Joanne Davis Hohmeister

Joanne Davis Hohmeister died December 27, 2025, in Stamford, Connecticut just a month after she had celebrated her 100th birthday with many of her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren present.

Joanne was born on November 16, 1925, at Hackensack Hospital in New Jersey. Her childhood years were spent in Teaneck, New Jersey, where she graduated from Teaneck High School in 1943. She attended Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vt. graduating in 1947 with a major in Spanish.

She first worked in New York City and then moved back to Teaneck NJ. She stayed there until 1949, when she married Frank Hohmeister, also a graduate of Teaneck High School, and they moved to Connecticut where Frank was a student at Wesleyan University. They spent the next two years at Vets Village sitting on homemade furniture and cooking their meals on a hotplate. While frank was in school Joanne worked for Wesleyan.

After spending two years in Middletown, Frank started a new job in Torrington Connecticut that brought them to their first home, a small lakeside cottage in Winsted, where their first son Mark was born. Subsequently they moved to a small house also in Winsted, where Kurt and Peter were born. This had a large yard which provided room for the growing family of three active boys. In 1963, with the three continuously growing boys, ages 5 to 11, they settled into their home on Coe Street in Winsted where they enjoyed their gardens, yards, the woods, and fishing. Following Frank’s passing in 2015 after more than 65 yrs of marriage, Joanne moved to Norfolk to the Meadowbrook Apartments until she moved to Stamford, Ct. to be closer to her son Peter.

Besides her boys, her loves were family, friends, her faith, music, travel, and literature. Joanne was a stay-at-home mom when her sons were young. In those years she created a very loving environment for her three boys. When her sons were older, she worked as a substitute teacher at seven different schools in the Winsted area and worked as a librarian at the Colebrook School and later in Simsbury. She was a fine pianist, which was to be expected since her mother was a music teacher. There was always music playing in the house, often to the chagrin of her husband. Her love for music rubbed off on her three boys. All three are musicians and especially the youngest Peter who became a high school music teacher and professional musician. As an adult learner she took several courses at Northwestern Connecticut Community College, including library technology, art history, Portuguese, and more. She always had a great passion for learning. She learned to speak Portuguese simply for a trip to Portugal she had planned with a daughter-in-law and became quite fluent in French due to her trips to France with her husband. As a mother she wore many hats as most mothers do. She even served as a roadie for the rock band that two of her sons were in since they were too young to drive themselves. After her boys had grown she retired to join her husband at boat shows along the East Coast and enjoyed trips to Europe, Florida, and Canada. She was also active in the Winsted Area Peace Action, which started as Winsted Area Nuclear Freeze Group. They hosted Peace Fairs for many years, marched in New York City and Washington, D.C. and on most weekends, she could be seen standing at vigils in the park holding her signs for peace. She strongly believed in the statement, “The only thing needed for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing.”

She leaves three sons and three daughters-in-law, Mark (Cay), Kurt (Julie), and Peter (Hilary), as well as five grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren, two nephews, and one niece.

She was a loving mother and will be remembered by all fondly for her kindness and compassion to all her family, friends, and strangers alike. Memorial donations may be made to Middlebury College, 700 Exchange Street, Middlebury, VT 05753.

No services are planned at this time.