Joan Panzenbeck, former Sea Cliff deputy treasurer, dies at 101

Dorothy Maritato said she and her mother, Joan Panzenbeck, were always "really good friends."

While Maritato may have served as her mother's primary caregiver, she said her mother always cared right back for her. 

“If I ever needed advice, I could always go to her and she would really be very good about [it] ... and so it was kind of give and take,” she said.

Joan Panzenbeck died on June 3, surrounded by loved ones at her home in West Sayville. She was 101.

Born in Indianapolis on Jan. 25, 1925, to Lucille and Hugh Mullen, Joan and her family moved to Texas when she was 12 after the insurance company her father worked for moved its headquarters to Dallas, making her “really a Texan,” according to her son Dan.

Her family was deeply Catholic, with two of her siblings becoming priests, one a nun and another a brother.

Her youngest brother, Charles Mullen, a retired pastor, died just hours before her. According to Maritato, Charles said his sister “should be a saint.”

When Joan was in her early 20s, she met her future husband, Maret Panzenbeck, who played trumpet with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. The two married on June 19, 1949.

Wanting to start a family, Maret Panzenbeck left the orchestra to become a music teacher, and the two moved to Delaware before settling in Glen Cove when he got a job at the North Shore school district.

Together, they had 10 children, “and then finally, [we] had to move because we needed a bigger house, and so we moved to Sea Cliff when my mom was 39,” the same age in which she had her last child, Dan said.

Despite being in a house chock full of activity, Panzenbeck “never seemed to get very angry,” he said.

“She was very level-headed and some of the things that went on in our house, some people would run away,” Dan said.

Panzenbeck’s faith helped her get through the bustling household's challenges. At night, she would sit in her red velvet chair and read her Bible.

“I was a teenager, and I would question her about [Catholicism], and she would love having those discussions, Maritato said.

“She didn’t mind that I questioned the rules and things like that. She was very open about it, and she just took from it what she wanted,” she said, describing her mother’s faith as being “very strong.”

One of her favorite traditions was the family’s annual trip to Forest Lake, New Hampshire. While the house there may have only had one toilet and no shower, the trip was always “so relaxing for her,” Maritato said.

“We’d play these old-time records at night by the fire, and the porch had these swinging benches, and you could look out at the lake,” she said.

Panzenbeck was hardworking her entire life. As a teenager, she worked as a nurse’s aide at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas during World War II, and before her marriage, she took a a job as an executive secretary for a Madison Avenue advertising firm in New York City.

After not working for a period after her children were born, she began her tenure as deputy treasurer at Village of Sea Cliff, retiring in 1986.

After the death of her husband, Panzenbeck began making friends at her church and playing cards with her neighbors.

She also loved flowers, especially daisies, birds-of-paradise, lilies of the valley and pansies, her children said.

“She’d have flowers all the time, planted, and she would go out to the arboretums a lot to see the flowers in the different stages,” Dan said.

She was also an avid reader, enjoying nonfiction books about U.S. presidents and their wives, reliving much of the history she experienced.

Panzenbeck remained sharp her entire life, keeping up with technology and driving until her mid-90s. She remained in her West Sayville home, where she and her husband moved in 1986, and had a miniature poodle named Teddy as her companion up until her death.

Besides Dan and Dorothy, Panzenbeck is survived by children Maret Panzenbeck, Theresa Rondinaro, William Panzenbeck, Bernard Panzenbeck, Rosemary DeFrancisci, Paul Panzenbeck, Timothy Panzenbeck and MaryJane McGrath; 14 grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren.

A funeral Mass was celebrated June 6 at St. Lawrence Roman Catholic Church in Sayville, after which Panzenbeck was buried in St. Lawrence Cemetery in Sayville.