Joan Strode

Joan Strode of Gary, Indiana passed away on November 7, 2025 of natural causes. She was 96.

Joan was born in Chicago, Illinois on October 23, 1929, one week before the market crash of The Great Depression. She was raised in Seymour, Indiana by her mother, Macie Monroe Gilbert (Whitson), and her step-father, Frank Covell Gilbert. She is preceded in death by both parents, sister Judy Lazaneo (Gilbert), brother, Rex Gilbert, and former husband, Leonard Strode.

Joan and her husband moved to Hobart Indiana in 1948. She is survived by five children; Susan Christenson, Linda Buckley, Mike and Stephen Strode, and Diana Raitt, ten grandchildren; Jack Strode, Lee Christenson, Jennifer Douthwaite (Buckley), Kim LaMar (Christenson), Briege and Kathleen Buckley, Adam Strode, Amanda Notter (Strode), Ryan and Jason Strode, seventeen great-grandchildren; Trenton, Tyler, Tina and Tori Douthwaite, Tristan Cutler, Haley and Dexter Notter, Maxwell and Alexander Strode, Ella and Julian LaMar, Luke Burrows, Autumn and Addison Strode, Abbey Strode, and Maeven and Lennon Strode; niece Lisa Tadic (Lazaneo) and nephews James and Robert Lazaneo.

Joan attended Grace Baptist Church in Seymour where she was baptized, and found great comfort as a child. She graduated from Seymour High School in 1947. Joan was a talented poet. She had a rich spiritual life rooted in the Unity School of Christianity, Christian Science, and Christian mysticism. Among her favorite authors were James Dillet Freeman, Baba Ram Das, Kahlil Gibran and the authors of the Christian Unity Press. She was a student of the Bible, and the teachings of other religions. She felt connected to all faiths.

For the last half of her life, Joan lived in Miller Beach, a lakefront community in Gary, Indiana nestled in the footprint of the Indiana Dunes National Park. There, she lived a rich, bohemian lifestyle for over 50 years, and was a much beloved member of the community. Joan was renowned for her dancing, rock and roll music playing, wit, positive spirit, and keen sense of humor. She had a deep connection to the life and times of Alice Mable Gray, known as Diana of the Dunes, an intellectual, counterculture figure from Chicago who abandoned conventional urban life to live alone in the dune country of northwest Indiana.

Joan loved music. Aside from her spiritual pursuits, music was her greatest passion. She was a member of the Marquette Park United Methodist Church in Miller Beach where she loved singing in the choir. She was rebaptized in Lake Michigan in 2005. Her church service will be at 1:30 p.m. on December 7th, 215 N. Grand Blvd, Gary, IN 46403. A meal with music and remembrances will be served at the church following the service. In lieu of flowers, plant a tree.

Joan would drive herself to Blues clubs on the South Side of Chicago in the 1970s, and frequented Kingston Mines well into her 80s. Some of her favorite artists were KoKo Taylor, The Gaithers, Neil Diamond, The Moody Blues, and The Beatles, who's lyrics she often quoted,

"And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make".