Joan Kalbacher, loving mother who liked to entertain, dies at 80

When Joan Kalbacher entertained, she went all out. A party at her home was filled with food, card games and hidden fig cookies. In the weeks leading up to Christmas Day each year, Kalbacher would make her famous fig masterpieces in secret. Why? Because the cookies were too good to resist.

“She would have to wrap them up individually and hide them so that people wouldn’t eat them before Christmas,” said daughter Tracy DelGrosso, 51, of Franklin Square.

Kalbacher, a longtime Stewart Manor resident and loving mother of three daughters, died of late-stage dementia April 8 at her home, her family said. She was 80.

When she wasn’t cooking or hiding pastries from overeager family members, Kalbacher was the life of the party, cracking jokes and displaying a sense of humor that was almost as famous as her fig cookies. (Her recipe was passed down to her three daughters.)

“She was always the center of attention and drew crowds because she had the gift of gab and the gift of being able to tell a good joke,” said daughter, Marianne Leone, 58, of Vermont.

Born Jan. 23, 1940, in Brooklyn, Kalbacher lived most of her life in Woodhaven, Queens. She attended Franklin K. Lane High School in Brooklyn and, upon graduation in 1956, took classes at Queensborough Community College.

Kalbacher was the youngest of eight children and the only girl. Her oldest brother was 22 years older than her, and she grew up surrounded by nieces and nephews closer to her age, Leone said. 

“In her house, there was always a lot going on,” said longtime friend Grace Wagenman, 80, of Florida.

When she was 16, Kalbacher met her future husband of 59 years, Donald Kalbacher, at Wilkins, an ice cream shop in Queens.

“They are the complete epitome of what a husband and wife should be,” Leone said. “My parents were friends, confidants, and shared each other's interests. My father always put my mother first and my mother always put my father first.”

Kalbacher's three daughters attended Franklin K. Lane High School, and she briefly served as president of the Parent Teacher Organization, Leone said. Beginning in the early 1980s, she also was a guidance department secretary, a position she held for 19 years.

"She absolutely loved her job,” DelGrosso said. “She loved being with all her co-workers. They all became very good friends. That was something that she enjoyed very much.”

The Kalbachers moved to Stewart Manor in 1994. She retired from Franklin K. Lane in 2001 and spent her retirement traveling with her husband, often with Wagenman and her husband, Jack, in tow.

“Wherever we went, there had to be a casino,” Wagenman said. “We went to Aruba and Paradise Island. We’d get together [later] and exchange pictures, and she’d say, ‘Why aren’t I in any of these pictures?’ We’d all look at one another and say, ‘You were in the casino.' "

In addition to her husband, DelGrosso and Leone, Kalbacher is survived by daughter Donna Ballek of Stewart Manor and eight grandchildren. A memorial service will be held at a later date. She will be buried April 21 at St. Charles Cemetery in Farmingdale.