Joseph M. Pardee

Joseph Merritt Pardee - Joseph Merritt Pardee,79, of Monroe, beloved husband of MaryEllen Carter Pardee passed away suddenly on Sunday, July 11, 2010, at St Vincent’s Hospital, Bridgeport. He was born April 15, 1931, in New Haven, a son of William and Catherine Eames Pardee, and grew up in Orange, attending Orange Center School and Hillhouse High School in New Haven. Along with playing baseball and football, and competing on the high school swim team, he achieved the rank of Eagle Scout. Joe attended Dartmouth College, where he majored in psychology and earned his BA degree in 1953. He served in the army from 1953 until 1955. For most of his career he worked at Southern New England Telephone Company in New Haven. He specialized in developing and working with several generations of the company’s computer systems, until he retired in 1999, and the firm subsequently called him back as a consultant. A resident of the Town of Monroe for the past thirty years, he most recently worked at the Lakewood Trumbull YMCA. Joe was an active member of the Connecticut Opera Alliance and enjoyed singing bass. This love of music moved him to playing the trumpet, a pastime enjoyed thoroughly. Joe also had a voracious appetite for knowledge, studying at the Alliance Française in Paris, and published a novel, Dame Fortune’s Favor, which drew in equal parts from literature, American history and folklore, and his own creative imagination. In town, Joe was a member of the Monroe Democratic Town Committee, Zoning Board of Appeals and Assessment. He is survived by his loving wife MaryEllen, his five daughters, Florence Hansen, Theo Gerchy, Mary Pardee, Penelope Vann, and Susan Talbot; his son Joseph Pardee; his two brothers William Pardee and Scott Pardee; and his twelve grandchildren, four great grandchildren, and many nieces, nephews and friends, as well as his constant companions, his poodles. Calling Hours: 4 to 8 PM Thursday in the Spadaccino and Leo P. Gallagher & Son Community Funeral Home, 315 Monroe Turnpike, Monroe, CT. Funeral will be held Friday 11 AM at the Funeral Home and Burial to follow at the Orange Center Cemetery in Orange, CT