Joan Marie Cancel (Clayton) passed away peacefully at home on April 3, 2020 at the age of 81.  She is predeceased by her parents Marvin and Dorothy Clayton as well as her siblings Patricia Zeedyk and Daniel Clayton.  She is survived by her husband Robert, her children Christine, Kathleen, John, Teresa, Joseph and her eight grandchildren.

Mom (Joan) was born on May 11, 1938 in her family home where she ultimately spent her entire life raising her family.  As a child and young woman, she grew up with horses, cats, dogs and many other varieties of animals. She felt she couldn't have grown up in a better family and childhood than the one she had been blessed with.  When she was a young woman, she and her best friend Laverne spent over a year planning their tour of the country on horseback.  They traveled the country out of a flatbed pickup truck instead of horseback.  We loved to listen to her stories of all the crazy adventures they had on this trip.  

She met  our dad working at her job at Toweko.  They had five children that she loved so well that each one of us believes that we were her favorite.  She had the patience of a saint with all our antics and mischief as children and later as teenagers that we can't believe she didn't just lock us in a room until we were old enough to throw out of the house.  She kept our secrets to this day so that only at our family parties it was one of us that would slip up and tell a story about something we did when we were younger that dad found out our secrets.  

She was our rock through everything we went through in our lives.  She was our everything.  She was the one phone call we all made that no matter what was going on in our lives a conversation with her would make it better.  We have all lost our best friend.  She is irreplaceable.  

During these extreme times where we can't gather and tell our favorite stories of Mom's life, we would love if you would share some of your favorite memories and stories of our mother Joan Marie Cancel.

Lastly, in lieu of flowers we ask that you donate to your local SPCA as each one of her cats and dogs also feel they were her favorite.