Joan Finley

Born on August 31, 1940 and passed into the presence of her Lord on March 23, 2026, in Westlock, Alberta. Joan is survived by: her children, Evelyn, John, Elaine (Chris) and Elma; her grandchildren, David, Heather and Sarah; her sisters Judy and Johanne (Ed) and brothers Reg (Helen), Allan, and Dale.

Joan was predeceased by her husband of 64 years, Fred, parents Fred and Helen, and brothers Wayne and Clarence.

The family requests that in lieu of flowers, a donation in Joan's memory be made to:
Westlock Alliance Church
Building Fund
9607 100 St
Westlock AB T7P 1Y1
or
Camp Nakamun
RR #1
Busby, AB T0G 0H0

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On August 31, 1940 Fred and Helen Glubish welcomed two daughters - Joan and Judy - into the world. As twins were not common, Joan and Judy were a novelty and people came from surrounding farms to see the two babies. In the following years the family grew by four boys and one more girl.

Joan grew up on a mixed farm. As well as grain, the family had cows, turkeys, chickens, and pigs, which meant there were always chores to be done. Joan recalled helping with her younger siblings and cooking meals for threshing crews at harvest time.

Joan loved to read, a love which continued throughout her life, and would hide away in a quiet spot and do so when the opportunity arose.

After high school, Joan moved into Edmonton to find work. She landed a job…and a husband. At a dance one evening she looked across the room and saw Fred and knew that he was the man she was going to marry. Fred was also smitten and it didn’t take long for him to pop the question and Joan said yes. They were married for 64 years, until Fred passed away in December, 2024.

After their engagement, Fred took a job in Orillia, Ontario for three months. Joan found work in the area to be close to Fred, and when Fred’s job wrapped up they headed to Naramata, BC, to attend the Christian Leadership Training School. They got married in Naramata in December, went to Edmonton for their honeymoon, and returned to Naramata to finish school before heading to Judy Creek where Fred had a welding job.

Shortly after the arrival of their first child, a daughter, they moved to Sunset House, Alberta, where a son was added to the family. In 1964, they moved to Slave Lake. where they had two more daughters and stayed until 1997, when they moved to an acreage near Dapp, 12 miles north of Westlock.

Joan’s many hobbies included walking, gardening, berry picking, baking, canning, sewing, crocheting afghans and baby blankets, paper tole, macrame, reading, cross stitch, photography, and, in her later years, diamond dot.

Fred was an independent rig welder and Joan, in addition to raising four kids, managed the business  financial accounts and bookwork. She would type invoices on her old manual typewriter, using only two fingers, and later the electric typewriter, still using only two fingers, but she was a fast two-fingered typist. Over the years, Joan also sold Tupperware, Avon, and Table Charm, and volunteered with the Slave Lake meals on wheels program.

Slave Lake had a beautiful sand beach and Joan frequently took her children to the lake during the summer, spending hours on the beach before heading home. Joan played with the kids both on the beach and in the water and the kids loved it when Joan would pile them on an air mattress and pull them out into the lake as far as she could before jumping on and letting the waves push them all back into shore.

The sandy soil close to the beach proved to be excellent for wild berries - cranberries, blueberries,  pincherries, huckleberries, chokecherries, and saskatoons - which Joan loved to pick and turn into  canned fruit, jam, syrup, and pies - if they didn’t get eaten first. While picking berries, Joan would sing to keep the bears away - most of the time. One time Joan was so intent on picking berries that she wasn’t singing and she rounded a bush to find a bear on the other side. I don’t know who was more frightened, her or the bear, but they both headed in opposite directions in a hurry.

Joan also loved to garden and had a huge vegetable garden in Slave Lake, growing carrots and beets, peas, potatoes, radishes, lettuce, beans, and other vegetables. She also had a big flower garden that she could view from the kitchen window and a large raspberry patch.  Joan would motivate her kids to help with the weeding by promising a trip to the beach after the weeding was done.

