Joan Fallon Fleischauer

Whether she was planting flowers or sewing Christmas decorations, Joan Fallon Fleischauer made the world around her more beautiful.
She died Wednesday, May 28, 2014 at her home in Bethel Park. She was 83 and had recently been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Joan was born to the late Charles and Anna Marie Fallon in Pittsburgh in 1930.
Twenty-one years later, she married her sweetheart, Richard (Dick) Fleischauer. She followed him to California before the couple settled in Mt. Lebanon and raised three children.
The oldest of five children, Joan took to feeding people. She cooked often, but her most sought-after dish was one of her simplest: a mixture of onion, cream cheese and milk called Grandma Dip. It's a family staple, like a cookie table at a Pittsburgh wedding.
Joan had a good sense of humor, and she knew how to use a needle. She hemmed pants, cross-stitched decorations out of cloth and string and ran a gift shop called The Chalet in Mt. Lebanon.
Later in life, she and her husband moved to Bethel Park, where they continued to keep a beautiful garden.
Aside from her husband, she leaves her son, Richard Fleischauer (Cassie), of Rockwood; daughters, Kathy Comer (James) of McMurray, and Jane McCarty (John), of Brookline; sister, Janet Batson (Joe), of Avon, Conn., brothers, Richard Fallon (Brenda), of Bluffton, S.C., and William McClain (Sherry), of Monroeville; eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Mass of Christian Burial will be held at St. Thomas More Church in Bethel Park, Monday, June 2, 2014 at 12:30 p.m. Internment in the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies, Bridgeville, PA.