Joanne Backlund Of Sag Harbor Dies August 31

Joanne Backlund of Sag Harbor died on August 31 at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, after having gone into sudden cardiac arrest the previous Sunday at her home in Noyac. She was 53.

She was born at Southampton Hospital and grew up in Wainscott, having attended East Hampton High School, where she excelled in tennis. After graduation, she worked many years as an assistant manager for Simple Pleasures, a gourmet food shop in Bridgehampton. She also worked for McNamara liquors also in Bridgehampton, and as a teller for Apple Bank for Savings in Sag Harbor. Her interests included vegetable gardening, gourmet cooking and traveling at least twice a year to Lancaster County’s farming communities in Pennsylvania with her family, just to relax, said her husband, Bruce Backlund.

In 2013, she began having vision problems and was diagnosed with a rare genetic disease called Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy. The vision loss came on swiftly and her vision loss was profound. Within a couple of months, she was legally blind and forced on to disability. But she never once complained or felt sorry for herself over the past nine years of the 24 years they had been married. That’s the type of character she had, said her husband.

In addition to her husband Bruce, she is survived by her two young children, Christopher, and Emily Backlund, both of Sag Harbor. She was predeceased by her parents, Mitchell and Kathleen Mezynieski of Wainscott.

A graveside service was held Tuesday afternoon, conducted by the Hamptons Christian Fellowship and interment was in the Vaughn/Backlund plot at Oakland Cemetery in Sag Harbor. Arrangements were provided by the Yardley & Pino Funeral Home.

In lieu of flowers, the family has suggested a donation to a GoFundMe account set up in the name of Christopher Backlund, who unfortunately has inherited Leber’s disease from his mother and has already lost the sight in his right eye. He has garnered the support of both local attorney Adam Grossman and Representative Lee Zeldin, both of whom have been advocating for the U.S. FDA to approve an experimental gene therapy treatment in hope of at least saving Christopher some partial vision.