After moving to the acreage, Joan continued to garden.The grandkids fondly remember planting the  annuals with grandma supervising and telling them to plant a flower an inch more to the left or to  the right, or a little deeper, or not as deep. Joan had big pots of red geraniums on the back deck and when she was no longer able to water the flowers, the geraniums were replaced with “instant flowers” - artificial cloth flowers of all colors that she enjoyed looking at as it brightened her day. For years Joan also maintained a hummingbird feeder on the back deck and enjoyed watching the hummingbirds.

Joan was also an excellent seamstress and over the years she sewed for her family, including Fred's  jeans, work shirts and overalls, kids clothes, Barbie doll clothing, matching doll and daughter  dresses, stuffed toys, costumes for church plays, her kids halloween outfits, denim bookbags and  pencil cases with names painstakingly sewn on, and later on some flower girl, bridesmaid, and  wedding dresses, the latter of which would first be sewn with old bedsheets and adjustments made  to make sure it fit perfectly before cutting into the satin.

After moving to the acreage near Dapp, Joan received a digital camera as a gift and an amateur photographer was born. Her camera was always handy and she enjoyed taking pictures of flowers, insects, animals, and landscapes. She learned to use photo editing software to remove unwanted background to make the picture perfect. For several years she donated famed photos - and pies - to Youth for Christ auctions.

Joan and Fred were actively involved in the Slave Lake Alliance Church. Joan sang in the choir and taught Vacation Bible School in the summer, and ages 2 and 3 Sunday School classes year-round.  Many Saturday nights were spent preparing the Sunday School lesson. Joan loved teaching the little  ones and after a number of years she ‘graduated’ to teaching ages 4 and 5 but soon moved back to  ages 2 and 3. She also served as Sunday School superintendent and helped with upper elementary programs. Both children and adults enjoyed it when Joan told the children’s story in Sunday evening church. She was nervous about talking to the adults so she would focus on the children and forget the adults were there, so that when she asked, “And do you know what happened next?” she was startled when an adult responded, “No, what happened?”

After their move to the acreage, Joan and Fred served in the Westlock Alliance church, and many  baked goods consumed after a Sunday church service were lovingly made by Joan. As Joan’s health challenges increased, she was unable to attend church in person, but faithfully continued to join church services virtually.

Joan was known for her baking and hosting meals. It was common for Joan and Fred to host company for lunch after a Sunday church service. If the authors of the five love languages had met Joan they would have included a sixth love language: “food.” That was Joan’s love language, as many of you have experienced, and the more she loved you, the more she fed you.

Joan’s special treats included rhubarb crisp, coconut balls, turtles, chocolate-covered brazil nuts,  sugar cookies, gingersnaps, Special K bars, marshmallow topped brownies, apple pie, saskatoon  pie and carrot pie. Most people thought her carrot pie was pumpkin pie and she enjoyed telling them that it was not made with pumpkin but with her garden carrots. Over the years she baked dozens and dozens of cookies for kids camps.

Every November, Joan would phone her kids and ask what three favourite treats they wanted her to  make for Christmas that year. Joan loved Christmas. She loved to put up streamers, string Christmas cards around, and hang decorations from the ceiling and these decorations would linger well into the new year. Coming to her place for Christmas meant leaving with good cheer, presents, and a couple extra pounds.

Joan spent years trying to create the perfect cinnamon bun. I don’t know if she thought she succeeded, but everyone else certainly did. If her kids were coming for a visit it didn’t matter if they arrived at 2pm or 10pm, there were fresh cinnamon buns waiting for them.

For the grandkids, making bread at grandma’s house was a delight. They would help her gather ingredients, punch down the dough, wait impatiently for the bread to rise, and eventually be rewarded with tasty baked goods. The entire family looked forward to the fresh bread, cinnamon buns, twists, or the grandkid’s personal favorite - three-er buns, which involved rolling small balls of dough and plopping two or three in the same muffin tin, resulting in buns that were easy to pull apart, slather with butter, and then stick back together.

Grandchildren were very special to Joan and she always enjoyed spending time with them – playing  board games, baking, gardening, and making pedaheh.

