Joan W Griffiths

Due to a heating outage, Joan Griffiths memorial service has been moved to Johnson-Peterson Funeral Home (612 Smith Ave, Saint Paul, MN 55107). Times and dates will remain the same.

Joan Ware Griffiths passed away after wishing her grandchildren a “good life” on November 29, 2025, after a long battle with heart disease.

She was born an only child in Cincinnati, Ohio on September 3, 1939 to an Episcopalian minister, Joseph Todhunter Ware and the head of Family Services in Cincinnati, Anna Budd Ware.

As an undergraduate, she attended Grinnell College in Iowa where she studied sociology. Later, she earned a master’s degree while attending Smith College and Fordham University.

As a social worker, she worked in New York City at an adoption agency and later with disabled children at an agency in Cincinnati.

After meeting on a blind date, she married the love of her life, Robert H. Griffiths, Jr. on March 15, 1969. They moved to Greenville, Pennsylvania where he became a college professor and she became a stay-at-home mother. They soon moved to Waukesha, Wisconsin and then Milwaukee, where they raised their two children. They later moved to Green Bay, WI, and finally St. Paul, Minnesota in order to spend more time with their children and grandchildren.

Joan enjoyed gardening, traveling to Europe and Canada, reading mysteries, sitting in the sun with her favorite dogs, and spending time with her grandchildren. Family meant everything to her.

She is survived by her beloved husband of 56 years, Robert H. Griffiths, Jr.; her children Gwendolyn Gisselquist (nee Griffiths) (Paul), and Robert H. Griffiths, III (Stephanie); and her grandchildren, Misha Hawthorn (Dylan), Aleksander Prasolov, Lucy Griffiths, and Maggie Griffiths.

Joan was a kind and thoughtful woman whose primary goal was giving to the lives of her children and grandchildren. She will be deeply missed by her family and friends.

There will be a memorial service at Kessler Maguire Funeral Home (640 West 7th St., Saint Paul, MN) on December 14, 2025 with a visitation one hour prior. In lieu of flowers, a contribution in Joan’s memory may be made to Operation Smile, an organization that provides cleft palate surgeries to children worldwide.

Joan’s legacy of love, kindness and giving lives on through the many lives she touched.