Joan M. Ossa

The family of Joan M. Ossa sorrowfully announce her death at age 94 on Sunday, January 17, 2021, at her home at Nazareth House, in Fresno, California.

The fascinating story of Joan’s long and interesting life, rather than the circumstances of her Covid related death, best defines who Joan really was.

Born on November 6, 1926, in Appleton, Wisconsin, Joan Marie Barbara (Wettengel) O’Donnell
Stephenson Ossa was the blue-eyed, blond ringleted daughter of Joseph Anthony Edward Wettengel, and Ida Francis “Edith” (Quella) Wettengel Peterson. Joan had one older sister, Delores Clare (Wettengel) Domes, and a brother-in-law, William Joseph Domes, Sr.

As a very young child, Joan witnessed the gentle acceptance of death by her beloved father,
Joseph, who died in 1937, at the young age of thirty-seven after a ten-year struggle with Multiple Sclerosis. Joan often spoke of her mother’s selfless devotion to caring for Joseph in their home during his lengthy illness. Sheets on his bed were always freshly laundered and crisply ironed by hand. His face was meticulously clean-shaven every morning, accomplished privately, out of view of his young daughters. Accustomed since age five to her father’s state of chronic illness, Joan often told stories of how he enjoyed listening to exciting radio programs featuring Hoot Gibson, Buck Jones, Ken Maynard, Tom Mix, and Tom Tyler; and beautiful opera music on the radio every Sunday. Joan often recalled that her father would relish his weekly “Oh, Henry!” chocolate bar. Joan learned the importance of enjoying life, especially when faced with the certainty of death, from her gentle-spirited father.

During the challenging years of her father’s illness, marked by poverty brought on by The Great Depression, Joan told stories of memorable times visiting German speaking relatives in their stately Appleton, Wisconsin, homes with her paternal grandmother, Catherine (Fischer) Wettengel. Just before the women would settle in their chairs to enjoy a little glass of wine and conversation in German, the rugs in the parlor would be carefully rolled up to reveal immaculate, freshly waxed wooden floors, upon which Joan would be permitted to dance with the innocence and joy of a happy child. Afterwards, Joan was invited to enjoy the extravagance of a few lemon drops with this gathering of matrons.

Joan and her only sister, Dee, also found refuge through visits to Great-Uncle Edward John
Quella and Great-Aunt Cornelia Marie (Stommel) Quella’s farm in Sherwood, Wisconsin. Uncle Ed’s and Aunt Cornel’s son, Jerome Anthony “Jerry” Quella, often took his slightly trepidatious cousin, Joan, on horseback rides, thus cementing him in her memory as her first crush.

Joan had a palpable aura of beauty about her, effortlessly attracting the attention of admiring gentlemen the moment she would walk into a room. Her self-assuredness perhaps signaled that she was a woman of courage and some degree of daring. That was a quality all strong women in her family possessed.

Music was a passion Joan enjoyed all of her life, and she had an innate appreciation for many different genres, including Classical, Swing, Popular Music of the 1930s-1960s, Romantic, Instrumental and Orchestral, Traditional Catholic Mass, Gospel, Opera, and Jazz.

Joan’s paternal uncle, John Joseph Wettengel, was a professional musician, directed in his earlier years by John Phillips Souza in the United States Navy Band during World War I. Uncle John would often play her favorite songs, including The 12th Street Rag and Apple Blossom Time, on his xylophone. Uncle John also made it possible for an underaged Joan to sing with his orchestra from time to time, and even encouraged her to compete for the 1939 Miss Wisconsin title.

After moving with her mother and new step-father, Albert Leonard Peterson, from Appleton,
Wisconsin, to Los Angeles, California, Joan met her first husband, U.S. Marine Technical Sergeant John Edward O’Donnell, at The Hollywood Palladium, where they danced to the tunes of all the great Swing bands- Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Artie Shaw, Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Gene Krupa, and all the rest.

After marrying in 1945, Joan and John enjoyed regularly traveling from their mid-century modern home in Gardena, California, to the blossoming celebrity enclave of Palm Springs where they often danced to live bands of the mid to late 1940s.

Joan supported her husband’s successful catering truck business by driving him to a depot where he acquired all the fresh sandwiches, donuts, and beverages he needed for his route, well before the sun rose. Often, the children were bundled up, sleeping, to ride along in the back of the 1950s paneled van. Johnny, as he was called by his loyal customers and friends, often noted that he made more money selling donuts and coffee than the corporate businessmen who were his customers.

After seventeen years of valiantly trying to craft a typical 1950s era version of family harmony, a series of life-altering circumstances led to Joan and John’s divorce in 1964. The family already had built a modest post-WWII home in Manhattan Beach which had served as an investment, and Joan and her children settled in that home.

