Lee Hubinger

Lee Hubinger, age 75 of Wayne, passed peacefully at home on Monday, December 23, 2019.

Lee was born to the late Samuel and Mabel Sampson in Brooklyn, New York and at the age of three her family moved away from the city to Wayne.  In 1947 Wayne was a very rural area and a town centered around life along the Pompton River.

Lee met her future husband while working as a waitress in a local diner. A young man wearing a Marine Corps uniform with brilliant blue eyes took a seat in her section and she was smitten.  She gave the handsome military man a large piece of pie that she described as too big for a single portion but too small to divide in two. Well the boss saw the size of the piece of pie she gave him and Lee was fired from her position.  They fell in love and married on June 12, 1966. Lee and Edward bought the home next door to her parents to foster a loving family centered home life of which she just celebrated the 51st anniversary in the home.  They had a loving and devoted marriage of twenty-one years that was blessed by a family of four children before Edward’s passing in 1987.

After her husband Edward’s passing Lee stepped up to provide the most stable home life possible for her children.  She was selfless in making sure her kids always had what they needed and would go without just to make sure they had whatever they wanted. She was loving and giving and strong willed when it came to raising her children.  When the kids would ask “why” she would respond “because I’m the mother!”  She was an awesome cook and her homemade Thanksgiving stuffing was her specialty. For many years the children remember the family bedroom change where everyone would switch bedrooms in the house. Everyone would have to move their bedroom furniture into their new room at least once a year. As the years went by and Lee had grandchildren they all had different names for her.  She was known as Granny, Grandma-Grandma, and Whatever.  She got the name “Whatever” when Denise got married and Lee told her husband to be he had to stop calling her Mrs. Hubinger and said he can now call her Mom, Lee, or Whatever.  He chose Whatever and it stuck for the past 30 years.

Lee was always smiling and concerned that her kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids were doing ok. While her grandkids were playing the game Odds Are in the yard one of the grandkids said “odds are Whatever won’t eat a dandelion” which prompted Lee to bend over and pick a large dandelion from the yard and eat it.  The grandkids thought it was hysterical.  A glimpse into Lee’s family centric heart was evidenced just recently that even though she herself was bedbound she was always making sure everyone else was ok. Even until the end, each and every night, Lee  would send a message to the family group text simply reading, “prayers, hugs and kisses” as her family was in her every thought. She was a confidant to many in her family and always had time to listen and give any advice she could.

She was the loving wife of 21 years to the late Edward Charles Hubinger III (d. 1987); she was the loving mother of the late David Brown (d. 9/15/2019) and his surviving wife Susan of Chambersburg, PA, Denise Shaw and her fiancé David Rubino of Parsippany, Edward Hubinger of Wayne, and Joseph Hubinger and his fiancé Susan of West Milford; cherished grandmother of Nicholas Brown and his wife Nicole, Samantha Brown, Daniel Brown and his wife Dee, Casey Shaw, Kerri Shaw, Ryan Shaw, Nicholas Hubinger, Joseph Hubinger, Jr., and Ava Lynn Hubinger; proud and loving great-grandmother of Chloe Brown and Olivia Brown and Kyle Brown; loved sister of the late Samuel B. Sampson, Jr. and the late Ruth Sampson; dearly loved aunt of her nieces Dione Visvardis, Christa Visvardis, Stephanie Visvardis, Valerie Gumina, Donna Gunich and nephews Michael Sampson and Russell Sampson.

Those inclined to make a memorial donation in Lee’s memory as asked to consider The Wayne First Aid Squad or MDA, Muscular Dystrophy Association.