JoAnn Tribby

JEFFERSON – JoAnn Tribby, of Jefferson, died on April 6, 2026 from pancreatic cancer. She was born on April 30, 1947 in Norwalk, Conn., and grew up on a small farm in Sandy Hook raising goats, sheep, horses, and chickens — a childhood that shaped her for life.

She earned her teaching degree from Western Connecticut State University in 1969. That same year, a honeymoon on Bremen Long Island introduced her to Maine. By 1973, she and her then-husband, Tom Hoffmann, had purchased the old Madden farm in Jefferson, where she would spend the rest of her life.

The farm was her vocation. She cared for it, and it cared for her, right up until the end. She tended animals, kept a large garden and orchard, grew and preserved much of the family’s food, and found artistry in the everyday rhythms of farm life. Her daily devotion to tending her world created roots that run wide and deep in all who knew her.

She worked in special education, co-founded an alternative school in Gardiner, ran Blueberry Hill Bed and Breakfast, and painted at Damariscotta Pottery. In 2005, she married Ellis Percy. Together they shared 31 years and a life rooted in the farm they both loved.

JoAnn is survived by her husband, Ellis; sister, Linda Meurer; children, Juliana and Jonathan Hoffmann and daughter-in-law, Holly Hoffmann, stepchildren, Delia Cunningham and Rufus Percy; and six grandchildren.

She will be dearly missed by all whose lives she touched.