In Memoriam

JoAnne Duby (Zark)



 
go to bottom 
  Post Comment

10/13/15 12:12 PM #1    

Timothy Brady

 

Dearest JoAnne,

Though you were an outsider and a rebel to many, you were a sweet, warm friend who could always be counted on. So creative, you saw the world through your own prism and made it a more beautiful place. Taken from us too soon, the "light" you gave us continues to shine.

Tim B. (10/13/15)

 


01/20/16 05:39 AM #2    

Allan Weseman

Many do not know that JoAnne Duby wrote the song "Rats in My Room" for WKBW radio personality Joey Reynolds for which she never got credit or compensation.  JoAnne and I were in Miss Hazen's 9th grade art class together.


01/20/16 11:05 PM #3    

Christina Brown (Parker)

Jo spelled her name Jo Ann and liked to be called Jo. She said, "I don't call you by your first and middle name; why should you call me by mine?" She was a talented artist, a flaming redhead, and a young lady who knew who she was and who she wanted to be, with a strong will. Once we were sitting at Castle's with a group on a frigid winter day when Jo's younger brother appeared outside the window and began making faces. Jo went outside, wearing nothing over her light blouse, to chase him off. She never even shivered. When she came back in everyone was saying, "Weren't you cold?" She just shrugged it off. She said to me privately, "Of course I was freezing. But I couldn't let them see that."

In the same way, she never let anyone feel sorry for her family's poverty. She told funny stories about the way she could be in her South Street kitchen and hear conversations from the next apartment as if the people were in the same room. When she thought someone upstairs was running a house of prostitution, she and a friend hung a red light as a joke. She even laughed about sitting on her porch and being mistaken for someone from that upstairs apartment. She told me in confidence that she was, historically, a Gypsy princess.

Jo and her bestie, Karen Dibley, did write "Rats in My Room" as Allan has said. They drew life-size portraits of the Beatles that hung in Mr. Stewart's English classroom. They worked on sets for the Drama Club. Jo's dream was to work for the Disney studios as an animator, but it was never to be realized. She and I lost touch sometime after high school when my family left Lockport. When I found out, at our 10-year reunion, that Jo had died in a motorcycle accident at age 25, I developed a headache and had to leave early. I felt terrible that this indomitable spirit had left us so tragically early.

 


01/21/16 09:23 AM #4    

Lisa Sieg

What beautiful testimonials. They made me cry

01/22/16 12:24 PM #5    

Elizabeth Donahue (Cobb)

Beautiful and touching tributes. 


01/22/16 01:34 PM #6    

Allan Weseman

When in Miss Hazen's art class we made these large mural pictures that were hung down in the cafeteria....I wonder if they are still there.  I have been a motorcycle rider along with my father and brothers in the past.  Every time I passed the Niagara County produce where Transit and Millersport highway meet, I would think of Jo Anne and Mike Dibley who died there hitting that tree.  It kept me from acting just a little too smart on my bike.


01/22/16 11:00 PM #7    

Bruce Stevens

I had borderline rememberences with Jo during our highschool years...we were on the same on the outside, looking in, forgive my pretence, yet as free souls and independent visions all that I now feel is ALL of us is meant to live within ourselves, yet be able to feel to dream, to find a future that is as one with ourselves.  As I read those closer, the realizition that JO knew in her presence, a smile could always be found within her...God Bless 

 


06/21/16 05:50 PM #8    

Terri Smith (Weber)

Jo,

I had forgotten all about “Rats in my Room “How could that be!  I remember Karen Dibley listing cryptic messages from Joey Reynolds WKBW in response to Jo’s phone calls; Jo’s beautiful sketch of Beatle George Harrison, the favorite. You followed your own path and were a free spirit,  a good and loyal friend. 

Terri Smith Weber


06/28/16 03:09 PM #9    

Timothy Brady

 OK, it's time to start Lockport urban myth legends. Jo has a whopper of an urban myth that should be told and I'm going to be the one to do it!  Circa 1968 or 69 this was told to me second or possibly thirdhand but I'm sure it really did happen… 

Jo had fallen madly deeply in love with a local wannabe "biker".  The guy was possibly a low-level drug dealer, petty thief no good loser.  Just the kind of project that any red-blooded American girl would want to take on! " I know I can save him, I love him! "  , you get the picture. In order to prove her undying love for this guy Jo has to present him with something that he will treasure forever. He tells her the one thing he's always wanted but couldn't afford or steal was a pair of black leather jeans. Thank Jim Morrison Lizard King era. Jo has a plan.  She buys half a cowhide of top grain kid glove black leather. With a little help from her friends, she breaks into the trailer this guy has and steals a pair of his perfectly worn in Levi's.  She disassembles the Levi's piece by piece and traces them onto the cowhide. Remember, Jo was a terrific seamstress.  She presents this loser with a perfectly broken in hand made custom-built rockstar pair of black leather jeans! 

Voila! A Lockport urban myth legend is born. All hail Jo Duby, the Lizard Queen of Lockport!

Tim B.

 


06/29/16 10:29 AM #10    

Gary Aikin

From the Tonawanda News (North Tonawanda, NY) newspaper, Wednesday 24-Jul-1974, page 11:

Rites set tomorrow for accident victim

Funeral services are scheduled for 11 a.m. tomorrow at Lange Funeral Home, 186 East Ave., Lockport, for Mrs. JoAnne Zark, a 25-year-old North Tonawanda resident fatally injured in a motorcycle accident early yesterday in which her companion also was killed.

Mrs. Zark, who resided at 11 Second Ave., was a passenger on a motorcycle operated by Arthur P. Dibley III, 22, of x93 Davison Road, Lockport.  Both were pronounced dead at the scene of the accident at Millersport Highway and Transit Road, Clarence.

The motorcycle was being pursued at the time by an Amherst police car at speeds which reached 110 mph, according to Police Capt. Kenneth Braun.

Private funeral services were conducted today for Mr. Dibley.

The Erie County medical Examiner's office reported the victims died of multiple injuries.

Mrs. Zark's husband, Gregory, is a musician and was in Cleveland for a performance at the time of the accident.  He reportedly was located by state police yesterday and notified of the accident.

Mrs. Zark, according to a relative, had been at her mother's home in Lockport and accepted an invitation for a motorcycle ride from Mr. Dibley, the brother of one of her female acquaintances.

Police said the motorcycle passed an Amherst police cruiser at a speed in the 80-90 mph range on Millersport near Hopkins Road, and Patrolman Gene Jerge gave chase.  The motorcycle crashed through the Niagara County Produce Market and struck a tree.

Patrolman Jerge's car struck a guard post and sign, but he reportedly was not injured.

----------------------------------------

From the Tonawanda News (North Tonawanda, NY) newspaper, Wednesday 24-Jul-1974, page 14:

Obituaries

ZARK --  JoAnne L. Zark of 11 2nd Ave., North Tonawanda, suddenly Tuesday (July 23, 1974).

She is survived by her husband, Gregory Zark of North Tonawanda; her mother, Mrs. Arlene Duby of Lockport; two brothers, John A. and Stephen A. Duby, both of Lockport; one nephew, one aunt, one uncle and several cousins.

Funeral services will be held Thursday, July 25, 1974, at 11 a.m. at the Lange Funeral Home, 186 East Ave., Lockport.  There will be no prior calling hours.


go to top 
  Post Comment