Joan Hackney, 91, was a teenage Rosie the Riveter and art teacher

In the summer of 1944, Joan Marie Healy was 15, in high school, and doing her part during World War II by assembling radios at the General Electric Co. plant in her Connecticut hometown.

After Bridgeport Central High School, she graduated from the Whitney School of Art in 1951 and began teaching art in Bridgeport schools.

By 1954, she had enrolled at New Haven Teachers College, where she earned a bachelor’s degree and met John Charles Hackney Sr., an Army veteran attending the University of Pennsylvania on the G.I. Bill.

He had traveled to Connecticut as a member of Penn’s Mask and Wig musical comedy club, and the couple met after a performance. Married in 1956, they were wed 59 years until his death in 2015.

Mrs. Hackney, 91, a portrait oil and landscape watercolor painter, died at Bellingham Senior Living in West Chester of COVID-19 on Monday, April 27.

Early in their marriage, the Hackneys lived near King of Prussia, where Mr. Hackney worked for GE. Mrs. Hackney focused on rearing her children and volunteering. She was an active member of Paoli Ladies Auxiliary, and the Hackneys were charter members of the Waynesborough Country Club.

“She didn’t do much painting when her kids were younger, but she taught us, and she took us to all kinds of museums," said son Jack.

The family moved several times for Mr. Hackney’s career. After King of Prussia, they moved to Newtown Square, then Pittsfield, Mass., and then Syracuse, N.Y.

In Pittsfield, his mother taught Sunday school at St. Mark’s Catholic Church, and in Syracuse, she volunteered at the Everson Museum of Art.

The Hackneys returned to the Philadelphia area as Mr. Hackney neared retirement. They lived in Devon for 30 years before moving to Bellingham in 2015.

In addition to her son, Mrs. Hackney is survived by son Allan, daughter Anne, four grandchildren, and other relatives.

A private burial was Friday, May 1. The family plans a Funeral Mass later.

— Valerie Russ, vruss@inquirer.com