Joan Marie Luce
Joan Luce, a brilliant mind and determined spirit known for her outgoing personality and strength, died May 5, 2018 at the age of 79 at O’Connor Hospital in San Jose, California after developing sepsis and respiratory complications.
A former longtime resident of Libby and recent resident of San Jose, she was an artist, a storyteller and a great cook. She learned how to fly a plane when she was just a young girl. Her passion to learn adventurous and new pursuits is what made Joan’s life incredible and joyous. She was born Oct. 5, 1938.
While living in Boise, Idaho in her 30s, she owned a do-it-yourself framing shop where she taught people how to frame their artwork. She also displayed artwork of local talented friends and artists there. She loved stained glass and taught herself how to make beautiful pieces of glasswork and had a keen eye for beautiful art.
She went back to school to obtain a degree in marine biology, another of her passions, from Hayward State University and dreamed of going to Antarctica to do dolphin research and to work with penguins, which was her favorite animal and is reflected in the large assorted collection of penguin-themed items she had amassed over decades. Her desire to study creatures of the ocean led her to participate in abalone feeding research in Carmel, California, where her preoccupation of working in and by the sea had been a dream that became reality.
She later had many different work opportunities in her work experience that involved working for the State of California as an inspector at California Highway Patrol checkpoints during the medfly invasions. Her inspection experience led her to a slightly unusual but important health code review in which, as she put it, she inspected “chicken butts.” Other work experiences allowed her to work with a construction crew to learn how to build houses from the ground up; she even worked at a fish hatchery — in the tanks.
She educated herself constantly, working many facets of the medical field from pharmacy lab work, to passing the MCAT exam to earn qualifications to become a doctor at the age of 50, and eventually retiring as a medical transcriptionist before moving to Libby, where she lived by herself for 15 years. Just prior to her move, she had been experiencing failing eyesight to due to a rare infection of histioplasmosis, and enrolled herself into the Berkeley School for the Blind to learn how to be independent as a blind person.
She was married and divorced twice and left behind four children, 10 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. She loved them all and is missed dearly by all of them. She loved her Libby family of friends and lived there longer than anywhere else in her lifetime. The care and attention she received from her Libby friends is the reason she lived as long as she did.
She is survived by daughters Laura Luce and Holly Passarelli; sons Doug Luce and Greg Luce; grandchildren Summer, Erin, Danielle, Jeremy, Tara, Noah, Bailey, Santiago and Ariana; and great-grandchildren Nylen, Nicholai, Neamiah, Oliver and Aribella.
She was cremated by the Neptune Society in San Jose, California as per her wish on May 17, 2018 for which services are pending. There will be a celebration of her life held by her friends in Libby at the Lincoln County Veterans Memorial Pavilion on June 7, 2018 at 6 p.m.