ALTAMONT — Joan Benson was a “good, kind, happy, compassionate person, a lover and patron of the theater, and most importantly, a loving, caring wife and mother until her last breath,” her family wrote in a tribute.

Mrs. Benson died on Friday, March 30, 2018, “peacefully in the arms of her husband and son,” her family wrote, at Albany Medical Center after a valiant four-month struggle with pancreatic cancer. She was 73.

Joan Foss (née Copeland) Benson was born in Albany on June 24, 1944, to Dr. John Copeland and Louise Foss Copeland. Dr. Copeland was a dermatologist, who served as the superintendent of Albany Medical Center in the 1930s, and Mrs. Copeland was a nurse. Joan was the youngest of their three daughters.  

Growing up — and for every summer of her 73 years — Mrs. Benson would spend her summers at her family’s camp in Taborton, New York. “I think that’s where Joan began with the idea that she loved being around kids and that’s why she went into education,” Charles Benson, her husband, said.

Mrs. Benson’s father had built a playhouse for her and her sisters at the camp and, when they were older, they ran their own little school for the younger children on the lake, Mr. Benson said. “There are still residents there that talk about the school,” he said.

Mrs. Benson graduated from the Albany Academy for Girls in 1962, from Centenary College for Women in 1964, and from Syracuse University in 1966, where she studied elementary education.

It was in Syracuse where Mrs. Benson would meet her future husband.

Mr. Benson laughed when he was asked how he and his wife met, because

he was in seminary training to become a priest. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree and decided to take a year off before going back and earning his master’s degree.

During that time, Mrs. Benson began teaching fourth grade at Lakeshore Elementary School in North Syracuse. After two years, she decided it wasn’t the best place for her, Mr. Benson said, and, in 1968, she became the family worker at the Syracuse Northside Catholic Youth Organization.

Joshua, Mrs. Benson’s son, laughed when he said that his mother was first introduced to his father by someone who said proudly, “This is Miss Copeland; she is our first Protestant.”

“Over the course of the year, our relationship grew and we became best friends,” Mr. Benson said. Although he did go back to school for a year, he said, “My heart lay elsewhere.”

The couple married on Oct. 3, 1970, and moved to Guilderland, settling in Altamont in 1974. The couple had one son, Joshua Copeland Skinner Benson.

Mrs. Benson stayed at home with Joshua for the first seven years of his life; then, for the next 16 years, she taught second grade in the Duanesburg Central School District.

Mrs. Benson’s brother-in-law, Dalton Marks, helped her husband get his first job in the Duanesburg Central School District. “The plan was to stay in the area for two to three years, and move back to Syracuse where we had a lot of friends,” Mr. Benson said. But three years became 52, he said.

During the 1970s, Mrs. Benson worked at Catholic Charities of Albany, in

community maternity services, where she helped young girls who were pregnant and were unsure of what to do — keep their child or put it up for adoption.

The Bensons didn’t just talk the talk, they walked the walk.

At one point, an eighth-grade student of Mr. Benson was having trouble in his family life and rather than seeing him end up in foster care, the Bensons welcomed him into their home for three years.

“The amount of love and support — it is very hard for me to articulate — what that can mean to someone,” Joshua Benson said. “I was never short of knowing that I was loved and supported.”

The love and respect between son and parents is undoubtedly mutual.

“A lot of the time, you talk to people whose children don’t include them in their lives after they’ve grown up — that is not the case here,” Mr. Benson said.

Recently, Joshua Benson was attending the The London Film School, and the week that he was going to direct his thesis film, Mr. and Mrs. Benson said to each other that they would love to be there to watch it, to be a fly on the wall. “But the last thing any kid would want is having their parents hang around on a film set,” Mr. Benson said.

And then the Sunday before filming started, the Bensons got a call from their son, inviting them to London. “Within half-an-hour, we had the plane and hotel booked,” Mr. Benson said.

“Josh has a great number of friends, both Joan and I were amazed at the eclectic, loyal group of friends that he has, and the fact that he included us — we are just very lucky; we have had a charmed life as parents,” Mr. Benson said.

