Joan Dillon

Joan Kent Dillon (30 April 1925 – 18 January 2009) was a teacher, a nationally known historic preservation activist and an author. Biography Early life Joan Kent was born 30 April 1925 in Lafayette, Indiana, to Gladys and Richard Kent of Tuxedo Park, New York. She grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, spending summers at the family's summer home in Whalewalk Farm, Orleans, Massachusetts. She attended Wheeler School in Providence, Rhode Island but graduated from Mary Institute in St. Louis in 1943. Dillon earned a Bachelor of Arts from Smith College in 1947. Her husband-to-be, George Chaffee Dillon of Liberty, Missouri, had served in the Navy during the Second World War, rising to the rank of Lt. Commander, then receiving an MBA from Harvard Business School. They met in Cambridge and married on 11 September 1948. That same year the couple moved to Kansas City, Missouri where George went to work first for J. Bruening & Co. then Butler Manufacturing in 1949, eventually becoming president and chairman of the board. The Dillons had two daughters and a son. Joan Dillon went on to complete a master's degree in Medieval History at the University of Missouri in 1969 with a thesis on Medieval architecture. From 1962 to 1971 she taught Ancient and Medieval History at Sunset Hill School (now The Pembroke Hill School). The Folly Theater