Joan Denney Carlisle

Joan Denney Carlisle passed away peacefully on January 22, 2026, in her long-term care suite at Liberty Commons in North Chatham, Massachusetts, surrounded by as many of her children and grandchildren as could be there. It was the conclusion of a long and fulfilling life.
Born August 3, 1927, Joan grew up as the only child of Carolyn Denney (later Giraudy) and L. John Denney of Trenton, New Jersey. Her father was an ambitious businessman, and when AT&T transferred him to Spain, his wife and child followed, basing themselves on the French Riviera. All her life, Joan would lapse into French words and expressions she learned as a schoolgirl at St. Hubert’s in Cannes.
Stateside, they made their home in Englewood, New Jersey, where Joan acquired the first of many terriers she would love and raise during her life. Joan was the proud graduate of Montclair’s Kimberley School, Class of ‘46, where she made lifelong friendships and began her enduring fondness for that north Jersey town. She went on from there to Briarcliff Junior College in Connecticut, graduating in 1948 with a degree in Radio and Creative Arts. This in turn led to working in radio programming for WMGM, New York.
When World War II finally ended, American soldiers began heading home, and Joan met one of them on the beach at Spring Lake, New Jersey. First Lieutenant Robert Dix Benson Carlisle noticed with interest the one-shouldered bathing suit she was wearing, and by and by, the two of them began dating. They clicked, both enjoying dressing up and immersing themselves in the razzle dazzle of Broadway – the dining, dancing, and musical theatre. In February 1950, the two were married at Manhattan’s Little Church on the Corner.
A Passaic, New Jersey-based graduate of Princeton, Rob began his long writing career as a reporter, and when Newsweek sent him to Detroit, Joan naturally followed. That is where the two of them set up their first apartment, and their first child, Gordon, was born.
As the U.S. drifted into war with Korea, Rob was again called up for service and was stationed in Tokyo. Joan petitioned the Army to let her and their son join him, and in 1952, the military acquiesced. She became fascinated with Japanese style and culture and again picked up expressions her children heard the rest of her life. Tokyo was also where she studied the art of floral arranging, which never ceased to delight her and began her lifelong pursuit of acquiring unique pieces of furniture and colorful clothing.
Back in the States, they bought their first house in Verona, New Jersey. Second son Scott appeared in 1954, followed by Malcolm in 1958. Suddenly, the Verona house became a little too small for the five of them, and they found a bigger one in Montclair, the next town over. A fourth son, Stuart, arrived in 1963. When Joan wasn’t clothing, feeding, or cheering on her four growing boys, she volunteered for the Montclair Junior League, even going so far as to join the kick-line finale of their annual fundraiser. A true nurturer, Joan also volunteered as a nurse’s aide at Mountainside, Montclair’s acute care hospital, consoling patients the way she did her sons when they were sick or injured.
Joan was young at heart, occasionally playing little tricks on her boys to surprise them. One recollection from Gordon was one Halloween, where she threw a sheet over herself and floated into a gathering of the children on the street as a ghost, taunting them in a squeaky voice with one silly question after another. They had no idea who she was and taunted her right back. Admittedly, things were getting a little tense until she finally threw off the sheet.
"Oh, my God!" gasped one of their friends, "It’s your mother!"
Rob and Joan had many friends in Montclair but after his mother died and their children left home, Rob decided what he really wanted was to relocate to where the family had vacationed every summer since the late ‘50s, Chatham, Cape Cod. In 1989 they found a nice new house near Oyster Pond, big enough to accommodate not only all their books, furniture, and artwork, but their now-adult sons, their girlfriends, and a whole host of friends and relatives.
As patriotic members of what came to be called the Greatest Generation, Rob and Joan developed into real "news junkies," filling a good deal of their time absorbing the news of the day. No Chatham 4th of July parade would go by without Joan standing on the curb waving her little American flag.
As devoted a mother as she was to her four boys, Joan was especially thrilled to be a grandmother. In Malcolm’s and Jill’s family she was "Granny," in Stuart’s and Lindsey’s, "Bada." Either way, she was delighted to have little ones around her again. Mothering was just in her genes. She doted on each of them, fascinated by the course their lives took as they grew up. She and Rob went to as many plays, art shows, graduations, hockey games, and figure skating events as possible, and after Rob died, Joan continued as long as she possibly could. Who can forget her getting up with her cane and dancing to Malcolm’s rock band, the Cyclones, well into her 90s?
In turn, the extended family was devoted to her, keeping in touch no matter how far afield they might be. And regardless of the summer traffic, all of them did their best to materialize on August 3rd for what her family joked was a “national holiday,” her birthday.
Joan is survived by her four boys, their wives and children including Gordon Carlisle and his wife Susan Poulin from Eliot, Maine; Scott Carlisle from Plymouth, Massachusetts; Malcolm and Jill Carlisle of Orleans, Massachusetts, and their children Byron, his wife Heather, and sister Carolyn; and Stuart and Lindsey Carlisle of West Hartford, Connecticut, and their children Emeline, Phoebe, and Stuart.
While Joan loved flowers and flower arranging, we ask that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Chatham Conservation Foundation, 104 Crowell Road, Chatham, MA, 02633; (508) 945-4084.
For online condolences, please visit         www.nickrsonfunerals.com