Joni Alane Hardwick Maliszewski

Joni Hardwick Maliszewski

March 14, 1956 – October 29, 2026

Joni Alane (Hardwick) Maliszewski passed peacefully in her sleep surrounded by her family on October 29, 2026, after a 5-year fight with stage IV lung cancer.

Joni is survived by her loving husband of 45 years, Lance Maliszewski, her sister June (Hardwick) Broyles, along with her daughters Alison (Maliszewski) Brooks, husband Noah and children Elena (4) and Levi (1) and Dana (Maliszewski) McGowan, husband Micah and children Roman (10) and Lennox (7). She also was preceded in death by her parents, James Hardwick and Jean (Hardwick) Hansen, and younger sister Jill (Hardwick) Stevens, and is remembered by countless cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews near and far, not to mention the thousands of friends and acquaintances who have met her or known her.

Joni had the gift of keeping in touch with so many people throughout her whole life, and of never, ever meeting a stranger. She would talk to anyone, was so genuine when she shared stories with others, and served as the historian and glue that cemented her family together. She was always quick to bring a meal or a homemade dessert to anyone in need, and loved planning special events—be that a school fundraiser, holiday gathering, a 5 am Royal Wedding party, or her infamous Snowman lunch. She never forgot a birthday and was a prolific card-writer. She loved people and treated everyone like family. She was an AVID sports fan who loved the Olympics, March Madness College basketball, the New England Patriots, and most especially her UConn Huskies. She loved the humanity of sports and was always cheering for the underdog and the home team. She had the biggest heart and touched countless lives.

Joni was born in Wilmington, Ohio to James Hardwick and Jean (Boudrow) Hardwick. She has many fond memories of time spent with her father’s family there and always kept in touch with her “Ohio family” throughout the years. At the age of 2, Joni’s family moved to their house on Shirley Street in Winthrop, Massachusetts, a home which backed up to her maternal grandmother’s house—her Nana, Alice Boudrow. This would be her childhood home where she would be joined by her two little sisters, Jill and June, as well as 15 more younger cousins! Joni always took the role of “eldest cousin” very seriously and was chief babysitter, recipe organizer, and holiday maestro for many years, especially when she lived in New England. Her maternal cousins, connected by the five Boudrow siblings, are always “Boudrow Strong” and have stayed incredibly tight throughout the years. Winthrop is also where she would make some of her best friends, especially her “second family,” the Rossi family, who lived right next door. Her best friend by far was Joanne Rossi, who was a constant in her life from first grade on. In 2013 those two even got to fulfill a lifelong dream of Joni’s with a two week trip to New Zealand to celebrate 50 years of friendship. The “Basic Jo’s” as they were known had the kind of friendship that grew with all the seasons of life, the kind we all should be so lucky to have.

A proud alumni of Winthrop High School, Joni was always full of school spirit and was heavily involved in school life, from cheerleading to committees, and has done a remarkable job of keeping in touch with so many of these friends. Despite a brief move to Georgia her junior year, she was voted Most School Spirit (female) her senior year and graduated in 1974. She was able to reconnect with many schoolmates at class reunions—even discovering how many of them had secret crushes on her in high school—and at a special 70th birthday party thrown by her husband, Lance, in Winthrop this past March. She continued to keep this group present in her life even while on hospice through social media, texts, cards, and especially a regular group video conference that Lance set up for her.

During high school in Winthrop, a car accident on junior prom night would land Joni in the hospital with a fractured jaw at age sixteen. This event changed the trajectory of her life in two ways: first, it showed her for the first time just how physically tough she was and the world just how high her threshold for pain was. Secondly, having so many surgeries on her jaw at such a young age piqued Joni’s interest in the medical field. This, along with her neighbor Doctor Rossi, DMD, is what made her decide to pursue a career in dental hygiene.

Joni, ever determined, found a way to put herself through college and attended Westbrook College (now part of the University of New England) in Portland, Maine and earned her associate’s degree in dental hygiene. While there, she had a full course load but still found time to make some of the best friends of her life. Her “Brookies” (Lisa Breglio, Nancy Heath, Lin Loftus, Liz Reinsborough, Julie Schoppee, Cilly Crete, Wendy Knowles, and Lori Wyrms) quickly learned that Joni was one of the kindest and most fun people you will ever meet. They worked hard and played hard—enjoying themed parties, visiting each other’s friends and boyfriends at other nearby colleges, attending hockey games, and studying at Portland Headlight. At her graduation in 1976, Joni received the Maroon Award, the most prestigious prize recognizing an outstanding senior.

