Joan Barbuto

1933 - 2025

Joan Margaret Message Barbuto, 92, formerly of Wallingford, CT, passed away peacefully on January 20, 2025, after suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease for many years. She was the beloved wife of the late Paul R. Barbuto.

 

Joan was born in Brooklyn, New York, on January 13, 1933, the daughter of the late Dr. John S. and Hattie Message. She was predeceased by her half-sister, Justine Irons. Joan graduated from Brooklyn Friends School at age 16, then attended Mount Holyoke College, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in English at the age 20. She then went on to earn a Master’s Degree in Education at Columbia Teacher’s College, a Master’s Degree in English at Trinity College and a Sixth Year Certificate in Counseling from St. Joseph’s College. She taught English and History at a Connecticut junior high school for several years, then taught English literature and creative writing at several Connecticut colleges. But her most extensive career was as a newspaper reporter. After working for several local newspapers, she eventually joined the New Haven Register and became the medical/health reporter. While at the New Haven Register, she earned at least six awards for journalistic excellence including a national award for a series on child abuse.

 

Joan’s work at the New Haven Register motivated her to pursue additional endeavors related to child advocacy and effective parenting. She founded and was the president of the Connecticut Coalition for Child Development Education, whose goal was, and still is, to provide education in child safety, child development and parenting skills to all Connecticut students before graduation from high school. Since Joan founded this non-profit Coalition, it has grown to include nearly twenty organizations in Connecticut that serve children and families. She advocated tirelessly for legislation at the state-wide level that would require all Connecticut public schools to provide parenting education classes for all students. Joan was also an executive board member of Prepare Tomorrow’s Parents, a national organization dedicated to advocating for parenting/child development education for all students. In this role, Joan spoke at several national parenting conventions on the importance of parenting education. In addition, Joan was elected to the Wallingford Board of Education in 1996 and served for about ten years. While on the Board, she was instrumental in adding classes in parenting skills to the Wallingford health curriculum.

 

Joan combined her literary talent and her interest in parenting/child development by writing a book on effective parenting entitled The ABCs of Parenting. She also later wrote two additional books, one entitled God Is With Us: Signs in Our Lives about miracles, and the other entitled Athens’ Darling, a fictional story set in Ancient Greece.

 

Joan’s love of the beach was a central part of her life. As a child and teen, she spent wonderful summers on the Long Island shore. From the late 1960s until the onset of her illness, she spent every summer at the family’s beach house in Misquamicut, Rhode Island, hosting countless gatherings of family and friends. Her beach cocktail hours and extensive dinner spreads were legendary. Joan always made her guests feel welcome and showed enthusiastic interest in their lives. She could be regularly spotted in the ocean jumping over and diving under the waves, swimming her strokes, body surfing and even boogie boarding. She loved to take long walks on the beach, collecting shells and sea glass which she sometimes made into beautiful works of art with her granddaughters.

 

Joan also enjoyed ballroom dancing, traveling with her husband, gardening, and playing scrabble. She was an avid reader and was an active member of a book club for nearly 40 years. Finally, she was an active parishioner at Our Lady of Fatima Church in Wallingford for many years.

 

Joan was a loving and caring mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She is survived by her three children, Laura DeAngelo and her husband Vincent, of Austin, Texas; Carolyn Martino and her husband Robert, of Glastonbury, Connecticut; and Paul Barbuto, Jr., of Newington, Connecticut. She also leaves behind six grandchildren: Jake Martino (Eliana Ramage), Marianne Chronister (Stephen), Robert Martino, Jr. (Caroline), Sara Morris (Benjamin), Julianne DeAngelo, and Tina DeAngelo; three great-grandchildren: Owen, Henry, and Elliott Chronister, and a great-granddaughter who was born the day after Joan’s death.

 

The family wishes to express sincere thanks to Joan’s live-in caregiver, Margaret Asante, who provided loving care to Joan for the past eight years and was by her side at her death.

 

Joan’s family will receive relatives and friends at Brooklawn Funeral Home, 511 Brook Street, Rocky Hill, CT, on Saturday, January 25, from 9:30-10:30 a.m., after which the funeral cortege will proceed to St. Josephine Bakhita Parish-St. James Church, 767 Elm Street in Rocky Hill for a Mass of Christian Burial at 11 a.m. Interment will follow at Sacred Heart Cemetery in Meriden.