Joan Betty Dubow

Joan Betty Kunin DuBow (aka Joanie, Lola, Bubbe, Fire, GG, Mom) passed away on Friday, June 30, 2023, at the studio house she had been living in since September 2019, on her youngest daughter’s beautiful acreage in Bellingham, WA.

Joanie had a long life, filled with many people who loved her and countless fun activities. She spent her early years with her parents Dr. Bernard Kunin and Ruth Kunin in Freehold, New Jersey, and New York City, and her later years in California, primarily in Vista.
She leaves behind her four children: Stan and wife Diana (Peter, Asher, Alexandra), Ishi (Shoshana and Ariana), Wendy (Ren and Anya), Tami and husband Frank (Willow and Teva). She also had 3 great-grandchildren (Leila, Adina, Leia). Extended family includes the Steve DuBow clan, Merris Weber, the Jimenezes, the Wozniaks, and Dora Alvarado. Preceding her in death were her brother, her parents, and her husband.

In some ways, Joanie was a typical woman of her generation—she didn’t complete college, married and had kids early, devoted herself to her kids who, according to her, were the smartest, most beautiful and talented people in the world. She helped her kids with book reports, constructing models of human and animal bodies, cheerleading, and more. She watched them and their children perform countless comedy skits, dance performances, cheers, Hebrew songs, and Karate demonstrations.

In other ways, though, Joanie was atypical and entirely unique—she was a terrible cook, let us have any animal we wanted (including tarantulas, alligators, spider monkeys, goats, dogs, cats and more), and ate a half gallon of ice cream every night (while still maintaining a weight under 100 pounds). After her kids all moved into their adult lives, she got a Black Belt in Karate, worked out every day, and could bench press more than her adult children more than 30 years younger than she! When you moved in for a hug, you’d get a reflexive punch in the gut, followed by profuse apologies.

Although she claimed she wasn’t a people person, she invited our friends, tutors, teachers into our lives, and even policemen who gave us tickets(!), as if they were family. Everyone was invited over for pizza or to swim in the pool. Everyone had a nickname, and everyone left with a standing invitation to come back.

As one of her nine grandchildren, Asher, said at her graveside service in Oceanside, CA, “I knew Bubbe to be strong and fearless, the matriarch of the Kunin-DuBow family, the welcoming and great uniter. It will not be the same without her, but she lives on in each of us as a flame of determination and perseverance.” As another grandchild, Ariana, said: “She loved showing her strength and would try to karate chop you when you went to hug her. When I’d visit her in summers, we’d watch Whose Line is it Anyways and I Love Lucy reruns, and play various card games for hours, and get Baskin Robbins where she’d get the same thing every time - a scoop of chocolate and a scoop of coffee. She was always up for anything and loved finding things for us to do, whether it be trying archery, or going to the spa, or to Boomers, or just walking around a mall and shopping.”

Joanie will live on with all who knew her whenever we eat See’s candies, non-pareils, or watch old Hollywood movies; whenever we laugh so hard we can’t talk; and whenever we make tiny chocolate chip cookies and store them in the freezer. And as one granddaughter, Alexandra, said, “I’ll think of Bubbe when I see pints of Baskin-Robbins ice cream, when I eat a really hot pepper by accident, when I wear a stellar monochromatic outfit, when I see stuffed eggplant on a menu, or a dented drain pipe on the side of a building, when I put piles and piles of photos of loved ones on my refrigerator, when I see videos of people sky diving, and when I can’t finish a sentence because I’m laughing too hard. I’ll remember her in Dick Van Dyke reruns, every time I put on lipstick, and when I insist that I’m fine when things get difficult.”

Joanie made a big impact on everyone she knew, and we will miss her.