After college, Joni moved around New England, finally settling in Connecticut. One of her college classmates, Nancy Nolan, was dating her high school sweetheart Bill Heath, whose best friend happened to be Lance. The pair quickly set them up on a blind date, and while Lance was pretty enamored with the beautiful, witty, and funny Joni, when asked about Lance, Joni simply stated that he wasn’t her type. In fact, those who know her well are very familiar with her classic response: when asked “well then what is your type, Joni?”, she responded, “damned if I know, but it sure isn’t Lance!” He wasn’t like any of her previous boyfriends, but little did she know he would be the one who stuck by her side through every high and low that life would bring.

Joni has never eaten her words more than a few years later when she decided to take a trip to Hawaii. She thought about who she wanted to go with, and the person she chose was Lance! They had remained great friends and that friendship developed into what can only be described as one of the “Greatest Loves on Earth” (in the words of their wedding song, by the band Chicago). Anyone who witnessed a fraction of the love Lance and Joni shared know it was one for the ages—as evidenced by much of their lives, but especially Lance’s patience, kindness, and love through Joni’s cancer fights.

After their marriage in May of 1981, Lance and Joni focused on purchasing their first home, working, and continuing to fill their house with laughter and love. As always, they each made many new friends in this season of life, especially the beloved DiTarando’s and all of their neighbors on Kensington Street. Joni found fulfillment and many wonderful friendships through her jobs working in dental hygiene with Dr. LePore, Dr. Novy, and Dr. Gworek.

In 1984, they welcomed daughter Alison Joy to the family, followed by Dana Michelle in 1987. Joni spent those early years of motherhood filled with trips to the library, visits to many family and friends, museum visits, and savoring every second of each holiday season. Alison and Dana have so many fond memories of growing up on Kensington Street surrounded by friends, neighbors, and family. The house was always full, and Joni joined the efforts to re-open Highland Park Elementary School in time for Alison to start kindergarten there in 1989. Lance and Joni were always heavily involved in school life for the kids: chaperoning field trips, organizing fundraisers like the craft show, and Joni even took charge of the 5th grade yearbook in 1995 celebrating the first graduating class of the newly re-opened Highland Park school and its newest mascot, the Huskies, after the UConn women’s basketball team went 39 and 0 for the first time. Fondest memories of those years on Kensington Street include annual events such as the Manchester Road Race on Thanksgiving day, yearly trick or treating, birthday breakfasts in bed, Christmas Eve parties full of Polish Christmas Carols with the Maliszewski’s, and two of the most EPIC 40th birthday parties for both Lance and Joni, who took turns surprising one another in celebration of reaching such a milestone.

By 1997, Lance and Joni made the courageous decision to pack up and leave their wonderful community of family and friends in New England for a new adventure down south. After researching many areas, they settled on moving to Franklin, Tennessee, a then up-and-coming town that was already planning for future growth. To pick up and move to a completely new area with no jobs was a complete leap of faith, but a decision neither of them regretted for a moment. You would think that moving a thousand miles away would strain or even end some of the many friendships they had grown in New England, and for other people that may be true, but for Joni that wasn’t an option. Despite the distance she managed to keep and even strengthen her relationships with those friends, and that village has continued to support and show up for Joni throughout her life, especially during retirement and through both of her fights with cancer.

In addition to keeping in touch with everyone “back home,” Lance and Joni, unsurprisingly, grew a community of friends in Franklin. Some they met through their kids or school events, some are neighbors, but many they met through just casual conversations at parties or even in the parking lot of the grocery store when someone recognized Joni’s CTHUSKY vanity license plate! Joni found a job in dental hygiene working for Dr. Elbert Baker at a practice that specialized in treating adult patients with special needs. Joni had a wonderful soft spot in her heart for her patients and would often come home with stories of how they touched her life. She was so proud of the work that she did and brought positivity and joy to something most patients probably dreaded before Joni became their hygienist! She also made life-long friends with her colleagues at Dr. Baker’s office and was heartbroken when she ultimately had to retire from hygienist life, due in part to the passing of her beloved Dr. Baker and her body necessitating a change after 35 years of practicing hygiene.

