It is with a heavy heart that I write to inform those of you who do not already know, that my sister, Joan entered into rest on Tuesday, September 17, 2002 at seven o’clock in the morning.

Joan’s early death is attributed to breast cancer, however, she did not “lose” the fight. Rather, her valiant, courageous daily stand against the insipient disease, her willingness to risk many different treatments, and the years she added to her life through her positive attitude, resulted in Joan being the true Champion.

After graduating from Valley Central High School in 1975, Joan attended Wagner College where she obtained a B.S.N., RN. Joan worked as a nurse in New York Hospital in Manhattan for one year before marrying Ralph Thomas Knechel (Hac), and moving to
Hackettstown, New Jersey. There she continued her career in nursing at Hackettstown Community Hospital working devotedly in the emergency room, then the recovery room and finally quality care management/utilization review.

Though first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992, Joan was not forced to stop working until late in 1996. Even then, she still remained active as a volunteer in many community based organizations; one in which she helped handicapped children ride horses and another in which she helped transport other cancer patients to treatment.

A true lover of the outdoors, Joan and her husband traveled throughout the USA and many foreign countries before and after her illness. Nothing stopped Joan. Even on her sickest days, she persevered with undaunted determination and grace. If anyone loved life and lived it to its highest potential, Joan did. The memories and stories, laughter and tears are too great to attempt to summarize.

In the end, Joan even met her impending death with magnificent courage and dignity. Ironically, a seemingly never-ending 10½ year saga, ended quite quickly and peacefully. It’s hard to pinpoint when the end came into sight, but it was easy to see that Joannever gave up. As recently as mid-July, in spite of hourly physical struggle and turmoil, she golfed 18 holes in the Dr. John A. Lukacs Memorial Golf Tournament, and took home the prize for longest drive! Of course, she loved sports, and people too, and it seems like it wasn’t really that long ago that she was leading the VC women’s basketball team to victory and being crowned Homecoming Queen..

We’ll all miss her!