Joanne Baumunk Ford–9/5/2022

Joanne Baumunk Ford died on Sept. 5, 2022, at 89. The cause was ovarian cancer.

Joanne was an energetic, passionate, and caring person with a wide range of talents and interests and a bottomless well of positivity. She loved trees, ferns, photography, building with wood, playing the recorder, singing, and, when younger, folk dancing. She was a member of Germantown Friends Meeting in Philadelphia, where she served on several committees and was involved in many causes promoting peace. She also served as a volunteer tour guide at Morris Arboretum and Awbury Arboretum.

She was born Joanne Elizabeth Baumunk in Forksville, Pennsylvania on December 27, 1932 to Lawrence and Caroline Baumunk and grew up in the neighboring village of Shunk, where her family lived in the back of their general store. She graduated from Boston University in 1954 and, after a stint as a bank teller, taught elementary school in two Massachusetts towns. She left teaching after marrying, and gave birth to her first daughter in 1959. In 1962 she remarried, to Kenneth Ford, who had two children by a previous marriage. Joanne and Kenneth added four more children.

Joanne spent many happy years raising her children, volunteering at nature centers and libraries, and spending summers at Baumunk Lake in northern Pennsylvania, near where she grew up. Her children and grandchildren continue to enjoy a family cabin there. The store in which she grew up is still in Shunk and is still in the family.

After living in Massachusetts, California, New Mexico, and Maryland, she and Ken moved to Philadelphia in 1984. She made and kept many friends in all the places she lived.

Joanne spent much of her life devoted to children. In Philadelphia, she worked as an assistant teacher at Germantown Friends School. In Socorro, New Mexico, she read to children in the library and started a small school in her home. The Joanne B. Ford Playground in Socorro is named in her honor.

Survivors include her husband of 60 years, Kenneth Ford; her five children, Nina Tannenwald, Caroline Richards (Keith), Adam Ford, Jason Ford (Abigail), and Star Ford (Crystal); her stepchildren Paul Ford (Wendy White) and Sarah Ford-Monroe (Nick); and her thirteen grandchildren, Charlie, Thomas, Nate, Jasper, Colin, Hannah, Sky, Daniel, Casey, Toby, Isaiah, NiKolai, and Steven. She was preceded in death by her brother, Dale Baumunk, and her first husband, Peter Tannenwald.

There will be two Memorial Services for Joanne.