Joan sought solace listening to the likes of Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett, Mahalia Jackson, Lionel Hampton, Oscar Peterson, George Shearing, Cal Tjader, Herb Albert, and many more on a portable hi-fi record player when she and her daughter, Judith, cleaned the house on Saturdays.

As a single parent, Joan courageously faced many challenges. During a time when women were often managing a family and a household with the financial backing of a wage-earning husband, Joan found herself working at the Los Angeles County Courthouse out of necessity. Joan transported herself to work every day in her first automobile, a 1963 Beryl Green Volkswagen Beetle. Many mornings, her children would be roused to help push the VW down the long driveway, so Joan could pop the clutch and get it started.

Joan quickly worked her way to a State of California job at The Department of Motor Vehicles, where her razor-sharp intellect was noticed by her supervisors. Joan was specifically chosen to attend a month-long training in Sacramento, California, to become the first female Driver’s License Examiner in The State of California.

During this stressful time of single parenthood, Joan introduced her errant tribe of children to a type of verbal eloquence unmatched by the saltiest of sailors. All of her children learned the intricacies of well-deserved profanity at her knee, where they often heard her swear for twenty minutes without repeating a single phrase. Such sessions may have done little to change the preponderance of misdeeds, but they certainly provided an appreciation for the effective use of language.

Throughout it all, Joan’s devotion to her own mother, Edith, and her Hungarian grandmother, Ida (Szommer) Quella Harding Anderson Moore, was clear. They were a tremendous help to Joan- shopping and cooking together on the weekends, making food to store in the freezer for a hungry family, and welcoming the children to their home for overnight stays. Every Sunday, they were included in a family dinner, where the German tradition of a little glass of beer with a spoonful of sugar was ceremoniously shared with soon-to-be docile children. A toast always began the meal, with Joan’s grandmother, Ida, exclaiming as she raised her glass of Green Hungarian wine, “Hoch der Kaiser!” Repeated at every family dinner, it was a phrase that possibly brought the blessing of long life to Ida, who lived to age 102.

As a newly-divorced woman, Joan took a lengthy road trip in the VW with Edith, Ida, and her daughter, Judith. They traveled from their hometown of Manhattan Beach, California, through the artichoke capital of Castroville, and the quaint village of Carmel, all the way up to the stunning Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. A rite of passage, the art of traveling became a theme for Joan for the rest of her life.

Many subsequent trips were taken together, often to the charming town of Solvang, California. Joan, Edith, and Ida were all captured in a photograph used to produce a widely distributed postcard for Solvang. The entire surviving extended family returned to Solvang in 2016 to celebrate Joan’s 90th birthday, posing in front of the same shoe shop depicted in the 1960s postcard. It was the last time all four of Joan’s children were together with her, creating a lovely memory that brought her happiness for many years to follow.

Joan loved to drive, in part inspired and coached by her maternal uncle, Dan Quella. Uncle Dan himself worked his way through the racing world beginning in the 1920s as a daring driver, and later as a master mechanic at The Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Many classic roadsters from the glory days of Indy proudly carried the name of “Dan Quella, Mechanic,” expertly hand-painted just below the driver’s name on the side. Clients from around the world sought out Dan Quella to solve complex issues with some of the greatest engines ever designed, including thunderous Offenhausers. At least three of Dan Quella’s roadsters are in The Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, California. On a cross country automobile trip from Manhattan Beach, California to Appleton, Wisconsin, for a Quella family celebration, Uncle Dan frequently gave advice from the back seat: “Stand on it, Joanie!” She was delighted to oblige.

Joan often took her mother, grandmother, and children to see concerts, plays, and community lectures at the local El Camino College, as well as world renown venues such as The Ahmanson Center and The Hollywood Bowl. Road trips were planned to include visits to museums and even factories where her children learned about how Hershey’s Chocolate and Sun-Maid Raisins were processed. Armed with a AAA book, her children sharpened their skills in the car by reading aloud descriptions of the towns and cities they were to explore.

Joan enjoyed a welcome sense of stability with her second husband, Steve. They met at a “Parents Without Partners” dance. Steve did not have children of his own, but he was seeking a woman with a family. After a lengthy seven-year courtship, graced with countless dates where they danced the Cha-Cha and the Rumba, they married in 1971, moving from Manhattan Beach to the home Joan bought herself in Irvine, California. Joan always had a keen sense about investing in real estate, inherited from her mother, Edith.

Steve willingly took on the responsibility of helping to raise his step-children, while making an arduous daily commute into Downtown Los Angeles, where he worked as a Facilities Planner for the County of Los Angeles. Educated at The University of Kansas as an engineer, Steve designed and created many projects in his home workshop out of wood, using machinery and tools he obtained at rock-bottom prices from an auction house he often visited after work. The meticulous skills he taught his stepson helped to form the foundation for Kevin’s eventual career as an award-winning, nationally-lauded contractor in Palm Desert.

