Joanna Matthews Pastore passed away on Aug. 8, 2016, in Houston, Texas, at the age of 81.
Pre-deceased by her husband of 49 years, Richard S. Pastore, she is survived by one daughter: Anna P. Sommers; four sons: Michael, John, Thomas, and Richard; a son-in-law: Jack Sommers; four daughters-in-law: Robin, Esther, Debbie and Catalina; and fifteen grandchildren.
The only child of Pete and Katharine Matthews, Joanna was born in Beaumont, Texas, on December 18, 1934. Growing up in Beaumont, she enjoyed horseback riding and attending weekly Club meetings with her friends.
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— This obituary previously was published by the Beaumont Enterprise.
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She graduated from Beaumont High School in 1953. Following high school, she attended Lamar University for a year before transferring to Southern Methodist University, where she was a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. She graduated from SMU in 1957 with a bachelor’s degree in History.
Upon graduating from college, Joanna entered Columbia University, where she earned a Master’s degree in English. While at Columbia, she met and married Richard S. Pastore, a Columbia law student from Chatham, N.J.
With her degree from Columbia, Joanna became a teacher, first working at a New York City public school in the Bronx and then at Greenwich Academy in Greenwich.
With the birth of her first child in 1960, she became a housewife and moved with her husband in 1961 to Old Greenwich. She was a loving wife and mother, who was deeply involved in her children’s lives and supportive of their interests.
She had the unique ability to provide them with the care and guidance they needed to meet expectations while at the same time allowing them the space to grow into independent and self-reliant adults. Joanna’s dedication and love set the standard to which her daughter and sons have strived to meet in raising their own children.
Beyond her devotion to family, Joanna’s interests included traveling the world with her husband and children, gardening, walking her dogs (first Widgeon, then Belle), needle-pointing beautiful works of art that included Christmas stockings for each of her grandchildren, and listening to a wide variety of music, with Rod Stewart’s American Songbook, Willie Nelson, and Frank Sinatra being her favorites.
She enjoyed continuing education programs such as conversational French and art classes offered through the Old Greenwich/Riverside Community Center.
An avid reader of fiction, she worked at the Bookstore in Old Greenwich and Barrett’s Bookstore in Darien. Over the years, books from Mom on birthdays and Christmas were wonderfully and eagerly anticipated gifts.
In her later years, she was a doting grandmother, always happy to spend time with her grandchildren, and filling in as a baby-sitter whenever needed. Her grandchildren always enjoyed having Grammy take care of them.
In 2012, Joanna returned to Texas, living in Fannett at the property her grandfather, Joseph A. Bordages, purchased over a hundred years ago. There she stayed until earlier this summer when she moved to St. Dominic Village in Houston to be closer to two of her sons.
A private ceremony celebrating Joanna’s life will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers or donations, please give the gift of a book to a friend or a loved one.