Joann Pelka

Joann Pelka, J.D., 81, of Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood, passed away peacefully July 26, 2026, after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer and several other ailments.

Born in Chicago, Joann grew up in the Lawndale neighborhood and graduated from Immaculata High School and earned her B.A. in History from Mundelein College. It was during that time, at a party in Rogers Park, that she met a tall young man. Larry and Joann danced the night away and didn’t look back. Larry never did manage to win over Joann’s chihuahua Lucky, whom she inherited from her own grandmother.

After 18 months of dating, Joann said to Larry: “I’ve given it some thought. I agree to marry you.” Larry didn’t ever recall asking. They wed at Chicago’s Assumption Church. Her wedding ring was fashioned from a stickpin owned by Larry’s mother. The couple honeymooned in Las Vegas and San Francisco. It was her new husband’s first plane ride, but hardly her own. While Joann threatened to divorce Larry on a weekly basis, the two enjoyed a 60-year marriage. The smile Joann gave Larry from her hospice bed was uniquely distinctive from the smile she gave anyone else.

After college graduation, Joann worked at Rogers Park Montessori as a teacher’s assistant until the couple moved from their East Rogers Park apartment on Albion to Oak Park, and then to St. Louis.

In 1967, she gave birth to their first daughter, Amy, who went to the same Montessori where her mother worked.

Joann was abundantly patient with young children and dogs. Her home was always impeccably clean, ready for Architectural Digest to appear. However, her grandchildren could cover the living room with toys with glee, as well as her well-loved nieces and nephews (and their children).

She also gave up her tidy lifestyle during many visits by her daughter’s golden retriever Jake. Their second daughter, Naomi, carried Trisomy 18 and lived to be almost three. Their third daughter, Jane, lived for but several minutes. We now imagine Joann reunited with her babies.

In 1977, Joann said to her husband “I’m not sure if I should become a writer, or an attorney.” In over ten years of marriage, Larry had not won a single argument with his bride, so he encouraged her to attend law school. Joann earned her J.D. from Chicago-Kent School of Law and first worked at a subrogation firm, whose biggest client was Allstate Insurance. She then found her perfect position as a trial lawyer at Metra.

Larry’s career took him to Dallas, and Joann stayed home in the wake of her father’s sudden passing. Also, she said “I just don’t have the hair for Dallas”. Larry traveled home every weekend until 1998, when Joann retired and finally joined him in Texas. The couple returned to Chicago’s Gold Coast in 2001, when Amy delivered her first child Grace. She was a devoted and cherished grandmother to Grace and Max who have an overflow of memories to comfort them after the loss of Grandma Jo.

Joann loved fine art. Any trip to Paris involved at least three visits to the Louvre, where she would spend hours. She joyfully shared with her daughter and grandchildren the love of travel. Perhaps begun in her own childhood, where she spent many winters in Hollywood Florida, traveling by train, to visit her maternal grandmother.

She was an avid reader and a spitfire of a woman, full of spicy observations and hilarious one-liners, some of them appropriate.

Beloved wife of 60 years to Lawrence James Pelka, devoted mother of Amy, Naomi, and Jane.

“Grandma Jo” to Grace and Max Mucha. Dear sister of Linda (Steven) Lastowski and adored aunt of Karen.

Preceded in death by her beloved chihuahua, Lucky.

The family has chosen a private green cremation.

Memorial mass, Friday, August 14, 10am (visitation begins 9am) at Assumption Catholic Church, 323 W. Illinois St. Chicago, 60654.

Future burial of cremated remains at Ridgewood Cemetery in Des Plaines.

Memorial donations may be made in her name to Chicago-Kent College of Law: https://kentlaw.iit.edu/law/giving.

Arrangements by Inclusive Funeral Care, 773-318-1305 or www.InclusiveFuneralCare.com.