Obituary of Joan Haller
Joan Haller passed away peacefully on Thursday, August 19, 2021 at home in Indian Wells, CA, with her family and caregivers, following an extended illness. Joan Helen Alexander was born on November 29, 1937 in Joliet, IL the second child of a large, midwestern farming family at Endwood Farm in Lockport, IL, and she always took great delight and pride in her storied Yankee pioneer heritage. Joan attended IL State University and married her high school sweetheart and star athlete, Tom Haller. Together they built a home, raised their family, cultivated and nurtured deep friendships and contributed to their communities as they navigated the unique and adventurous pathways opened to them by Tom’s career in Major League Baseball as a player, coach and executive.
At a petite, less-than 5’2” - and compared to her 6’5” “gentle giant” husband - Joan was small in frame but formidable in character. Her deep Christian faith tempered her reflexive intolerance of foolishness with grace and informed her reliable intimacy and trustworthiness as a friend and confidant. Joan’s prayerful and practical generosity fueled her defense of the “underdogs” and isolated in the neighborhood as she ministered in providing a place to stay, a meal to eat or a hand to hold to family members, friend and stranger alike. Joan unabashedly reveled in all the vital activities associated with the profile of a 20th-century American wife and homemaker that has been challenged or dismissed by “Modernity’s” conception of feminism – elegant wife and CEHO (“Chief Executive Household Officer”), PTA and room mother volunteer, Cub Scout den mother, carpooler, “Ladies Bridge Club” player, Altar Guild member, auxiliary member; Joan did it all, seriously and always with a commitment to excellence, peppered with a healthy and infectious sense of humor. While others built roads, buildings, brands and balance sheets, Joan helped build the communities needed to actually sustain them in the neighborhoods, on the playgrounds, at the schools, churches, food banks and thrift shops.
Joan is preceded in death by her beloved husband and partner Tom Haller, parents John Healy and Mary Agnes (Pell) Alexander, two sisters Marianne (Richard) Hamrick and “Liz” (Jack) Stucko. She is survived by siblings Carol (Don) Wicburg, Jack (Sally) Alexander, Mike Alexander and Alan (Peggy) Troxel (cousin).
Joan is an ardent spirit, greatly loved and will be deeply missed by her extended family and friends, and especially by her immediate family survivors with who also survive her – two sons, Tom Haller, Jr. (Marc Gladstone) and Tim Haller, granddaughter Laura Frazier and great-grandchildren Emma and James Frazier. Joan’s family is sincerely grateful to her devoted caregivers (Lena, Dorina, Araceli, Brianda, Irene and Ivonne) and the wonderful staff of Reliance Hospice who so generously helped with her care and comfort.
In lieu of flowers, the family deeply appreciates any memorial gifts be made to, The University of Illinois General Scholarship Fund in Champaign, IL; St. John’s Lutheran Church of Palm Desert, CA; and/or Reliance Hospice in Palm Desert, CA. A private memorial is being planned for the near future.
