Obituary

Joan Leslie

Tue, 08/12/2014 - 9:00am

Joan Warland Leslie, 92, daughter of Marion Sortwell Warland and William Seaver Warland, died August 4, 2014 in Brunswick. She was born November 30, 1921, in Boston and grew up in Wiscasset and Cambridge, Mass., also spending periods of her childhood in Bermuda and Rome. She was the granddaughter of Alvin Foye Sortwell, the mayor of Cambridge, whose mother came from Wiscasset; and she spent many happy hours in his summer home, the Nickels-Sortwell House in Wiscasset.

Joan attended Beaver Country Day School in Brookline, Mass., and later the Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, Pa. She studied architecture with Joseph Albers, Walter Gropius, and other great modernists at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in the early 1940s. Although she chose to raise a family instead of enter practice, she maintained an abiding interest in building design.

She married John Frederick Leslie in Pinehurst, N.C. in 1943 during his leave from the Army. After the war, they moved to Harvard, Mass., where their four children started life. In 1952, the family moved north to Brunswick.

As a child, Joan loved being outside at her family’s farm in Wiscasset. She took great interest in the farm work, animals, and gardens there. Her menagerie of pets included turtles, dogs, ducks, and donkeys. As a young woman, she enjoyed tennis, swimming, skiing, and riding horses on ranches in Wyoming and New Mexico. The lives of her extended family and many beloved friends, young and old, provided continuous pleasure. She relished good company. Continuing a tradition in her family, she was an energetic gardener, especially when fresh vegetables were the reward. She was a devotee of Bowdoin College hockey, starting in the days when female fans stood on the snow banks around an outdoor rink in tweed skirts and silk stockings, no matter the temperature. Evening concerts at the Portland Symphony never failed to enthrall her.

Joan served on the board of Maine Preservation and had been a corporator of the Wiscasset Public Library and a member of Historic New England, the Wiscasset Garden Club, the Morris Farm Trust, and the Wiscasset Female Charitable Society.

She is survived by her son John Frederick Leslie, Jr., and his wife, Laura Ornest; son Seaver Warland Leslie and his wife, Anne; daughter Kate Leslie Mann and her husband, Neil; son-in-law Warren Barker; grandchildren Tyler Mann and his wife, Amy; Nicholas Mann and his wife, Suzanne; Genevieve, Marion, and Frances Leslie; Wylie Barker; and Harrison Ornest-Leslie; as well as a step-granddaughter, Lily Barker; and a great-granddaughter, Olivia Constance Mann. She was predeceased by her husband, her daughter Constance Leslie Barker, and her granddaughter Lydia Poole Barker.

There will be a memorial service on Friday, Aug. 15, at 4 p.m., at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Wiscasset. Donations in Joan’s honor may be made to the Morris Farm Trust in Wiscasset or to the Wiscasset Public Library.