Joan Elaine Niles

Please click here to view the live stream of the funeral service. The live stream of the funeral service for Ms. Joan Elaine Niles will begin at 9:00am, on Friday, May 7th.

Joan Elaine Clarke Niles was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago on October 30, 1933, spent the last few years of her life with her daughters Beverly Niles and Success Deborah Smith in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, and died quietly and peacefully in her sleep on the morning of April 30, 2021. Joan suffered from dementia for the past decade, but remained a kind, gentle soul until the end.

Joan earned a Bachelor of Arts from the West Indies School of Theology and received her training as a massage therapist at the prestigious Bancroft School of Massage Therapy. Joan exhibited her love of God and his children as a certified minister, serving as a school evangelist and Sunday school superintendent for the Pentecostal Assemblies of the West Indies, North East Trinidad District.  

She also served as a missionary in Antigua, a licensed practical nurse in Trinidad and the United States (US), and as a massage therapist in Massachusetts and Arizona in the US.

Praising the Lord, being a devoted mother, and spreading joy wherever she went were her ways of life. Joan is survived by her five children and their spouses (Success Deborah Smith, Laverne, Beverly, Curtis and Lori Niles, and T. A. and Stephanie Niles), her three remaining siblings (Greta Jordan, Trevor, and Winston Clarke), her Sisters-in-Law (Angela Clarke, Esther Baisden, and Eudaze Niles) and a host of beloved grand and great grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and friends.

She would likely be most pleased by those who held her dear celebrating her life, which exemplified her commitment to her faith, family, and friends. In addition to the well-being of all who entered her sphere of existence, ascending to her Father’s house was her greatest desire. Her generous and joyous being will be missed here on Earth, but her spirit will live on in all who knew her.