Joan Ferrara
After a valiant six-year struggle against cancer, Joan Ferrara, 71, peacefully passed away at her home on March 5.
Family and friends say that her beauty, style and grace and her kind, gentle and caring ways that were a source of comfort, will be sorely missed.
“She was a very soft-spoken, kind and caring person,” said son Joseph Ferrara Jr.
Raised in Ozone Park, she met her future husband when she was 10 years old; he was 11 at the time.
After the couple married, they moved to New Mexico, where he was stationed in the Army.
“She was always on my side,” recalled Ferrara Jr., adding, “A father’s love is tough, but a mother’s love is unconditional and supportive.”
His mother embodied that, he said.
“She wasn’t a sports fan, but she went to my little league games.”
She is survived by her loving, devoted and faithful husband of 52 years, Joseph A. Ferrara; her three sons and daughters-in-law – Joseph and Vicki, Perry and Cathy, and Jeffrey and Alison; and her eight grandchildren, ranging in age from 19 to six – Anthony, Joseph, James, Gianni, Catherine, John Jay, Michael and Perry; as well as close friends and relatives.
His mother will be most remembered, Ferrara Jr. said, for her excellent cooking, her “strong will and fierce determination,” and how important her family was to her.
“She loved her grandchildren,” he said. “And she liked the simple things in life, like gardenias and butterflies.”
The wake was held at Vanella’s Funeral Chapel in Oceanside. A funeral Mass was held at St. Raymond’s Church. In her honor, her daughters-in-law wore butterfly pins. Gardenias were in abundance at the wake. Interment was at the Cemetery of the Holy Rood.
In lieu of flowers, the Ferrara family respectfully requests that donations be made in Joan’s honor to any of the following charities:
• South Queens Boys & Girls Club, Inc.
110-04 Atlantic Avenue Richmond Hill, NY 11419
718-441-6050; www.sqbgc.net
• The INN
211 Fulton Avenue Hempstead, NY 11550
516-486-8506; www.the-inn.org
• Lymphatic Research Foundation
40 Garvies Point Road Glen Cove, NY 11542
www.lymphaticresearch.org
• Hospice Care Network
99 Sunnyside Boulevard Woodbury, NY 11797
516-832-7000; www.hospice-care-network.org
