Joan Evans Davison, 95, died peacefully on April 13, a few hours after waking up ill at her home. Joan was a resident of Clintondale and a congregant of the Reformed Church in New Paltz for nearly 70 years and was a stalwart leader of the community in which she lived.
Among her many other activities, she served multiple terms on the consistory of the Reformed Church, on the Ulster County Board of Health, as an elected member of the Highland Central School Board, and as president of Highland’s Parent Teacher Association.
Joan was born in Utica New York in 1931, the only child of John (Jack) Linden Evans and Jerusha (Judy) Oakley Evans. In Utica, Joan was a member of the Plymouth Congregational Church and a product of the city’s public school system, graduating from Utica Free Academy in 1949. As a child, Joan spent summers at her mom’s parents’ farm in the Finger Lakes region and was a frequent visitor to the village of Holland Patent, north of Utica, where her father was born. A keen college-bound student at UFA, Joan served as the editor-in-chief of the school’s Academic Observer publication and president of the French Club.
Joan attended Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, where she majored in Political Science and formed lifelong friendships. After graduating in 1953, Joan travelled to Europe with a group of college friends. During the Atlantic crossing on the austere former troop carrier the “Arosa Kulm,” Joan met Ronald Lenox Davison, whom she would ultimately marry in 1955.
Early in their marriage, the couple lived for several months in the Dutch village of Boskoop, where Ron worked in and studied horticulture. Later in the 1950’s, the couple settled in Ulster County, New York, where they spent the rest of their lives. Their celebration of twenty-five years of marriage was interrupted in October 1980 when their cruise ship the Prinsendam sank in the Gulf of Alaska, but their marriage remained a happy one, augmented with memories of their dramatic sea rescue, until Ron’s death in 1994.
Joan was a committed and energetic member of many organizations involved in advocacy for women, children, education, and academic exchange, including the PEO, AAUW, and the Mount Holyoke Alumnae Association. She was a galvanizing force for the Huguenot Nursery School in New Paltz, Highland’s American Field Service chapter, the Student Christian Center adjacent to the state university, and the “Getting to Know You” project, the Reformed Church’s ministry to the elderly. While she exercised leadership positions many times over the years, her colleagues remember her more for the behind-the-scenes support for which she could be counted on, whether that be in the form of freshly baked goods for group events, chauffeur service for stressed single moms, or visits to the infirm and house-bound.
Joan spent many summers on Wellesley Island and enjoyed entertaining family and friends at her ancestral cottage in Thousand Island Park, NY.
Joan’s life of service and her indefatigable energy will be fondly remembered by all who knew her, but by no one more so than by the members of her family. She is survived by her two sons, Paul of New York NY and Kees of Richmond VA, her daughters-in-law Kathy and Vera, her grandchildren Jack, Caio, and Tess, and her great-grandson Byron.
All are welcome to celebrate Joan’s life at a Memorial Service on September 26, 2026, at 11:00 at the Reformed Church on Huguenot Street in New Paltz.