Mr. Benson said Joshua gets his love of the arts and the environment from his mother. When Joshua was at Guilderland High School, he was a member of the Guilderland Players and went on to receive degrees in theater and politics. Joshua currently works as a filmmaker in Los Angeles.

As lovers of the theater, the couple would try to get to Broadway at least once a year.

Did she have a favorite play? “Anything that Josh was in.”

Mrs. Benson was an avid tole painter and gifted quilter, her husband said.

Tole painting is a form of folk art, applying bright colors in traditional designs on household objects, often on tinware. Over the years, Mrs. Benson won many awards for her work. She was an active member of two tole-painting groups: The Berkshire Brushes of Lanesboro, Massachusetts, and the Capitolers of Albany.

“Even though she was sick, one thing she would do is come down and paint,” Mr. Benson said. “She knew she was ill and she had all of these things that she had to check off and finish, projects that she had started, things that she had begun to knit and had to finish — and got most of them done.”

“What’s the old cliché?” Joshua Benson asked. “The older you get, the more you find out that you are like your parents. In light of what's happened recently, looking back and listening to stories, I realize that I am very much like her.”

After Mr. Benson’s first year of teaching, the couple spent the summer in Europe, “Back in the day when you could do Europe on $5 a day,” he said. After 10 weeks on the continent, the Bensons decided, once they retired, they were going to see the world.

And, from 2002, when they both retired, until Mrs. Benson died, they took 97 trips together — through safaris and cruises, the couple visited every continent on the planet, save for Antarctica. “It was a charmed life; a lot of life was packed into 73 years,” Mr. Benson said.

“My friends often remark, ‘When we retire, we want to do it like your parents; they did it right,’” said Joshua Benson. “And it's true; there are some folks that sit and do nothing, and some that continue to work into retirement; some don’t do much — my parents were none of those things.”

“Joan revered nature and was often in awe of the Earth's beauty as she traveled … An avid gardener, she loved time outside, taking walks, and working the earth,” Mrs. Benson’s family wrote in a tribute.

“When May came and we could open the camp, that was what she called her ‘happy,’” Mr. Benson said. “I called it going back to the womb, because it was going back to where she began.”

In retirement, Mrs. Benson would volunteer at Habitat for Humanity and at Catholic Charities in the Sister Mary Joyce food pantry.

“If she knew someone was remodeling their home, she would say, ‘Oh don't tear up the cabinet, call Habitat for Humanity. If you want, I'll call them for you. They can be reused; other people need them,’” Mr. Benson said.

She was on a one a one-woman mission to change the world; everything could be saved or reused.

Whenever they stayed in a hotel, Mrs. Benson would take the complimentary soaps, shampoos, and shower caps, and would bring them back with her to give to a homeless shelter, “because it was always welcome,” Mr. Benson said.

And she trained her husband as well — sort of.

“Whenever I went out, I was supposed to take the reusable bags and I got to the point where, if I got to the store and I had a basket full of stuff and no reusable bag, I would repack the basket into a reusable bag when I got back to the house,” Mr. Benson said, laughing.

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Joan Foss (née Copeland) Benson is survived by her husband, Charles Benson; by her son, Joshua Copeland Skinner Benson of Los Angeles; and by her sisters: Louise Marks of Stillwater, New York, and Mary Jane Trivers of Albany:

She is also survived by her brother-in-law, Jack Benson and his husband, David Press, of Sarasota, Florida; by her nieces: Elizabeth Marks, Katie Marks, and Katrina Trivers; and by her nephews: Geoffrey Trivers and Christopher Trivers.

Mrs. Benson’s parents died before her, as did her brothers-in-law: Dalton Marks and Alymer Trivers.

The memorial celebration of Joan Benson's life will take place 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 26, 2018 at the RPI Chapel and Cultural Center, 2125 Burdett Avenue, Troy.

Memorial contributions may be made to Habitat for Humanity, 207 Sheridan Ave., Albany, NY 12210, or to Heifer International, 1 World Ave., Little Rock, AR 72202.

— Sean Mulkerrin

Updated on May 2, 2018: The time and place of the memorial service was added.