JoAnn Rowe Skemp Bullinger passed away peacefully at her longtime home in Wilton on Thursday, May 21. She was 97. Born to Harold and Hazel Skemp in 1928, JoAnn grew up in Vandergrift, PA, a small steel town northeast of Pittsburgh. Her father was Superintendent of the Open Hearth at the Vandergrift mill, which was owned and operated by American Sheet Metal and Tin Plate Company, which later merged with U.S. Steel. Her paternal grandfather, Robert, was assistant to the vice president of the same company. JoAnn lived a very full life, though she never would have described herself that way. She wasn’t someone who sought attention or recognition. She just quietly did things extraordinarily well for a very long time. She graduated from Vandergrift High School as valedictorian, an achievement she always downplayed by saying, “It was a pretty small town,” and then followed her mother in attending Smith College, graduating in 1951.
Soon thereafter, she moved to Wilton to take a teaching position at Center School, then the town’s elementary school. She spent her professional life teaching, first at the elementary level and later at the Congregational Day School in Wilton. Even in recent years, parents and former students would stop her at Village Market or around town to tell her how much she had meant to them. JoAnn met her future husband, Henry Bullinger, at a dinner party in Wilton in the early 1950s, and they were married in Vandergrift in 1955, a marriage that lasted 70 years until Henry’s passing in 2024. Together, they raised three children in Wilton: Jan, Mark and Kate.
Outside the classroom, JoAnn stayed busy on many fronts. She was an effortless cook, making everything from coquille Saint-Jacques to Irish soda bread to the ever-famous New York Times plum tart with little effort. She was also an adventurous cook, growing kale and kohlrabi in her prolific garden before anyone knew what to do with them. She cooked Moosewood Kitchen recipes before vegetarian cooking was mainstream and served her children garden zucchini stuffed with bulgur wheat, which they defiantly renamed “vulgar wheat.” She was an early fan of Julia Child, and her complete set of Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her early edition of The Joy of Cooking were dog-eared and tattered from decades of use.
JoAnn was an avid reader, news consumer, world traveler, gardener, watercolor painter, church volunteer and lifelong learner. In her retirement, she was a regular at Wilton Library, reading several novels a week while staying current on favorite Netflix series, including “Downton Abbey,” “The Crown,” and yes, “Bridgerton” and “Emily in Paris,” all of which she discussed with her granddaughters. For decades, she was a devoted volunteer with the biannual Minks to Sinks sale, which raised money for Family and Children’s Services, and at the Turnover Shop, whose proceeds support local charities. She attended Wilton Congregational Church for more than seven decades.
During her husband’s final years, and then through the end of JoAnn’s life, the family was blessed with the live-in support of Marina Tkeshelashvili, who became a beloved member of the household. With Marina’s devoted care, the assistance of Lali Peradze, and the skilled hospice nurses at RVNA, both Hank and Jo were able to stay in the house they built as newlyweds — a home filled with a lifetime of memories and windows overlooking the meadow that had been part of the family dairy farm in the early 1900s. JoAnn is survived by her daughter, Jan Rines; her son, Mark Bullinger, his wife, Beth, and children, Sophie and Sam; her daughter, Kate Bullinger, her husband, Gary Koops, and their daughters, Grace and Charlotte; and nephews Kevin and Jeff Johnston. She was predeceased by her parents, her husband Henry, and her sister, Patricia Johnston.
In keeping with JoAnn’s wishes, a simple service will be held at Wilton Congregational Church on Thursday, June 18 at 11 a.m., followed immediately by a private burial. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in JoAnn’s name to Wilton Congregational Church or the Wilton Library.
