major in
History in 1942.
Joan was offered several scholarships
to prominent colleges to continue
her education but chose to stay in New
York, attending Columbia University
and eventually earning a Masters Degree
in Political Science. Early jobs included
serving as assistant to the head
of Student Affairs, working at National
City Bank and functioning as secretary
and editor for the managing editor of Columbia
University Press on the Columbia
Encyclopedia.
Joan met the love of her life, Henry
Wettingfeld, also a Columbia University
graduate, when the pair were introduced
by their dating siblings. On their second
date, while waiting for the train home,
the pair waltzed in Penn Station, a fitting
beginning for their almost 50-year
romance. On Dec. 2, 1944, they were
married when Henry was on a three-day
leave from working on the then-secret
Manhattan Project. They spent much of
their first year of marriage apart, as did
so many other couples, Joan working on
decoding for the government and Henry
in a laboratory. On Aug. 7, 1945, the day
after the first nuclear bomb was dropped
on Hiroshima, Henry phoned to say,
“Now you know what I was working on.”
After the war, life returned to normal.
Joan and Henry raised two children, Jon
and Karen, and Joan continued as an independent
journalist, writing articles on
a broad range of topics for various magazines.
In 1960 Joan began her return to
the educational system by becoming a
member of the Bayside School Board.
She next became a substitute teacher,
working at PS 41 among other schools.
In 1968 Joan once again became a student,
this time at St. John’s University
where she earned a Masters Degree in
Library Science. At the time, few schools
had designated librarians so Joan didn’t
hesitate to say yes when the principal
of PS 26 in Fresh Meadows asked her to
establish a library there and become its
first librarian. Joan spent many years
there, making knowledge live for her
students, coordinating programs with
other teachers and writing grant proposals
for the school. Joan spent her last few
years teaching a bit closer to home at PS
203 in Oakland Gardens, teaching fifth
and sixth grade. Former students often
visited to say hello and seek guidance for
history projects they were working on in
high school and college.
Joan’s love of history was brought to
life in the community of Bayside when
her father, Joseph H. Brown, himself a
teacher and historian, created first the
Bayside Beautification Committee and
then, in 1964, the Bayside Historical Society.
As founding members, Joan and
Henry worked tirelessly with Joe Brown
and others to preserve the history of
Bayside, as well as its environs, planting
trees along Bell Boulevard, preserving
the Lawrence Family cemetery, landmarking
the Fort Totten Officer’s Club
(later to become the Historical Society’s
headquarters) and establishing the Alley
Pond Restoration Committee, which lead
to the Alley Pond Environmental Center
we know today.
In the early 1990s Joan began writing
articles on the area’s history for the Bayside
Times, and in 1994, after the death of
her beloved husband, Joan approached
then-publisher Steven Blank and asked
if he would be interested in running a
regular history column. He was, and
for nearly two decades Joan brought
the rich and diverse history of Bayside
and the surrounding area to life in her
weekly columns in the Times Ledger
newspapers. “I spend a week looking for
material,” she told Barnard Magazine.
“That keeps me busy. I take my time, to
see what would appeal to people, getting
subjects. This keeps me going.”
Joan is survived by her son, Jon Wettingfeld,
her daughter and son-in-law
Karen and John Greene, and her sister
Eileen Chamberlain. If you wish to pay
tribute to Joan Wettingfeld, First Lady of
Bayside, the family suggests donations
to either the Bayside Historical Society
or to Barnard College.
Joan Brown Wettingfeld on Cape Cod.
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