Steve and Joan dreamed of eventual retirement, exploring property near the forested Northern California community of Quincy on a trip with Kevin; or Arroyo Grande, near the Central Coast of California, where Steve owned ten acres of undeveloped land. Steve enjoyed making plans to build their retirement home, leaning towards unique designs he’d discover in books about Japanese Joinery Techniques, or in books by architect and futurist, R. Buckminster Fuller. Steve tragically died of a sudden heart attack just months before that dream could be realized.

After Steve’s death, Joan continued to work at The Department of Motor Vehicles, where she met a dashing Czechoslovakian coworker who was destined to become her next husband, John Ossa. With all of her children grown, Joan and John could enjoy traveling. They took many crosscountry trips in her elegant and comfortable Lincoln Cartier Edition Town Car, visiting a total of forty-eight states. They both were very active in organizations associated with John’s military service, their mutual work associations, fraternal and political organizations. They had scores of friends together.

Joan’s devotion to caring for John as he experienced a worsening congestive heart condition echoed that of her mother, so many decades before. John and Joan made the calculated decision to travel in spite of his condition, and it added years of joy to both of their lives. John actually lived the longest of Joan’s three husbands.

During this time, Joan and “Papa John” enjoyed having grandchildren, Matthew and Jason, visit them for holidays and get-togethers at their home in Irvine. The boys even had special sleeping bags at Grandma’s house, which they often set up in a little alcove by the fireplace. Whether it was cooking a nice breakfast for Jason, or watching Matthew construct elaborate Lego creations, Joan truly loved being their grandma.

Their large home in Irvine was often the setting for family and social gatherings, where Joan hosted events featuring an enormous amount of delicious food she loved to prepare, including her grandson, Jason’s, favorite- Frog Eye Salad. Raised by Wisconsin natives, Joan learned early in life to cook as if a team of starving threshers would walk in the door at any moment. Attention to detail was something she taught her daughter about cooking- celery always had the strings meticulously removed; pecans were always chopped one at a time by hand into symmetrical pieces; scrambled eggs were always light and fluffy- never overcooked.

After John’s death at the age of eighty-one, in 2001, Joan continued traveling, most often to spend time with dear friends in Lompoc- Isolde Matusek, Pat Osbourne, and a whole host of other adventurous lady friends who secretly marveled at the good fortune Joan enjoyed by being married to three distinctly different husbands.

One important lesson Joan’s multiple marriages taught her children was the nobility of stepparents, deserving of their respect, who willingly accepted the difficult role of joining an established family.

Joan began to lose her sight due to macular degeneration, although she was observed adeptly playing five poker hands at once on the machines at a casino, even with her visual impairment. It became a concern when Joan started aiming the hood ornament on her Lincoln at the dotted yellow line in the middle of the street- like a jet pilot with a lead foot- because she could not see the sides of the roadway. With a sense of grace, Joan accepted the reality that she could no longer safely drive. As a passenger, even with severely limited vision, however, Joan could tell you where to go and exactly how to get there.

Joan easily transitioned from living on her own in Irvine, to sharing a home in La Quinta, near her old stomping grounds in Palm Springs, with her son, John, and his wife, Joni. Joan appreciated the love and care she received from them for over six years. She also enjoyed a close friendship with her Home Health Care Aid, Hilda, with whom she had many wonderful conversations.

A subsequent hip fracture hastened Joan’s need to eventually live in a care facility. Joan made the decision to relocate to Nazareth House in Fresno, close to her devoted daughter, Judith, where they enjoyed nearly five years of daily visits and activities together. Each room Joan called home was lovingly decorated by her daughter with beautiful works of art, family photographs, and mementoes that represented significant times during Joan’s life.

Joan made many friends at Nazareth House, including a salty New Hampshire raised Irish woman named Helen, who joked that she “spoke French,” a euphemism for swearing. Joan and Helen spoke the same language, for sure.

Joan was beloved by the devoted staff at Nazareth House who patiently attended to her needs every day. Many became dear friends who admired Joan’s pleasant personality and wise counsel. Joan befriended many others who provided care, too, including her kind-hearted manicurist, Joy, who created ripples of stunned amazement every time she walked through the care facility to Joan’s room- embellished with intricate tattoos, elaborately coiffed, and adorned with jewels befitting a regal Hispanic queen.

Joan possessed an uncommon sense of sophistication and intelligence throughout her life. Educated at St. Joseph’s Catholic School in Appleton, Wisconsin, she greatly admired the devotion to knowledge modeled by the kind and learned Capuchin Franciscan Friars, who have served the parish since 1877.

