Grandmother, teacher, CUSD Board member, traveler, volunteer

Joan Marie Westin Presecan was born November 11, 1940 in New York, New York to Fannie and Clinton Westin. After a short time in New York, the family moved to Benton Harbor, Michigan where Joan grew up along the shores of Lake Michigan with her older brother Robert “Bob” (deceased) and her younger brother Richard “Dick.” According to stories still told today, there was often confusion about how large the Westin family was. Clinton’s brother Andrew and his family also lived in town, and while Jim, Andy and Kathy were technically Joan’s cousins, most people assumed they were siblings.

After graduating from Benton Harbor High School, she attended Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana where she double majored in biology and chemistry and earned her teaching credential. Her final two years of undergraduate study were paid for by a research grant from the U.S. government. While at Purdue, she was active in the Chi Omega sorority and met the love of her life Nicholas “Nick” Lee Presecan when his fraternity kidnapped the freshman sorority girls and carried them to a party in bathtubs.

She and Nick married in 1963. Just days after the wedding, he began his active duty in the United States Marine Corps. During the years that followed they moved back-and-forth across the country for different training assignments. While he was deployed overseas in Vietnam, she filled her time with teaching, exploring parks and open spaces, learning modern dance, fostering her love for music, training their dalmatian, Kam, and somehow making it back to the family-built cottage on Lake Michigan every summer for quality beach time and her favorite beach pastime: sailing. Upon her husband’s return from overseas the two moved for school to the University of California, Berkeley, where she earned her master’s degree in counseling psychology.

She took a brief break from teaching to raise her three daughters, Julie, Mary, and Anne. After the family moved to Claremont in 1976, she became deeply engaged in the community. “In classic Joan fashion, her time as a stay-at-home mother was far from dull,” her family shared. “Whether it was tending to her not-so-small ¼ acre garden, volunteering at the California Botanic Garden, taking art or modern dance classes, playing recorder with her early music performance group, sitting on pool decks or running a swim meet, attending (and eventually being on the board) of numerous community engagement groups, Joan was always on the move.”

The lure of teaching children and sharing her passion for science and math was too strong, so once her daughters transitioned to elementary school she made her way back into the classroom. After several years working in the Glendora public school system she was asked to assist in starting a private school for girls, Vivian Webb School (now part of the Webb Schools of California).

At the Webb Schools, she taught both fundamental biology and Advanced Placement biology for 21 years. “Teaching there was a full time commitment, and Joan loved every minute of it,” her family said. There were periodic Saturday classes, and on free weekends where there was no school or kid activity she would take van loads of students on outdoor adventures. Her favorite adventure was the annual four-day trip to Joshua Tree National Park where she introduced 30 to 40 high students per year to field studies, rock climbing, desert exploration, and sleeping under the stars. She found her energy by staying at the forefront of scientific discovery and developing curriculum to pass that knowledge on to her students. She took great pride in securing grant funding to develop labs to teach kids about DNA splicing and genome mapping.

After retiring from teaching she was elected to the Claremont Unified School District Board of Education, where she served three terms. She also served on the Baldy View Regional Occupational Program Board for 10 years, where she worked to develop programs and resources to prepare students for college and careers. As a volunteer at the California Botanic Garden, she gave native plant tours and taught countless children how Native Americans may have lived off the land. In addition to everything else, she explored every part of Southern California and beyond with the Claremont Senior Bike Group, and further supported a healthy biking community by writing grants to help Claremont fund the establishment of bike friendly streets.

When not volunteering or biking, she was off on other adventures. From the rural countryside of Kazakhstan to explore the ancestral home of the tulip, to the ice sheets of Alaska to follow her favorite team (Blue on Black Kennels) through the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, she was constantly on the move. While the travel adventures were numerous, when asked about her favorite trips she would always talk about the one-on-one journeys she took with each of her four grandsons.

Upon selling the family home, she moved to Mt. San Antonio Gardens, where she was surrounded by a like-minded community that supported her passion for knowledge and matched her enthusiasm for movement, travel, and adventure.

Throughout it all, she always found time to connect with her family and longtime friends through book clubs, Friday night get-togethers, and summers on Lake Michigan at the family cottage. “Joan lived life to its fullest until the moment she passed,” her family said.

She was preceded in death by her husband of 42 years, Nick Presecan.

She is survived by her brother Dick Westin (Susan); daughters Julie Parker (Rodd), Mary Presecan (Garry Rosemen), and Anne Manning (Jonah); grandsons Jake and Luke Parker and Nicholas and Parker Roseman; and exchange student daughter Jolette Wiersema and family.

The family will be holding a celebration of life for Joan at 1 p.m. Saturday, March 21 at Claremont Presbyterian Church, 1111 N. Mountain Ave., Claremont, CA 91711.

In honor of her more than 30 years of caring for the youth and native plants at California Botanic Garden, a permanent exhibit at the new Children’s Woodland at CalBG will be dedicated in her honor. To support the establishment of this exhibit please visit calbg.org/donate and indicate your donation is on behalf of Joan Presecan.