Joan Marsh Reitzel was born in North Carolina to Claude and Irma Reitzel on May 1, 1941. She was educated at Wellesley College (B.A.), the University of California at Berkeley (M. A.) and Brown University (Ph.D.). She has been a college professor, a banker, a civilian employee of the L. A. P. D., and retired as a grant worker for the City of Los Angeles Parks & Recreation Department.
She was a forty-year resident of Venice California. She is survived by her sister, Kathy, her cousins Jeannie Jones and Phillip Trueblood and members of her extended family and friends.
In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to the American Cancer Society or to St. Bede's Episcopal Church (Outreach Fund or Friends of Music).