Joan invested in a set of “The Great Books,” methodically reading, understanding, and discussing them. She also explored the works of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French Jesuit priest, scientist, paleontologist, theologian, philosopher, and teacher. His views were deemed unorthodox by the Roman Catholic Church, which was probably a factor that made his writings ever more enticing to Joan. Joan amassed a library full of beautiful books, representing the broad spectrum of her varied interests.

Since the age of five, Joan showed a remarkable ability to perceive the world of spirit. A devout Catholic, it was a gift she kept treasured within the accepting confines of close friends and family. Her mother, Edith, who was raised in the older traditions of the Catholic Church, often told clandestine stories, punctuated with a kind of furtive pride mixed with Catholic guilt, of how Joan would place her hands on the Ouija board and it would instantly- and dramatically- respond. That was a skill Joan would demonstrate throughout her adult life. Joan experimented with automatic writing, palmistry, astrology, handwriting analysis, and even visited psychic mediums- who instantly recognized a kindred soul.

Joan was fascinated by all major world religions, encouraged by the philosophical discussions she often had with her second husband, Steve, and her equally brilliant son, John. A devout Catholic by family tradition, Joan frequently questioned dogmatic beliefs of inherent human sinfulness. Joan just did not ascribe to the idea that people should be punished or shamed for being imperfect human beings.

Joan was rightfully proud, abhorring willful ignorance and mediocrity. She deserved the respect that she expected from others. The world was her teacher, and she in turn taught many others the value of being true to yourself. Even in her advanced age, Joan had the gift of counseling others- including strangers who would eventually become close friends. She had a sense about people and their underlying struggles.

Above all, Joan considered being a mother her greatest accomplishment. Joan is survived by her eldest son, John Edward O’Donnell, and his wife, Joan (Parsons), of Atascadero, on the Central
Coast of California; daughter, Judith Ann (O’Donnell) Pansarosa, and her husband, Charles, of Fresno, California; and her youngest son, Kevin Thomas O’Donnell, and his wife, Lynn (Lizotte), of Palm Desert, California.

Also surviving are her grandchildren, Matthew Lee O’Donnell, and his wife, Lisa (Valek), of Toledo, Ohio; and Jason Thomas O’Donnell, of Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Step-grandchildren include, Charles Joseph “CJ” Pansarosa, III, of Fresno, California; and John Frederick Pansarosa, of North Fork, California.

Great Grandchildren include Amanda Rose Valek, of Hudson, Indiana; and Rilee Katlinn O’Donnell, of Toledo, Ohio.

Surviving first cousins, most of whom who maintained a close bond through childhood adventures in Appleton, Wisconsin, and later through a steady stream of kind cards and letters, include David Quella, and his wife, Helen (Morales), of Torrance, California; Judith Rose (Quella) Randall, and her husband, John, of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin; Gloria (Quella) Siebers, of Appleton, Wisconsin; Barbara Helen (Quella) Settergren Schwanke Ruffell, of Manitowoc, Wisconsin; and Mary Grace (Quella) Kelly, of Houston, Texas.

Joan was predeceased by the father of her children, John Edward O’Donnell, Sr., of Lynn,
Massachusetts, in 1969; her second husband, William Howard “Steve” Stephenson, of Clements, Kansas, in 1978; her third husband, John Ossa, of Tomasovce, Czechoslovakia, in 2001.

Also predeceasing Joan were two children, her infant daughter, Mary Ann O’Donnell, in 1953; and her eldest son, Dr. Robert W. Stannard, of Danville, California, on January 16, 2020, one year and one day before her own death.

There is no funeral planned. In addition to receiving Last Rites while she was still able to respond, the family honored Joan’s religious tradition immediately after her death by chanting the Rosary for the Faithful Departed in English, and listening to the Rosary recited in Latin by Franciscan Friars, together via Zoom. Joan’s family listened to a profoundly moving version of Ave Maria, attributed to Guilin Caccini and reverently sung by the great Andrea Bocelli, live from the Basilica Di Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, Italy.

If you are so inclined, pray the Rosary, as Joan often did for those in need. Joan was especially devoted to St. Jude and The Virgin Mary.

Burial at a later time will be conducted by Catholic Clergy at The Riverside National Cemetery, in California, where Joan will be interred beside her last husband and intrepid traveling companion, WWII and Korea U.S. Army Air Corps Master Sargent, John Ossa.

To honor Joan’s memory, consider having a little cocktail- a Margarita with a side of Grand Marnier or a Rob Roy were her favorites- and listen to some very, very good music. Bonus points for dancing the Cha-Cha or Rumba while you do it.

Donations or Mass intentions may be arranged by contacting St. Joseph's Catholic Church Father James P. Leary, O.F.M. Cap. 404 West Lawrence Street Appleton, Wisconsin 54911, (920) 734-7195.