Joan Paula Getz

Joan Getz, 95, of Coral Gables, Florida, passed away peacefully in her sleep on June 3, 2024, surrounded by family.

Joan Paula Brick was born on November 28, 1928, to Archie and Bertha Brick in Brooklyn, New York. In 1939, when Joan was eleven, the family moved to Miami Beach, Florida. Archie and Bertha opened Archer's Fruit Shipping on Lincoln Road, preparing and shipping fruit gift baskets while Joan attended Central Beach Elementary and later, Ida Fisher Junior High School.

The attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 transformed Miami Beach from a tourist destination into a training center for the Army Air Force. Joan's teenage years were marked by the war, with rationing, blackouts, the sounds of artillery practice, and smoke from U-boat attacks darkening the horizon. Joan and Ann would sometimes march along the sidewalk, singing patriotic songs along with the soldiers marching in the street. Against this backdrop of the war, Joan graduated from Ida Fisher Junior High, then attended Ida M. Fisher High School, now known as Miami Beach High.

Joan loved high school and had a large circle of friends bonded closely by the war. Under her father's tutelage, Joan and her sister Ann learned basic carpentry and electrical wiring. While both sisters inherited their father's talent for construction, Joan's skills were exceptional. As Ann remarked, "Give me a hammer and nails, I can do anything, but Joan could do it with a toothpick and a bobby pin." Joan also enjoyed art and sewing. She graduated in 1945, just before the end of the war.

Joan attended Florida State University to study art, then transferred to the University of Miami in her second year to major in education. At U of M, she was Vice-President of Alpha Epsilon Phi and Exchange Editor for The Miami Hurricane, the school newspaper. She graduated in 1950.

After graduation, Joan taught third grade at her alma mater, Central Beach Elementary, whose students still remember and love her. In February 1951, she married Irving Getz, a former Army lieutenant and jeweler. Joan's teaching career was cut short by the births of their four children (within five years), prompting a move within Miami from their SW 6th Street apartment to a house in El Portal.

Though now focused on raising four young children, Joan also worked seasonally in the Gift Department at Mayor's Jewelers, operated by Irving's family.

In 1960, the family moved to Pinecrest to be closer to a new Mayor's store in Dadeland Mall.

Sundays were spent at Trail Glades Ranges, Irving being a champion skeet shooter. Joan embraced her children's musical instruments, and their furred, scaled, and feathered pets.

Joan and Irving shot skeet, hunted, and ran marathons together. As their children grew and Mayor's expanded, they traveled extensively for business, and after Irving's retirement, along with dear friends, they traveled for pleasure. They shared a loving and affectionate marriage for 57 years until Irving died in 2008 at age 86.

Joan (Mom-mom) is remembered as a warm-hearted and generous woman who loved her family and had many lifelong friends. She is survived by her sister, Ann; children, Neil (Elise), Richard, Beth (Larry), and Samuel; grandchildren, Lauren (Mark), Teddi (Nick), Lucy (Brad), Charlie, Alexander, David (Holly), Daniel, Maxwell, Monroe, Stella, and Amalie; and great-grandchildren, Isabel, Michael, Madeleine, Eloise, James, Maxwell, Alice, and Willie, as well as nieces and nephews. She is predeceased by her toy fox terrier, Bingo, her devoted protector and companion.

The Getz family wishes to express their gratitude to the warm and professional staff at Riviera Health Resort and the staff and management of The Gables Club condominiums for their kind support over many years.