Joan Flewell Pennock

Joan Flewell Pennock went to be with her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on July 3, 2025.

Joan was born on February 14, 1930, in Sioux City, Iowa to the late Burt Donaldson Flewell and Jean Flewell. Her Valentine’s Day birth led to a life full of love for the Lord, family, music, travel, and anyone she met.

Growing up in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, she displayed her family’s gift for music from an early age. She graduated with a music degree as a voice major from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, playing French horn in college and in the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra with Peter Schickele. After graduation, she began her teaching career in Minnesota as an elementary music teacher, later teaching in the school for the blind in North Dakota, and teaching Army dependents in Germany. She came home to New Jersey for 16 years, where she taught high school choir, directed yearly musicals, and nurtured young musicians like Dan Wagner, who helped bring her to Liberty in Lynchburg, VA. She also sang in choirs in Philadelphia, including the Singing City Choir, with whom she sang with many times with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the batons of Eugene Ormandy, Leopold Stokowski, and Igor Stravinsky.

Joan moved with her mom to Lynchburg in 1977 to teach at Liberty Baptist College (later named Liberty University) where she taught voice, choir, and music, and directed the first five musicals there. She retired from Liberty in 1992.

In 1984, she met the love her life, Walker Pennock, when they both were playing brass for Easter at Rivermont Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Lynchburg. They were married in 1986 and spent a very happy 39 years together teaching, playing, and singing all over Central Virginia, with the Lynchburg Symphony Orchestra, church groups, brass groups, and theater groups. Joan enjoyed extensive travel before marriage: Japan, Thailand, Israel, Hong Kong, and all over Europe. Joan and Walker visited Europe together five times, the last in 2015 with the St. John’s Episcopal Church Choir when they sang in cathedrals in England and Wales. She suffered two strokes in 2016, a month after playing her last LSO concert. She taught her last voice lesson the day before her strokes.

Joan was active in many other areas including running, finishing the Virginia Ten-Miler in 1985, and finally a 10k (6.2 miles) in 2012 at the age of 82. She was an accomplished knitter and bobbin lace maker. She made her own wedding dress and a miniature of it for a friend. She loved to cook and bake. For a time she catered high teas.

She read her Scofield Bible every day, reading it through every year. She served as an elder in New Jersey and later at Rivermont Evangelical Presbyterian Church. There she also sang in the choir many decades (sometimes directing), played in the handbell choir, and would do almost anything for someone who needed help. She took mission trips to Haiti and twice to Russia to help spread the gospel.

In addition to her parents, Joan is pre-deceased by her dear brother and sister-in-law, Don and Ruth Flewell. She is survived by her husband Walker; her nephew Don Flewell (Jackie); their children Lindsay, Hannah, and Austin (Elisa); their children Leah and Cal; her niece Janet Boan (Reggie); their children Whitney Rodgers (Will) and Kristen Stoia (Brett); and their children Allie and Nathan.

I’d like to thank Gentiva Hospice for their kind, and loving care this past year.

There will be a Memorial Service for Joan at Rivermont Evangelical Presbyterian Church on Saturday, July 26, 2025, at 11am. Those wishing to donate in memory of Joan, please send donations to Rivermont EPC. Inurnment will be at a late date in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.

Tharp Funeral Home & Crematory, Lynchburg is assisting the family.