Obituary of Joan M.C. Barone

On Monday, Sept. 7, 2009, Joan C. Barone, 95, a businesswoman and volunteer, passed away at St. Barnabas Medical Center, Livingston. Relatives and friends are invited to attend the Funeral Mass at Our Lady of Sorrows Church, 217 Prospect St., South Orange, on Friday, Sept. 11, at 9:30 a.m. Entombment is in Gate of Heaven Cemetery, East Hanover. Visitation will be held at Jacob A. Holle Funeral Home, 2122 Millburn Ave., Maplewood, on Thursday from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. For more information or to send condolences, please visit jacobhollefuneralhome.com. Mrs. Barone, the former Joan Cataldo, was born in Orange, N.J., in 1913 and lived there for most of her adult life with her husband of 65 years, Anthony M. Barone, and their two daughters. Mrs. Barone moved in 1978 to Middletown, where she and her husband resided until relocating to Livingston in 2004. Always a volunteer and activist, Mrs. Barone volunteered for numerous local organizations during her Middletown years. She was the president of the Women's Auxiliary of The Deborah Hospital for which she was honored as "Volunteer of the Year" in 1992, and the vice president of Monmouth Charities. In her early years, Mrs. Barone was the president of the St. Venantius Church Rosary Altar Society, a troop organizer for Girl Scouts of the United States of America and a member of the Business and Professional Women's Society and the League of Women Voters. Mrs. Barone was a longtime employee of O'Gorman & Young, Inc., Chatham, performing bookkeeping and accounting services until her retirement in the early 1980's. A graduate of Orange High School, she also attended Newark University and Panzer College. "Even though she was so involved, she always called her family, 'my utmost priority,' said her daughters. She was the beloved of wife of the late Anthony Barone; devoted mother of Candace McNeece and her husband, Thomas, and Barbara Gist and her husband, Robert; loving grandmother of Amy McNeece, Tracy and Robert Gist.