Winnifred Eleanor Trunzo

Winnifred Eleanor Trunzo

White River Junction, Vermont

Winnifred Eleanor Trunzo, 102, died peacefully at her granddaughter Kirsten's home in White River Junction, Vermont, with her family by her side on Sunday, October 29, 2023. She was born on December 17, 1920, in Stockport, Iowa to George and Myrtle (Smith) Askew. From early childhood, she worked on the family farm in Stockport, doing chores, collecting eggs, milking cows, and driving the tractor, among everything else. When the family house burned down, she helped assemble its replacement that arrived in pieces by train from Sears Roebuck in Chicago. She taught in a rural one-room schoolhouse after high school to pay for college. She often rode her horse there and, being the only teacher, got there early to start the fire in the woodstove before the students arrived, and taught all the grades. She was proud of her students’ successes. She graduated from Iowa State University in 1944 and served as a Lieutenant in the Unites States Army during World War II, receiving her discharge in 1946. While in the Army, she met and married another Lieutenant, Thomas H. Trunzo, on February 15, 1946, in Brownsville, Texas. After their military service was completed, they began a family and she worked to support his medical career by managing finances and keeping their home running smoothly. After residing in Clairton and then Latrobe, Pennsylvania, followed by Monkton, Maryland, they settled in Berlin, New Jersey and stayed there after her husband’s retirement. She resided in Voorhees, New Jersey, during the COVID pandemic (composing short poems while in isolation) and then moved first to Bradford, Vermont, at the end of 2021and then to White River Junction, Vermont, to be closer to family. She cherished the time she was able to spend with her great-granddaughter, Keena, who was born in 2020, 100 years after her own birth. The two shared a memorable 102nd birthday celebration with Keena attempting to blow out the candles. She spent the last several months in her granddaughter Kirsten's home, surrounded by the love of family and comforted by careful and attentive care.

She is survived by two sons, Thomas Trunzo, Jr. of Orford, New Hampshire (with her longtime friend and admirer, Berit Rodsas) and Paul Trunzo of Brownsville, Pennsylvania; granddaughters Melissa Arnesen-Trunzo and husband Edwin Gong Zi Ping of Bradford, Vermont and Kirsten Arnesen-Trunzo and partner Lucas Dennis-DeVries of White River Junction; and great0granddaughter Keena Trunzo-Gong of Bradford, Vermont, as well as many nieces and nephews.

She was preceded in death by her parents, her husband Thomas H. Trunzo, Sr., sons Lewis and Ben, both from Atco, as well as her siblings William Askew, LaMonte Askew, Genevieve Thompson and Marjory McLain.

Winnifred will rejoin her husband with a burial at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Berlin, New Jersey on Monday, June 24, 2024 at 10:00 am. Memorial donations may be made to Habitat for Humanity, the Salvation Army, Doctors Without Borders or to any charity of one's choosing.

Arrangements are under the direction of the Costantino-Primo Funeral Home in Berlin, New Jersey.