Joan: Caring for Others & Yourself
For nearly fifty years, Joan Hannan has called Corry “home.”
Born in Philadelphia, Joan married Dave Oswald after attending Drexel University. The couple moved from New Jersey when Dave started a job with McInnes Steel, now Ellwood National Forge’s Corry location.
When asked how people in Corry would most likely know her, she took a long pause before saying, “Well, I guess it would depend on who you asked;” a more than fair assessment for someone whose life has spanned generations of folks throughout Corry. Joan’s professional triumphs and personal activities have entwined her throughout every inch of our community.
Joan, maybe most notably, worked for Rice Realty doing appraisals and selling houses before owning the business from 1986 until she closed it in the summer of 2011. She recounted a story of buying her home from Rice Realty’s former owner, the late, great, Phyllis Marchitelli back in 1974 and becoming fast friends.
As expected, Joan is a wealth of stories, a clear example of a life well-lived.
Although she came into our interview space in a timid fashion for the usually bright and bubbly greeter we know from the Village Thrift Shop, she opened up about work and volunteering, skydiving and zip-lining in her eighties, and all the people she’s loved and cared about.
With three children of her own, four stepchildren, and many grandchildren ranging in ages from their forties to less than a year, Joan knows a lot about taking care of others.
She reminisced about her candy striper days, helping in various capacities with patients and loving when she got to see some of her fellow candy stripers eventually become nurses. She’s no stranger to volunteering. Along with the Corry Memorial Hospital Auxiliary and her church, First Presbyterian of Corry, she lists off Corry College Women, Zonta Club, Corry Area Arts Council, United Fund, Corry Salvation Army, and Community Nursing Services of North East among the many organizations she is passionate about and volunteers with year-round.
Joan can also be credited with starting CorryFest and running the well-loved event, a celebration of Corry itself, for thirteen years alongside the hard-working Kristy Elchynski and Marlene Cummings. “We had the most fun,” she says of organizing, “bringing the whole town together.”
But nothing makes her light up quite like when she begins to talk about Village Friends. “I’m the bag lady!”
Village Friends, an organization that Joan was an original advisory member for and now the most active volunteer, exists to help seniors in Corry remain self-sufficient in their own homes. In addition to volunteers helping with small household tasks and giving rides to appointments, Village Friends provides group social gatherings and trips for its members. They also operate the Village Thrift Shop, located in the heart of Corry’s downtown shopping district. Joan is not only the “bag lady” but also known to be one of the first to show up and last to leave each day.
“Everyone has a job,” she said, “I love mine!”
Joan continued on the importance of the work Village Friends is doing by helping seniors. She loves to see the Thrift Shop prospering and she loves being able to have Corry folks gather again, keep in touch, and stay busy. She said that Village Friends is a way to allow you to take care of yourself and watch out for others.
Photos by Karrie Garde
Along with visiting with friends and going out to different restaurants for lunches and ice cream, Joan’s eyes begin to twinkle as she tells of her favorite trips to the theaters in Erie and Warren.
After our interview, we made our way over to the Village Thrift Shop to get some photos of Joan in her element: “Hi, everyone! Good morning!” She practically yelled it as we walked in the back volunteer entrance. Joan then greeted each volunteer by name as she led us through rows of tables and shelves lined with donated treasures to be sorted, cleaned, and displayed for shoppers. Once onto the main floor, Joan proudly took her place behind the counter and readied some shopping bags.
Any sense of timidness that may have come with her to the interview was vanished by walking through that back door and onto that floor. Her small frame instantly filled with a grand energy that was palpable. Her fiery, red hair somehow brighter under the lights of the shop, rivaled her big, beaming smile. A lover of the arts, now set on her stage, in her element, and at home.
Joan’s everyday routine embodies how the right environment, and especially the right people, can transform a person. How a certain setting can be the very definition of comfort. And how your village of friends can help you love yourself more and others more in return.
We’re grateful that for the last five decades, Joan has chosen Corry to be that setting, that place of comfort, that village; and…home.
