Joan Shore Obituary

Joan Shore of Westminster West passed away March 4th, 2020 at the Converse Home in Burlington, Vermont. Her daughter Hannah and two granddaughters, Roxanne and Madeline were at her side. She was 92 years old.

Joan was born on May 21, 1927 to Grace and John Oliver in Highland Park, Illinois. She earned her BA in English literature from the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1949. There she met and married Edward A. Shore with whom she raised four children. Ed predeceased her in 2001.

In 1950 Joan and Ed traveled to New Zealand and Tonga, where they lived for a total of three years working as teachers. These years had a profound effect on their lives, sparking a love for both teaching and travel that took them to many foreign countries over the following years.

Joan dedicated her professional life to teaching at the Putney Grammar School, the Green Street and Canal Street Schools in Brattleboro, the Westminster West School, and schools in New Zealand, Tonga and China. She also taught many friends and relatives, young and old, to paint, play music, bake, knit, sew and garden, sharing her enthusiasm with great patience.

After retiring from teaching, Joan continued to pursue her lifelong love of music and the arts, playing violin and viola in the Windham Orchestra and in chamber groups, and singing in the Unitarian church choir at the West Village Meeting House. She took classes in drawing, painting and printmaking and enjoyed attending local theater, literary and classical music events.

Joan continued to live in her own home, fully enjoying her beautiful flower gardens and wonderful neighbors until 2017, when her advancing dementia made it impossible to live independently. She then moved to the Converse home in Burlington, Vt. to be closer to family.

Joan is survived by her four children Hannah, Becky, Kaethe and Giovanni and five grandchildren Roxanne, Elizabeth, Madeline, Giulia and Leonardo.

Her family thanks the many friends and neighbors, and the staff at Converse Home who loved and helped her during her final years.

A memorial is being planned for the summer.

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Published by The Brattleboro Reformer on Mar. 18, 2020.

Memories and Condolences
for Joan Shore

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6 Entries

Roberta Geist

May 23, 2020

We just arrived back in Vermont (5/21) after spending 2 months in Indiana where my father passed away - to learn Joan had also passed. I so enjoyed my time with Joan in the Brattleboro Senior Orchestra, in fiddling with Jill Newton...and the many visits with her at her home. She was such a special person with wonderful warmth- gracious hospitality- and a sense of real joy and passion in the things she participated in. And she so loved her family. Our deepest sympathy to you...Roberta and husband Franklin too.

Carol Jones

April 29, 2020

I had the privilege of getting to know Joan in her final years. We shared great music and conversations together. Sometimes we would just sit together and hold hands. I loved her dearly and miss her every day. Peace and love to her family and friends!

Fred Newton

March 25, 2020

Note to Becky: you certainly played violin in the group. Did you alternate with Joan or Hanna? Feel free to write me at [email protected]
Fred

Nancy Olson

March 25, 2020

When I was a paraprofessional at Canal Street School in the kindergarten room downstairs (1977), Joan taught second grade upstairs. She was most kind to me, a novice teacher looking to start my career. I learned a lot from her about teaching and about life.

Judy Reed

March 21, 2020

Joan was my teacher for my 5th and 6th grade years, 1954-56. This was at the Little School, for children of Putney School faculty, located in a 2-story converted chicken house at the Lower Farm. She taught the 5th-8th grades, about 10 students in all. I think she might have been pregnant with her first child for some of that time. It was a wonderful way to spend my preadolescence. I have many fond memories of Joan and the school she helped create for us little faculty brats.

Fred (Clyde) Newton

March 20, 2020

I remember fondly the evenings of music my family shared with the Shore family with Joan and Hanna on violin, Kathe on viola, Geo on cello and I must have been on clarinet for the Mozart clarinet quintet. Ed was there along with the rest of my family as audience, but if I remember correctly, Ed was a flautist. And I remember being at their house celebrating with great jubilee the night Nixon resigned!

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