A cashier at Wegmans in Columbia knew Joan Weiskott well enough to notice when she stopped coming into the store.

When Weiskott’s husband, Alan, later told the cashier that Joan had died, the woman began to cry, came around the register to hug him and insisted on paying for his groceries. She told him that Joan and Alan had listened to her when she was going through difficulties in her marriage.

That response did not surprise Joan’s daughter, Jodi Weiskott-Wick. Her mother, she said, had a way of making people feel that what they said mattered.

“She listened,” Weiskott-Wick said. “She truly took an interest.”

Joan Carole Weiskott, a longtime Columbia resident who centered her life on family and built close connections with people in the ordinary places she frequented, died suddenly Aug. 23, her 82nd birthday.

Weiskott was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, near Coney Island Avenue and Avenue Z. She was the daughter of Helen and Jeffries Markowitz and had an older sister, Ginny. Her father, who was Jewish, worked in cabinetry and woodworking. Her mother converted to Judaism when she married him.

Weiskott attended Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn. She later met Alan Weiskott at a clubhouse party near where he lived. Alan, who was the club’s social director, helped organize dances that drew high school students by word of mouth.

The couple married and built a life together that lasted 60 years. Alan Weiskott was a purchasing agent. Their daughter said the strength of the marriage was simple: They stayed together through good periods and difficult ones, including illness and job losses, and continued to care for and respect one another.

For much of Weiskott-Wick and her younger brother Jeffrey’s childhood, Weiskott stayed home with them. Their apartment became a gathering place for neighborhood children. When she learned that one of her daughter’s friends, whose parents were divorced, regularly went home to an empty apartment after school, Weiskott contacted the girl’s mother.

“She doesn’t go to an empty apartment,” Weiskott-Wick remembered her saying. “She comes here.”

Years later, childhood friends found Weiskott-Wick on Facebook and told her how much her mother had meant to them. They remembered a parent who listened to them and talked openly with them at a time when some could not have those conversations at home.

As her children grew older, Weiskott returned to the workforce. Earlier in life, she had worked for E.J. Korvette, the department store chain. She later provided childcare and held positions in gastroenterology and ophthalmology offices. After the family moved to Arizona, she worked in security at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

After moving to Maryland, she worked on the sales floor at Target in Germantown. She enjoyed the job and the people there, her daughter said, but left to care for her infant grandson, Zev, while Jeffrey and his wife, Marci, worked full time.

Joan and Alan Weiskott lived in Columbia for the last 16 years. Family remained the center of Joan’s life. Asked what her mother valued most, Weiskott-Wick answered, “Family,” then immediately added that pets counted as family, too.

Weiskott loved animals throughout her life, from turtles named Sugar and Spice when she was young to birds, cats and dogs later on. When Weiskott-Wick and her husband, Ted, faced large veterinary bills, her parents sometimes sent money along with notes addressed to the pets, reminding them to make sure their “mommy and daddy” used it for their care.

Her Jewish identity was expressed largely through home and family. The family observed the High Holidays, and Weiskott enjoyed preparing holiday meals. Earlier in her marriage, she and Alan lit Shabbat candles on Friday nights. She also delighted in Yiddish expressions she learned and passed many of them along to her daughter.

She was not someone who needed grand occasions to enjoy herself. She loved horror movies — even ones her daughter considered terrible — cooking shows, soap operas, decorating for holidays, going out to eat, shopping at Macy’s and taking her time at Wegmans. Her familiar greeting to Jodi was, “What’s doing?”

People outside the family remembered that interest in their lives. Residents and employees at the Columbia apartment building where the Weiskotts lived came to console Alan after Joan’s death. One housekeeper told him Joan had been “like another mommy” to her.

Weiskott had struggled in recent years with back pain and mobility problems, but her death was unexpected. She had not been hospitalized or suffering from an acute illness. Earlier that day, she had eaten breakfast with Alan and was expecting Jeffrey, Marci and Zev to come over for her birthday. That’s the last she saw of her family that day.

Weiskott-Wick said her mother taught her to respect herself, stand up for herself and choose people who treated her with kindness. When Jodi was discouraged, Joan would tell her, “My money is on you.”

In the eulogy she wrote for her mother, Weiskott-Wick called her mother her “cheerleader in life” and the best audience for her stories. What she will miss most, she said, is the constant sharing — the texts, pet pictures, television commentary and everyday stories that connected them.

“She probably knew me better than I know myself,” Weiskott-Wick said.

Ellen Braunstein is a freelance obituary writer. She welcomes suggestions for individuals who had meaningful ties to the Baltimore Jewish community. Email csix@midatlanticmedia.com.