Joan Harwood Elkins Almond
June 3, 1935 - August 28, 2021
Artistic photographer, Deep Friend, Family matriarch and a Hostess with the Mostest...
Joanie left us all peacefully in the wee morning hours of Saturday August 28th, with family and nurses at her bedside - the surf gently pounding across the rooftop garden in which she could be found in her highest delight on any better day than when she left us, the last being just 3 days earlier! Her prowess as a gardener was far more than literal; as the metaphor would have it, she was a master cultivator of joy, acceptance, freedom, gardening, and the ever-savory magic and love of garlic and vinegar, in all their culinary and metaphorical meanings!
Joan was the first-born to Ben Harwood and Jeanne Yourell, also being survived by both her siblings: Bo Harwood and Laurie David. From 1948, she dated George Elkins, Jr (son to George Elkins and Anita Wilson) until 1954, when they married. During those years, they surfed at San Onofre as members of the San Onofre Surf Club, continued studies at USC and both enjoyed all night dancing contests.
Their fathers – one a builder, the other a real estate developer - gathered forces in the mid50s to build Joan & George’s first home and neighborhood in Brentwood on Elkins Road, not far from where Joan grew-up on Medio Drive. By 1960, they bought a house on the beach in Malibu, tired of lugging 3 kids weekly to the beach. Two years later, their family of four was complete.
George passed away in 1969, just shy of his 39th birthday, leaving a trail of sadness that yet endures. In 1975, she met Paul Almond, renowned Canadian filmmaker, live-TV director and creator of the famed BBC Documentary series “7-Up”. A year after they met, they were wed, until his death in 2015 with 39 loving and fruitful years together.
Joan studied photography at UCLA, freelanced for the Malibu Surfside News, did production stills for John Cassavettes and collected Fine Photography. In later years, she passionately gave herself to the platinum printing process.
Joan’s photographic journey hit a new level later capturing film production stills for Paul, which led her to the Middle East. Over the course of twentyfive years, she came to love the native peoples who inhabited the remote deserts of North Africa, India and the Levant. Her photographic work has been widely exhibited and is included in collections at the National Gallery of Canada, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, The Getty, Brookings Institute and other private collections.
They hosted no shortage of large gatherings (in Malibu, Montréal and Shigawake – on the Gaspé coast northwest of Montréal) as they slowly morphed into further careers in their second halves of life. Her photographic works and his novel-writing are memorialized in their respective websites. They turned out to be perfect compliments to each other, cross-mirroring the family and people focuses from which the other had come in their first halves - something that neither could have done without the other!
In her family, Joan faithfully nurtured the sacred feminine family spirit that her mother and grandmother along with their sisters had been the example for - evidenced by the first and second cousins and many cousins’ parties that hallmarked the raising of her family. That spirit was ever-present in every festive occasion she hosted, whether on the beach, in downtown Montréal, Paul’s family farm in Shigawake, the Costa Brava in Spain, Costa Rica, the African savannah, or Todos Santos, Baja California.
She is survived by her four children with her first husband George: Trey (Michelle), Tracy (Dermot), Tim (Carla) & Chris (Carol), as well as her stepson (Mathew Almond, son to her late husband Paul with Geneviève Bujold). She was also adored by her grandchildren Cayley (Brandon), Andrew (Zoe), Patrick (Rachel), Paige, James (Jacky), Grace, Allie-Rose and Raye-Nicole. She jumped at every opportunity to spend time with her greatgrandchildren Max, Lyon, the twins Bo & Sam as well as Eva. Her circle of cousins and remaining friends are already sorely missing her too.
The family will be holding small memorials.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in her name to The Friends of Malibu Urgent Care Center (PO Box 6836 Malibu, CA 90265), in gratitude for how very much they were always there to care for her.