Joan Y. Ettinger

Joan Yvonne Ettinger, 94, died peacefully on Thursday, February 6, 2025 with family members at her side. She led a life of kindness, community, and wry humor. 

Joan was born May 19, 1930 in Detroit, the eldest child of Leroy and Marie Armstrong. Her family moved frequently during the Great Depression to find better rental housing. They eventually bought a home and settled in Redford, Michigan, where she grew up alongside her younger brother Rod.

When Joan was seven, her parents purchased a used upright piano. Within a few years, she began playing piano for Sunday School services at Henderson Memorial Methodist Church in Detroit. She continued playing with devotion for the rest of her life, serving as church organist at Rice Memorial Methodist Church in Redford for twenty-four years (1968-92). She later completed a teaching certificate at Schoolcraft Community College. She was proud to earn her own income as a piano and organ teacher, purchasing her own car so that she could travel to her students’ homes for lessons.

She met Ellis Duane Ehrstine through the Henderson church youth group, and they married on May 20, 1950, one day after Joan’s twentieth birthday. After completing a B.A. at Wayne State University, Ellis began working for United Motors (later AC/Delco), the automotive parts division of General Motors. Joan gave birth to Linda, the couple’s oldest child, in 1955, followed by Glenn in 1963. The family eventually settled in Livonia. Upon Ellis’s retirement, Joan and her husband became active in the Livonia Historical Society and served as tour guides and event organizers at Greenmead Historical Park, which preserves a selection of 19th-century homes and businesses from the Township of Livonia, as the area was known before its incorporation as a city in 1950. Following Ellis’s passing, Joan continued to serve as secretary of the Livonia Historical Society.

Greenmead also became the launching pad for a new chapter of her life. In 2002, Joan married Marlin Ettinger in Greenmead’s historic Newburg Methodist Church. Joan and Marlin, a widower, had known each other and each other’s spouses since their respective first marriages, and their relationship flowered. They bought a condo in Canton, Michigan and traveled frequently, making summer visits to Marlin’s cottage on the northern shore of Lake Erie and spending their winters in Bradenton, Florida. Soon, Joan began to paint, refining her water color techniques to capture the flora and fauna along the coastlines of Florida, Michigan, and Ontario. Following Marlin’s passing in 2010, she moved to Ann Arbor, MI to be near her daughter.

Joan spent her final two years at Briarwood Healthcare Center in Iowa City, Iowa, surrounded by mementos of her family and her accomplishments: a piano, her watercolors, and a lifetime achievement award from the Livonia Historical Society. While she remained a loyal Detroit Tigers fan, she found it easy to root for Caitlin Clark and the Hawkeyes

Joan is survived by her two children, Glenn Ehrstine (Elizabeth Heineman) of Iowa City and Linda Ehrstine of Coralville, Iowa, and grandson Julian Ehrstine. She was preceded in death by her parents, her husbands, and her brother Rodney Armstrong.

Family and friends may visit the Schrader-Howell Funeral Home, 280 South Main Street, Plymouth, Michigan at 2:00 P.M. Saturday, February 15, 2025 until the time of the Funeral Service beginning at 4:00 P.M.

Joan will be laid to rest at Mount Hope Memorial Gardens in Livonia, Michigan.

In memory of Joan Y. Ettinger, please consider making a donation to one of the following charities:

Friends For The Development Of Greenmead Inc

League of Women Voters Education Fund

The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research

Planned Parenthood - Michigan