DeVries BPW honors
Joan Thompson as Woman in History

Growing up in Lewes, Joan Thompson’s roots in the region’s sandy soil run deep.
Her great-grandfather was John Penrose Virden, the first president of the 
Delaware River & Bay Pilots Association out of Lewes.

And while she didn’t exactly follow in his footsteps, from childhood, Thompson has actively participated in her community. On March 4, the DeVries chapter of Business and Professional Women honored her as its 2008 Woman in History.

About 30 members and guests gathered at the Clubhouse at Baywood near Long Neck to celebrate Thompson’s life and the many ways she has enriched the Cape Region.

An only child, Joan’s extended family, cousins, aunts and great-grandfather all lived under one roof at one time or another, thanks to the kindness of her father, Arthur West Marshall Jr. and her mother, Katherine Leaverton Marshall. Her father’s mother, Hannah Virden, lived next door to Joan’s grandfather, Arthur Sr., on Second Street in Lewes, with both the Marshalls and Virdens being pilots.

A 1945 graduate of Lewes High School, Joan went on to study at the University of Delaware (UD), first majoring in chemistry, then switching majors to history and political science.

Upon graduation in 1949, Joan began her career at P.S. duPont School as a ninth-grade counselor and team teaching coordinator, and married Harold “Buck” Thompson, a New Jersey native and UD football great, in 1950. Teaching then took a back seat to raising her two daughters, Kathy and Shelly, until they were in junior high, but Joan did substitute teaching. When the girls were a bit older she went back to teaching full-time at Penncrest High in Media, Pa.

The Thompsons moved to Lewes in 1972, where Buck took a job as a career counselor, first at Del Tech and then at Cape Henlopen High School. Joan, with a master’s degree in guidance counseling from Villanova University, became a high school counselor in the Indian River School District until 1980 when she transferred to Woodbridge high as a counselor from 1980 to 1985.

She and her friend Sally Higgins of Seaford formed the Sussex School Counselors Association before Joan retired. In her spare time she wrote a social column for the Whale newspaper when it first published in 1975 while Buck wrote the sports column.

Joan retired as a counselor in 1985 but took to volunteer work with a vengeance. She immersed herself in helping to get Southern Delaware Hospice off the ground, working in the office and with patients’ families for 10 years. She was also very heavily involved with the Lewes Historical Society.

Joan is a member of the Friends of the Lewes Public Library, the Overfalls Maritime Museum Foundation and is a cofounder of the UD Alumni Association Sussex chapter, having been named UD Outstanding Alumna in 1997.

Joan is a charter member of Cape Artists and a member of the Delaware Watercolor Society. She dabbles in poetry and playing bridge and serves on the Delaware Maritime Hall of Fame Advisory Committee.

Following Buck’s death, Joan moved from Rehoboth back to Lewes, where she enjoys keeping active with her family, which includes seven grandchildren, one great-grandchild and with her many friends.

Lewes Deputy Mayor Stephanie Tsantes honored Thompson’s achievements, reading a proclamation from her hometown that noted Thompson’s many accomplishments. Sen. Gary Simpson, R-Milford, and Rep. Joe Booth, R-Georgetown, offered proclamations from the Legislature recognizing her achievements.

Among the warmest tributes was that of her lifelong friend, Hazel Brittingham, who grew up with Thompson in Lewes. Brittingham said while there were many words that could be used to describe Thompson, in the end she chose just two, “My friend.”

To mark the occasion, Brittingham had unearthed an old copy of the Lewes High School Beaconite that featured an exuberant poem about Lewes by then third-grader Joan Thompson.

In accepting her award and proclamations, Thompson said, ”It’s scary to think you’ve lived for eight decades, through four wars.” She also read a more recent haiku poem, reflecting on her life, yet capturing the same wonder in her world that delighted her as a child.