(August 29, 1928 - January 22, 2006) Joan Maynard was devoted to historic Weeksville because she believed that children needed to learn its vital lessons. She was a founding member in 1968 of the Society for the Preservation of Weeksville & Bedford-Stuyvesant History and served as its president  from 1972 to 1974. In 1974, she became the Society's first executive director, a position she held until October 1999. She then became Director Emeritus of Weeksville Heritage Center (the name the Society adopted in 2005) and Ex-officio Trustee of Weeksville's Board of Trustees until her death. Joan was born in Brooklyn in 1928 to John W. Cooper, a ventriloquist, and his wife, Juliana St. Bernard Cooper, who hailed from the Caribbean island-nation of Grenada. She graduated from Bishop McDonnell memorial High School and became a scholarship student at the Art Career School in Manhattan. She also was a graduate of Empire College of the State University of new York. She attended Columbia University as a Revson Fellow, and received an honorary doctorate from the Bank Street College of Education. In the 1960s, Joan was a commercial artist, working as an art director for McGraw-Hill. She also used her artistic talent to present the history of people of African descent. She illustrated and wrote for Golden Legacy magazine, which presented Black history in comic book format. She illustrated covers for Crisis Magazine, the official voice of the N.A.A.C.P., and created The Family of AMA, a 40-panel storyboard painting with text that illustrated the African Diaspora. Perhaps her greatest achievement was keeping alive the spirit of Weeksville. Joan Maynard was the driving force behind the restoration of the historic Hunterfly Road Houses. Her passionate presentations to schoolchildren involved them in the fight to save the houses. Her grassroots leadership attracted financing from government and corporations. She even donated her own personal savings to the cause. Happily, she lived to see Weeksville's Hunterfly Road Houses restored and reopened to the public in June 2005, with much fanfare and a keynote speech delivered by then Senator Hillary Clinton. Widely recognized for her preservation work, Joan was honored as a Restore America Hero by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Home & Garden Television. She received the highest honor awarded by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, its Louise DuPont Crowninshield Award. She also received a Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award from the New York Landmarks Conservancy and a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award from Brooklyn District Attorney, Charles Hynes. Joan Cooper Bacchus Maynard. Image courtesy of Weeksville Heritage Center.