It is with broken hearts that we announce the passing of Joan P. Kirshner (Scheiman) who died tragically and unexpectedly on January 10, 2016. She was 74. God lent us her beautiful soul and now has gathered her back in. Joan arrived on Vashon in 1976 as part of the back-to-the-land movement that swept the counterculture in the early 1970s. She was one of the people who made Vashon weird in the first place.

Born in Queens, New York, Joan was a beatnik in the late-1950s and a participant in the Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam War movements. She studied philosophy at Bennington College and Penn State University, where she received her doctorate. Joan always had a love for working the land so when the opportunity arose for her to settle on Vashon she jumped at the opportunity – buying a 3.5 acre hobby farm on Cove road. Over the next four decades Joan’s farm was home to a steady stream of artists, writers, musicians, psychics, vagabonds, hippies, punk rockers, teepee and school bus dwellers, and fellow travelers. Affectionately called “Joan’s home for marginal adults,” over these years more than 200 people lived in her four-bedroom house or on her land.

A passionate supporter of the arts Joan served for many years on the board of Vashon Allied Arts and amassed a personal collection of works by Island artists. With more than 100 paintings and sculptures her collection is arguably the largest of its kind anywhere. A graduate of the University of Washington Law School, Joan worked as a federal attorney for the Social Security Administration, but most of her time was spent doing union work for the National Treasury Employees Union, which represented Social Security staff attorneys. Beginning as a shop steward, Joan rose in the ranks to become a national vice-president of NTEU.

Joan cared deeply about people, especially those who lived on the margins of society. She will be greatly missed and forever loved by the people whose lives she touched. She is survived by her only child, Orin Kirshner; her two grandsons, Isaiah and Stanley; her sister Susan Haberman and her husband, Meyer; and a coterie of close friends. May her memory be a blessing. Reminisces and condolences may be posted to the guest book at Vashon Island Funeral Services, www.islandfuneral.com.

Paid Obituary.