Joan Henry, a 95-year-old resident at Morning Pointe of Chattanooga, Tennessee, has lived an unconventional life. She has taken her family values and woven them together beautifully with her professional life, creating a beautiful legacy.
New York
Born in 1929 in Brooklyn, New York, Joan was the only child of Henry and Anna Pinkernell. Her father worked on the New York Stock Exchange, and not only did she grow up during the Great Depression, but when she was a child, her father developed a disorder called syringomyelia, which damages the spinal cord.
“All of a sudden, he started to pitch across the room, and he couldn’t control his motions, and it progressed from there,” Joan remembered. The condition left him a paraplegic at age 25. “It was not an easy deal for my mom, but there was nothing that could be done about it.”
Thankfully, friends, family, and even her father’s coworkers pitched in and helped their little family. And there was another bright spot in Joan’s childhood, a neighbor boy named Frank who was also an only child.
“Frank would ride me around on his bike, and we did a lot of things together,” Joan said. “We were both Catholic, and we went to Catholic schools.”
As the children grew up and the U.S. got through World War II and entered the Korean War, Frank served in the Merchant Marines for several years, aboard the USS Cambria. Joan wrote him letters every night.
Marriage and Family
Joan and Frank got married in 1950. In 1951, along came their first child, their son Jeff. Daughters Susan and Ellen followed over the next few years.
“We had a very good marriage,” Joan said. “We were very attuned to one another.”
Frank was a mechanical engineer and got a job with Combustion Engineering Company in Chattanooga, Tennessee, when Ellen was a baby. The family transplanted south, and Frank worked for Combustion for 20 years. He was a project manager who worked with fossil fuel plants, and he traveled for different projects, from Utah to Spain and other locations.
Joan raised her children, and they developed family traditions that lasted for many, many years. Every Sunday, all the family (even when the children were grown and grandchildren were added to the mix) would gather at the Henrys’ house for lunch. No matter what else the family had going on, they would take the time to be there together for food and fellowship. And each summer, for 50 years in a row, the family blocked off time to spend vacation together at Kiawah Island, South Carolina.
In 1967, Frank added a new member to the family for Joan’s birthday. It was a baby yellow-naped amazon parrot, and the Henrys named him Michael. The bird quickly decided that Joan was his favorite human. He was known to pick up words, particularly the children’s names. Parrots are long-lived pets, and Joan had Michael until he passed away in 2017 at age 50!
Professional Woman
“I decided to go back to work when the kids were old enough,” Joan said. She worked for several different companies, including Tappen, US Stove Company, and Specialty Chemical.
But there was one job that Joan enjoyed more than all the others, where she worked for 16 years. She became the purchasing manager for the City of Chattanooga under then-mayor Pat Rose. She remembers Mayor Rose as “a charming man, a wonderful person. He always made you feel like you were very important.”
Years later, she moved into a retirement home in Chattanooga and discovered that Mayor Rose was one of her neighbors! He still remembered her for her integrity and honesty.
In her role for the city, Joan oversaw the day-to-day operations of the office. “I checked on all my managers to make sure that things were going well,” she said. “I sometimes got involved in what they were doing if they needed a boost.” She was in charge of all the bidding, everything from salting the streets in the winter to buying toilet paper to acquiring two fire engines.
Joan was also breaking stereotypes. “Mom worked in a male-oriented field,” shared Joan’s daughter Ellen. “It was all men there, and they’d never had a female purchasing director before, so that was a new territory.”
Joan even became the president of the Purchasing Managers Association of Chattanooga at that time, working with other purchasing managers at other organizations in the area. “My opinion was sought a lot, which always surprised me,” she said.
Joan retired as purchasing manager at age 72, but she went back to work, this time at a couple of jewelry stores. She worked at Zales and at Proffit’s, both in the Hamilton Place Mall in Chattanooga. “I’ve always loved jewelry,” she said.
It wasn’t until age 83 that Joan retired from the workforce. “Whatever I did, I did with my whole heart and soul,” she said. Her advice for working women is: “If you love it, do it!”
Dancing
At one point in Joan’s life, she took up dancing. “Somebody invited me to one of their sessions, and I was hooked,” Joan said. “The minute you start something like that, you either love it or you hate it, and boy I loved it!” She especially loved the waltz and the foxtrot.
When Frank passed away unexpectedly in 1992, Joan found herself using dancing as a sort of therapy. “It was something to keep my interest up,” she said.
Joan got serious about her dancing, too, and took part in competitions. She won first and second place multiple times and got to wear fabulous costumes and travel, including to Atlantic City and Rio de Janeiro.
She kept up dancing for many years, until she started slowing down as she got older.
Coming to Morning Pointe
In 2022, Joan had a stroke and was not able to live on her own anymore. “We were at a crisis point to find someplace good,” said her daughter Ellen.
Ellen and Joan talked to Emily Thibodeau, community relations director at Morning Pointe of Chattanooga Assisted Living, who they had known for years, and came by to see the community. They were impressed, and the location is near to Ellen’s home. They made the decision to move to Morning Pointe.
“I’ve been very lucky,” Joan said. “This place is exceptional as far as taking care of people. It’s been as good as it could be.”
Joan’s family has now grown to include nine grandchildren and six great-grandkids, and family visits are the highlight of her days.
“My husband and I built this huge family from just the two of us,” Joan said. “My biggest role in life was to keep the family together. If I have done anything in my life that has helped propel my children into what they wanted to do, I hope I did it.”
Ellen shared, “Mom always told my sister and I, ‘Stick to what you believe to be right. Don’t let anybody railroad you.’ She taught us to be strong. Mom was a bit of a pioneer in the fact that when she was in management, she was in an area where there weren’t a lot of women, but it never bothered her. She was dressed in a suit and high heels every day. We learned those things from her – how to present yourself and how to talk to people and how to be strong and not back down because someone makes it hard on you.”
Joan, thank you for your wonderful example of integrity, professionalism, and the importance of family. We are so glad you are part of our Morning Pointe family!
