Sandra Joncus

1934 - 2024

Old Lyme - Sandra Joncus, a reference librarian in Waterford for decades and a resident of Old Lyme for over half a century, passed away at the age of 90, in the early hours of July 16, 2024, at Greentree Manor in Waterford. She is survived by her three children and their spouses, Stephen and Rose (Cleavenger) Joncus, Leslie and Nural Akchurin and Andrew and Berta (Tucker) Joncus. She is also survived by her five grandchildren: Peri, Larissa, Gustav, Parker and Oliver; and by her great-granddaughter Gemma.

Sandra was born March 29, 1934, in Hartford, the only child of Natalie (Benn) Sharp, a descendant of the Hempstead family of New London and Gales Ferry, and Delbert Sharp of Pilger, Neb. She grew up mostly in Needham, Mass., where at age 13 she first met her later husband Stephen Joncus. Sandra worked at the town library throughout high school, from which she graduated as valedictorian of her class. She majored in French at Middlebury College and spent her junior year (1953-54) in Paris, on the Sweet Briar College program. Returning to Middlebury her senior year, Sandra married Steve on a college break the day after Christmas 1954. The marriage would last more than 68 years, ending only with Steve's death in April 2023.

From 1956 to 1958, Sandra worked as a registrar at the Berlitz School of Languages and as a secretary in the office of personnel at the United Nations in New York. From 1958 to 1960, she and Steve lived in an apartment in the Mark Twain House in Hartford, now a museum, and during the 1960s, in an old rural farmhouse in Coventry. There she raised three children and cared for many pets while Steve commuted daily to work as an architect in Hartford. The family moved to Old Lyme in 1970.

Sandra was a very bookish parent, reading to her children from an early age, encouraging them to pursue their individual interests in weekly raids of the local library, and allowing them to leave the dinner table to consult reference materials if needed. After earning a master's degree in library science from the University of Rhode Island (1973-1975), she was a reference librarian at the Waterford Public Library for nearly 30 years. Sandra greatly enjoyed her colleagues, the library's patrons and the fascinating queries patrons brought her. She was tireless in her pursuit of answers through that era's maze of catalogues, and in securing fugitive volumes through interlibrary loan.

A champion of women's equality, bodily autonomy, and abortion access, Sandra was an active early member of her local chapter of the National Organization for Women. She pioneered feminist innovation in her children's schools, insisting that elementary school girls be allowed to wear pants and pushing to eliminate gender bars to high school shop and home economics classes. Sandra was a lifelong advocate of environmental protection, and in retirement travelled to Washington, D.C. with Steve on more than one occasion to protest the Keystone XL pipeline. In these years also, her activism took a spiritual turn when she and Steve became regular members and supporters of the South Lyme Union Chapel, an experience which conscripted her to an ideal of service to others as a joyful privilege.

Sandra will be remembered by friends and family for her frankness, her intelligence, her dry sense of humour and her signature enthusiasms: for the art of Vincent van Gogh, the city of Paris, Georges Bizet's opera "Carmen," John Philip Sousa's marches, and Bill Forsyth's 1983 film, "Local Hero;" and for the birds that came to the feeders on her deck, for lobster rolls, and especially, for oysters on the half shell.

A memorial service for Sandra will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 3. at the South Lyme Union Chapel, located at 308 Mile Creek Road. Those wishing to give something in her memory are encouraged to donate to causes that she supported: 350.org, Doctors Without Borders, and The New London Homeless Hospitality Center.