Elaine Ann "Penny" (McDermott) Bunn
8/24/38-6/18/2022
“El que lee mucho y anda mucho, ve mucho y sabe mucho.”
"He who reads a lot and walks a lot, sees a lot and knows a lot"
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
8/24/38-6/18/2022
“El que lee mucho y anda mucho, ve mucho y sabe mucho.”
"He who reads a lot and walks a lot, sees a lot and knows a lot"
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Elaine Ann “Penny” (McDermott) Bunn, 83, died peacefully on Saturday, June 18, 2022, surrounded by her children, in Middletown, New Jersey. She was born in Philadelphia to Marie Elizabeth Shields and Joseph Peter “J.P.” McDermott, grew up in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania and Ocean City and Margate City, NJ and graduated from Atlantic City High School in 1956. She received a B.A. from Chestnut Hill College, Philadelphia; an M.A. from Middlebury College in Vermont and Madrid; and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1976. She taught Spanish Language and Literature at Randolph-Macon Women’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia – where she met her former husband Richard Bunn -- and at Rutgers University and Douglass College, New Brunswick, from 1968-1981. She settled into her teaching career in the Spanish Department of Drew University, Madison NJ, where she taught courses on Cervantes and the Spanish Civil War, and traveled extensively to France, Spain, Italy, Ecuador, Chile and beyond. She is the author of Audiences of Empire: Lope de Vega, the Spanish History Play and Me. She treasured advising her students and programming events on and off campus (including 24 hour readings of Don Quixote, trips to Spanish restaurants, museums, and the opera), and she retired in 2007 as Professor Emerita. She lived with Parkinson’s Disease since 2000.
She will be remembered for her contagious laugh, ready smile, and lifelong love of Spanish theater, opera, classical music, playing the piano, Coffee Nips candy, and ice cream in all flavors. She was a member of the Modern Language Association and the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese and she had a long interest in the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (serving at one time on its board of directors). Professionally, she thoroughly enjoyed directing study abroad programs in Madrid, Ecuador and Chile and for two years directed the Madrid program for Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN).
Dr. Bunn is survived by her daughter, April Lynne and her husband Kevin Barry, of Red Bank, NJ; twin sons, Colin Lewis and his wife, Mary and children Griffin Michael Elizabeth McDermott of Chicago, IL; and Austin Lee and his partner Bob Hazen of Ithaca, NY; and her sisters Joan Forry of Margate, NJ, and Carol Sue and her husband, Ken Forester of Maywood, NJ and Petaluma, CA. She was predeceased by her brothers Lt. Col.(Ret.) Joseph Barry McDermott of Louisville, KY and Dr. Ronald Peter McDermott of Austin, TX and her former husband Richard Bunn of Blawenburg, NJ.
In retirement, she loved volunteering as a translator at the Parker Family Health Center in Red Bank, providing care for the uninsured. Consider a donation to commemorate Elaine’s life https://www.parkerfamilyhealthcenter.org/
Visitation and a Memorial Service will be held on August 21 in Highlands, NJ. Click below for more details
She will be remembered for her contagious laugh, ready smile, and lifelong love of Spanish theater, opera, classical music, playing the piano, Coffee Nips candy, and ice cream in all flavors. She was a member of the Modern Language Association and the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese and she had a long interest in the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (serving at one time on its board of directors). Professionally, she thoroughly enjoyed directing study abroad programs in Madrid, Ecuador and Chile and for two years directed the Madrid program for Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN).
Dr. Bunn is survived by her daughter, April Lynne and her husband Kevin Barry, of Red Bank, NJ; twin sons, Colin Lewis and his wife, Mary and children Griffin Michael Elizabeth McDermott of Chicago, IL; and Austin Lee and his partner Bob Hazen of Ithaca, NY; and her sisters Joan Forry of Margate, NJ, and Carol Sue and her husband, Ken Forester of Maywood, NJ and Petaluma, CA. She was predeceased by her brothers Lt. Col.(Ret.) Joseph Barry McDermott of Louisville, KY and Dr. Ronald Peter McDermott of Austin, TX and her former husband Richard Bunn of Blawenburg, NJ.
In retirement, she loved volunteering as a translator at the Parker Family Health Center in Red Bank, providing care for the uninsured. Consider a donation to commemorate Elaine’s life https://www.parkerfamilyhealthcenter.org/
Visitation and a Memorial Service will be held on August 21 in Highlands, NJ. Click below for more details
Photo Credit: Blake Phillips on the Camino de Santiago headed to Cireuña, 2022