But in an age and address of respectability, Hoisington learned a quiet independence. The top graduate of a Catholic convent in Quebec, she later earned a master's degree in physics at Hofstra University. A divorcee raising three children, she worked on the assembly lines at Grumman Aircraft during World War II. A popular teacher at Walt Whitman High School in the 1960s, she retired to raise a fourth child.

Hoisington died June 21 at the age of 84 after a seven-month battle with lung cancer. She had moved into her daughter's home in Watchung, N.J., shortly after being diagnosed in November. "It was a shock . . . My mother has always been very health-conscious," said her daughter Marjorie Prepon.