Joan Brick Davis

Joan Brick Davis, most recently of Northampton, Massachusetts and Brattleboro, Vermont, died on December 26, 2024 in Brattleboro. She was 96.

Born Jo Ann Mona Brick on January 8, 1928 in St. Cloud, Minnesota, she was the daughter of Othmar and Irene Brick. She lived in Minnesota until graduating from the University of Minnesota where she earned a Bachelor's degree in 1946. She married Irving Gilman Davis of Storrs, Connecticut who attended the University of Minnesota Law School in Minneapolis. The couple moved to Storrs after his graduation. They adopted two boys, John in 1957, and Philip in 1960.

Ms. Davis received a Master's degree in political science at the University of Connecticut and taught at the University of Connecticut and at Connecticut College, a private college for women, in the 1960's. This was the beginning of her life long career teaching and advocating for women's rights at several colleges in New England. She received her PhD in political science from Yale in 1974 while residing in both New Haven, Connecticut and Williamsville, Vermont.

Ms. Davis served as associate professor of political science and chair of the social sciences at Keene State College from 1971 to 1975. She then began a three-year term as president of Hartford College for Women in 1976, which offered Associates degrees to adult women. Hartford College assisted its graduates to continue their education at several regional colleges, including Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. In 1979 Mount Holyoke's new president persuaded Ms. Davis to join her staff as assistant to the president and lecturer in the politics department. A decade later she retired from her academic career. 

After retiring, Davis traveled much of the world, especially to Europe and Africa, and chronicled her adventures in photographs and oil paintings. She was an avid gardener, a gourmet cook, a voracious reader, lover of opera, classical and chamber music. She studied drawing, painting, and classical guitar with several of the finest artists in the Pioneer Valley. She built and rowed a wooden shell, enjoyed canoeing and hiking, visited the coast of Maine often, and split two cords of firewood well into her eighties. A lifelong learner, she took courses in the Five College Learning in Retirement program into her nineties. 

After residing in South Hadley, Massachusetts from 1979 to 2011, Ms. Davis moved to the Lathrop Community in Northampton, where she served as president of the Residents Council. She lived at Lathrop until early 2024.

In addition to her husband, she was preceded in death by her son Philip, of Williamsville, Vermont and Beebe, Arkansas, and a brother and sister. She is survived by her son, John, of Newfane, Vermont, 6 grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren. She also had circles of extremely close friends and relatives.

The family is not planning any services at this time, but will hold a celebration of life event in the future. In the meantime, they encourage people to celebrate her life in their own fashion, knowing what they know about Joan Davis: plant a tree or daffodil bulbs, tip a glass of red wine over a special meal, take a walk through the woods, donate to a favorite charity in her honor — any of the things that she enjoyed so much during her long and happy life.