As a private duty nurse and a leader of the La Leche League, Joan Marie Hollenbeck of Barnes Landing, Springs, “counseled countless young mothers with breastfeeding struggles,” her family said.
She was also well known for her hospitality. She was an “informal innkeeper,” the Hollenbeck house being known as a place where almost anyone could come and stay as long as they liked. According to her family, the six Hollenbeck children were accustomed to waking up to greet strangers at the breakfast table. Sometimes the number of visitors reached such volume that, as one regular guest commented, it was “dog-eat-dog for beds at the Hollenbecks’.”
“Joan had a way of making people feel that they were special, valued, and above all, welcomed. She thrived on the energy of being surrounded by people and was always up for fun,” her family wrote.
Mrs. Hollenbeck, who first moved to East Hampton in 1966 to raise her family, died at home of cancer last Thursday. She was 88.
Joan Marie Ueberroth was born in Easton, Pa., on Jan. 12, 1936, to Richard Ueberroth and the former Florence Seitz. She grew up there and attended Easton Catholic High School before taking a nursing degree at Saint Joseph’s Hospital School of Nursing in Philadelphia. Later, she moved to New York City, where she thrived as a registered nurse in the fast-paced emergency room at Jewish Memorial Hospital.
At a party in Manhattan, she met Frank Bradbury Hollenbeck, then a student at Columbia University’s School of Architecture. They were married in Easton in 1960 and embarked on a six-month tour of Europe funded by his research scholarship from Columbia.
Mrs. Hollenbeck, with “renowned” gourmet taste and culinary skills, “expressed her love through cooking,” her family wrote. “She could taste something once at a restaurant and recreate it at home. She embraced fondue parties in the 1970s and sundried tomatoes in the ‘80s. She honored Iacono chicken with the most delicate lemon/wine sauce and was generous with the butter when serving lobster,” they recalled. “Her signature cocktail was the Manhattan, but she most often greeted guests with pitchers of limey margaritas.”
In addition to cooking, Mrs. Hollenbeck loved the beach and spending time with her family, who wrote that “she served as playmate and confidante to her grandchildren. She loved all of her dear friends. She loved East Hampton. She loved life.”
A devout Catholic, she served as a Eucharist minister at Most Holy Trinity Church.
Her husband died in 2016; a son, Brad Hollenbeck, died in 1990. Mrs. Hollenbeck leaves four daughters, Lynn Hollenbeck of San Francisco, Susan Kalinchak of Pottersville, N.J., Karen Cyrus of Wilmette, Ill., and Jan Pisciotta of Bayville, and a son, Kenneth Hollenbeck of San Francisco. Thirteen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren survive as well.
The family will receive visitors tomorrow from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton. A funeral service will be held at Most Holy Trinity on Saturday at 9 a.m., with a reception to follow at the Parish Hall.