Pedaheh is the Ukrainian word for perogies and making it was quite the production. Everyone was  assigned a task; making the dough, rolling and cutting the dough into ‘flaps’, stuffing with a potato cheese mixture, boiling the pedeheh, and last but certainly not least, counting the number of  pedaheh made. Joan oversaw and delighted in all of it. When she became unable to help as much,  she would supervise and tell the grandkids to sprinkle the flour ‘like salt’ so as to not dry out the  dough. Her disobedient grandchildren would wait until her back was turned and then throw a bunch of flour on the counter and put the dough on top quickly before Joan could notice.

Joan loved playing board games with her grandkids. Payday, Dominos, and Scrabble were among the favourites.

Joan loved to spoil her grandkids with bowls of candy, platters of cookies, personal-size pies, and  ensuring she always had boxes of their favorite cereals, even if they were only coming for a few  days. She would also cook up large meals and then insist on not having leftovers. Meals were often  followed by dessert and ice cream, so the grandkids never went hungry.

When it came time to leave, the grandkids would pile in the pack of their parents car and watch with  glee as grandma stood on the front porch and danced until the car was out of sight.

As life on the acreage slowed down for Joan she enjoyed Word Finds, watching Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, and she still sewed blue jeans and work shirts for Fred. When Joan would have a mishap, she would call family and start the conversation with ”I had an adventure today...”. It could range from dropping her phone and needing to get her pickup stick to get it to a trip to the hospital. You never knew what was coming.

One adventure started with a knock on the door and a stranger asking for assistance. Before any assistance could be provided, police vehicles arrived as this stranger was being searched for. A foot chase by police ensued on the front lawn, with the stranger trying to avoid capture by taking a short cut through the row of lilacs but getting caught up in a string of Christmas lights that Joan left in the bushes year-round. The next day one police officer returned to check on Joan and Fred and see how they were faring. Joan was baking and in true Joan-fashion, the officer left with fresh bread and a saskatoon pie.

Over the years many cats lived on the acreage, and they all loved Joan. The last cat, Blondie, had Joan trained. Every evening around the same time, Blondie would paw at the patio door window, ignoring the cold cat food in his bowl, until he would see Joan coming to the door with warm cat food. He would not disappear into the barn for the night until he got his warm food and some attention from Joan.

Joan was resilient. Despite her many health challenges and a knee fracture in November 2021 that left Joan unable to walk, she would say “put your feet on the floor, put a smile on your face, and get with it!” She never let her weakening body deter her strong spirit. Instead of becoming bitter of her failing health, she found joy in the things she could still do, and had deep gratitude for all the people who helped her get to and from appointments in town.

Joan and Fred both moved into Westlock Continuing Care in September 2024. Joan adjusted well as she always said that your home was wherever you lived. Joan would say “hi” to everyone in the dining room at each meal time as she made her way to her table. When the weather was nice, she enjoyed going for an outing to stores to see what was new and chat with people that she met along the way.

Joan always enjoyed doing puzzles, but when her shoulders became too weak, she was introduced to diamond dot and she spent many happy hours building dazzling pictures dot by dot. She hung the finished masterpieces on her walls, or gifted them to her children and grandchildren. As her walls filled, it was suggested that when she ran out of space she would have to take some down to make room for new ones, to which she replied that there was room on the ceiling to put them.

Joan loved Jesus and she loved people. She was generous with her time and resources, loved making people smile, whether by gifting them a pie, wearing a silly hat, or making a funny or encouraging comment.

Joan also had a servant’s heart. Friends recall moving to Slave Lake and Joan showing up on their door offering to take their kids for the day while they unpacked. She invited people with no family in town over for Christmas. She took meals to people who were sick and fresh baking to elderly friends. Even after moving to Continuing Care she took care of Fred to the best of her ability until he passed away. At Bingo she would help others who were struggling with their Bingo cards, until it became too difficult for her to do so. She would see another resident shiver and toodle off to their  room to get them a sweater or a blanket. She was always looking for a need and a way to fill it.

On March 23rd, Joan took her last breath on earth, and her first breath in heaven. She will be deeply missed by the many friends and family she has left behind but we know that she is joyful in heaven, reunited with her husband Fred, worshiping her heavenly father - and probably baking pies.