Obituary: Joan Oliver of Miami Lakes

Community By Linda Trischitta, Editor Friday, January 19, 2024

    A celebration of the life of Joan Oliver will be held Jan. 27 at United Methodist Church in Miami Lakes.

    Oliver, 94, died of natural causes at her Miami Lakes home on Dec. 27, her husband Dave Oliver said.

     Joan was a founding member and first secretary of the Miami Lakes Women’s Golf Association, a junior master duplicate bridge tournament player and on her mother’s side, a descendent of passengers aboard the Mayflower, her husband of 50 years said.

      Dave Oliver is a retired newspaper executive, inductee to the Town of Miami Lakes Sports Hall of Fame, Class of 2019 and coordinates the town’s senior softball program, The Geezers

     He met his wife when they worked at the Miami Herald, where she was a secretary to the Classified Advertising manager.

     Joan and her late sister Marilyn Kohls were a child tap dancing team in Indiana.  She also appeared as a prominent extra in two crime thrillers about the Tony Rome character with Frank Sinatra, Jill St. John and Raquel Welch that were filmed in Miami, Oliver said.

    She was an avid reader of biographies and history and followed Fox News and local sports teams. 

    She is survived by two sons she was very proud of who are from a prior marriage: Gary Hewetson and his wife Carol of Seminole, Fla. and Jack Hewetson and his wife Sheri, of Ponte Vedra, as well as numerous nephews, nieces, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Oliver said.

    Joan’s Teddy Bear dog, Missy, will miss her.

     After a Jan. 6 service at Trinity Lutheran Church in Versailles, Ohio, she was buried there at Greenlawn Cemetery.

     The celebration of her life in Miami Lakes will be held Jan. 27 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at United Methodist Church, 14800 Ludlam Road, Miami Lakes.