NEWPORT — Joan Willey’s volunteerism for Newport and beyond included helping revive the Newport Opera House by sanding floors and painting bathrooms in the early 1970s and creating about 200 local cable access videos documenting life in Newport.
She volunteered at the Newport Thrift Shop, with the bloodmobile, at the Newport Historical Society, cancer society fundraisers, was a Fresh Air Fund host and a Sunday school teacher and helped put up the Memory Tree on the Common during Christmas.
At the senior center on South Main Street, she served as vice president and president for 23 years. Willey understood and appreciated Newport’s unique ethnic diversity. She organized Russian, Finnish, Polish and Irish concerts, and food and dance events to raise money for the center. Willey brought the senior center’s popcorn machine to the Common during the summer concert series.
“She had her finger on the pulse of Newport because a lot of what was happening in Newport was Joan’s doing,” Tracey Bailey of the South Congregational Church said during Willey’s service at Pine Grove Cemetery.
Willey died at age 90 on March 19, after a four-year battle with dementia.
Pastor Sam Colberly of the Lake Church in Newport also spoke about Willey’s long and varied service to her town.
“I have never been at a service for someone who did so much,” Colberly said.
Willey was born April 13, 1935 at the former Carrie F. Wright Hospital on Maple Street. She was the oldest of three girls born to John and Phyllis Maguerite Wright Woodhull. She grew up in Guild and after graduating from Towle High School in 1954, earned her bachelor’s in education from Keene State College, waitressing at her parents’ Newport restaurant, The Pines, to earn money for college.
In 1958, Willey began a 32-year career teaching grades three through six at Richards Elementary School. That year she married Cedric Willey and they were together 46 years before his death in 2004. They had two children, Heidi and Shawn.
Gina Hutchinson, Willey’s niece, remembered when her aunt was student teaching, she would let her help correct papers and that spurred her interest in the profession.
“It was her who got me into wanting to become a teacher,” said Hutchinson, who taught for 40 years in the Timberlane and Derry, N.H. school districts.
In 1974, Willey received the New Hampshire Outstanding Elementary Teacher award which included a trip to Washington D.C.
Hutchinson, who was runner-up for the award one year, said it all begins with being a great teacher but equally important is what that teacher does outside the classroom for her students.
“Part of her being a great teacher was that she could identify with anybody,” Hutchinson said. “She had a lot of students who adored her.”
Many of the tributes to Willey on the Newton Bartlett Funeral Home website remembered her as a teacher who left a lifelong impact. One former student wrote that when she had hip surgery and missed half the year, Willey brought her schoolwork to her home and helped her with it.
“Mrs. Willey was my kind and gentle 3rd grade teacher, always wearing a sunny smile. Her service to her town was extraordinary,” read another.
Hutchinson said the award recognizes teachers who are not only really good at what they do in the classroom but also don’t shut down and forget the kids at 3.
“That was Aunt Joanie,” Hutchinson said. “She was involved in a lot, including coat drives for students.”
Her son, Shawn, said his mom approached any task with a positive attitude, 100% commitment and determination to see it succeed, along with a cheerful disposition.
“One of the things she always taught us was, don’t be negative. Always look for the positive and go with it,” Shawn said at a reception at the Lake Church after the cemetery service. “She could come up against a brick wall and find a way to get through it. She was just that kind of person.”
Chip Lawrie of Claremont was in charge of buildings and buses for the Newport School District in the 1980s during Willey’s teaching career.
“She was a lot of fun,” Lawrie said. He remembered how she always had an idea for something that made things better for her community. One of those ideas was planting trees at the Richards School that became known as Mrs. Willey’s Forest.
“Somehow she engineered getting those trees for free,” Lawrie said.
Willey was not a “fighter,” but accomplished much by knowing when and where to pick her battles, Lawrie said. He remembered digging a hole one day with a third grader when they were approached by the superintendent.
“ ‘Who said you could dig that hole?’ ” she demanded to know. “I told her, Mrs. Willey,” Lawrie said. “That was all it took. She backed off.
“It was very rare from my vantage point that she would ever get mad. Some people have a hard time and everything is like a fight but Joan was very easy-going,” Lawrie said.
April Willey, Shawn’s wife, said her mother-in-law thrived off of being social which spurred a lot of her community involvement.
“She did so much and was a real inspiration for me,” April Willey said.
Her work for the community did not go without notice. In 1995, the BPW — Business and Professional Women — named her Woman of the Year and she also received the Joseph D. Vaughn Award for her achievements and volunteer work on behalf of Sullivan County older citizens. In 2002, the Newport Chamber of Commerce gave her the Distinguished Citizen Award.
In the early ’80s, Willey demonstrated her business acumen by becoming a Mary Kay (cosmetic) consultant, hoping to earn an extra $10 a week. But her drive and commitment led to her becoming a Mary Kay director and earning a pink Cadillac from the company and a trip to Texas to lunch with company founder Mary Kay Ash.
Outside of her many accomplishments, Willey is remembered for making time for the people in her life. Cindy Ford, another of Willey’s nieces, said her aunt, who was her third grade teacher, was patient, kind and always ready to sit and talk, regardless of how busy she might be.
“I don’t care if she had a million things she needed to do, she would sit and have coffee with you and give you her attention,” said Ford, who lives in Barrington, N.H. “Aunt Joanie could talk to anybody. She could make anybody feel comfortable.”
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