Throughout her amazing career, Joni always said it was a great “mom career” as she continued to be Super Mom in her support of her two kids, and their new puppy Mystic. Joni was a co-founder of the now infamous Centennial Holiday Craft Show at Centennial High School, organizing over 200 vendors and generating a huge budget surge for the school, a fundraiser which has continued for the last 20+ years and is a staple for many holiday shoppers in Franklin. She also was chauffeur extraordinaire for all of Dana and Alison’s high school events—from swim meets to work study to choir concerts to musical rehearsals, and once even sewed 29 postulant costumes (plus a tiny postulant costume for a Build a Bear gift for the theater director!) for the CHS production of The Sound of Music in 2002. She also tirelessly spent months researching to help ensure that Alison was able to attend her dream school with minimal student loans, a gift which Alison has appreciated more and more the older she has gotten. She also supported Dana in her first job at Jonathan’s restaurant through her work study and helped ensure both of her kids had safe vehicles to drive, not to mention supported her girls through all the high and low emotions of teenagerdom! She also was a great daughter and sister, managing her father’s estate after his untimely passing in 1999, and welcoming both of her sisters, and later their mother, to Franklin in the early 2000s.

Joni and Lance continued to support their daughters through young adulthood—from helping purchase apartments, drives to and from Cincinnati to visit Alison, to helping Dana move to and from Florida, to welcoming various boyfriends until the day the girls each found their forever spouses. Joni loved crafting, event planning, and was the ultimate hostess—all of which was never more present than during her girls’ weddings. She worked so hard to make those days special for everyone—making homemade desserts for both events and being the ultimate organizer and supporter during the planning. The best gift, however, was showing her daughters what deep and powerful love and a solid marriage looked like.

Joni and Lance always kept themselves busy and fully embraced their new community. After retirement, Joni volunteered at the Hope Clinic for Women, ushered at the Franklin Theater, volunteered at Heritage Foundation events, and supported the local theater group, Studio Tenn. Finally, in 2016, it was time for Joni to gain her favorite new title: Nana. Joni’s heart was never so full as when she got to help first Dana and then Alison become mothers, with her 4 grandchildren arriving every 3 years from 2016 – 2025. Roman, Lennox, Elena, and Levi have been truly blessed to have a Nana like Joni who brought out the best in each of them and spoiled them rotten. From craft projects to baking to visits to aquariums to trips and especially “Nana Banana Splits” and singing favorite Nana lullabies at bedtime, all 4 of these kids had a special bond with their Nana. She was so proud of each of them and the miracles that brought them to our family. And of course, she always wanted to live up to the legacy of her own Nana.

In between being the world’s greatest Nana, Lance and Joni purchased an RV and traveled to many states in the U.S., especially one EPIC road trip spanning the East Coast during which they visited 182 different friends. During this trip she also was able to hand-deliver a special hand-made Boudrow Family Cookbook to each of her cousins. She loved traveling and special trips included Poland, Paris, Italy, and the Dominican Republic, all with her beloved husband Lance.

Throughout her life, Joni has had many beloved friends and family members affected by cancer, especially breast cancer. Our family participated in many Race for the Cure events in honor of those warriors, especially a beloved family friend Kathy Cagianello, and her own grandmother, Alice Boudrow. In 2009 Joni was diagnosed with breast cancer that was treated with surgery and radiation. These treatments helped her find remission from this cancer, but alas this was not to be the end.

In 2021 Joni was shocked to learn that she had Stage IV lung cancer. She vehemently was against smoking (even convincing Lance and later her mother to quit) and so this diagnosis did not seem real, but Joni was determined not to let this hold her back. She continued her RV travels between treatments and always explained her treatment options with a positive spin. She never wanted anyone to worry about her and took every change, treatment, and progression in stride. Throughout her journey, she always really seemed so healthy and positive and kept living life, visiting friends, volunteering, writing cards, and showing up for others. This is hugely due to the support system around her, especially the care and attention to detail of her husband, Lance. The patience with which he cared for her and the joy he found in the late season of their lives throughout her cancer treatments proved time and time again why Joni chose him, and she remembered all the way to the end of her life to tell him that he was, indeed, “her type” after all. In her own words, she also credits her faith in the Lord and the prayers and wishes of all the numerous friends she has had. She also wanted to personally thank Pastor Sean and 5 Stones Church for the leadership in faith along the way.

Her viewing will be at Williamson Memorial Funeral Home on Tuesday, November 3 from 4 – 8 pm and service on Wednesday, November 4 at 11:00 am. The service will also be livestreamed for anyone unable to join, and Lance also plans to have a memorial in Winthrop for Joni around her birthday in 2027.

In Lieu of flowers, Joni would love donations to her favorite charities: The Hope Clinic for Women, the Gary Sinise Foundation, St. Jude's Children's Hospital, or 5 Stones Church.

A mom and caregiver to the end, she also specifically wants to remind everyone to make sure you take care of yourself and get regular cancer screenings.