Joan Hill Peck, Active Winnetka Volunteer and Retired School Admin, Dies at 87

The following obituary is from Kelley & Spalding Funeral Home:

Longtime Winnetka resident Joan Hill Peck died April 16 after a long illness. She was 87.

After working in administration at North Shore Country Day School, Crow Island elementary school and Evanston High School, Joan enjoyed an active, civic-minded retirement.

Joan (whose father was well-known Chicago architect Boyd Hill) was a docent for Chicago Architecture Foundation, guiding walking tours of downtown Chicago’s world-famous buildings.  Joan volunteered for the Winnetka Historical Society, and led a popular bike tour of Arts & Crafts houses in Winnetka.

For 12 years, Joan tutored second-graders from Stephen Gale in the Good News After-School reading program at Howard Area Community Center in Chicago. Earlier, Joan volunteered at a Little Brothers of the Poor soup kitchen, and delivered meals to the elderly and homebound in Chicago.

Joan Hill was born April 5, 1927, to Boyd and Louisa Hill. Boyd Hill and his firm designed the landmark Aragon Ballroom in Chicago as well as important prewar apartments on Lake Shore Drive and many still-standing North Shore homes. Joan and her sister, Carol Gilman, grew up in Lake Forest.

After attending Dana Hall, Barat College and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Joan returned to the North Shore and raised a family.

Joan’s survivors include her four children, Dave (Debbie), Jessie (Larry Alire), Claude and Emily (Paul Mroczynski), grandchildren Megan, Kate, Luke, David and Christopher, and longtime companion Mike Malloy.  In addition to her sister, Joan is preceded in death by former husbands Normand Patton and Claude J. Peck Jr.  Details of a memorial to follow.