Joanne Hunter
Office administrator, advocate for the blind Age: 80
As Joanne Hunter lay in the hospital with COVID-19, her friend Cindy Van Winkle told her over the phone that she wished she could hug her.
“I can feel it,” replied Hunter, an 80-year-old known for her spirituality as well as a fondness for such warm embraces.
Only four days later, in April 2020, Hunter succumbed to COVID-19.
Hunter grew up in Seattle. Her family lived on a houseboat. She embodied a 1960s “free spirit,” attended Bellevue Community College and worked as an office administrator at multiple businesses for much of her life.
Hunter and her husband, Eric, were long involved with the Peninsula Council of the Blind and its wider chapters after Eric lost his vision because of diabetes more than two decades ago.
The longtime Bremerton resident had known before the coronavirus outbreak that her time was limited. More than two years before her death, Hunter, a lung cancer survivor, was diagnosed with terminal idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.