Sarah Bollinger, at 72; journalist, innkeeper, chef extraordinaire
In a large Victorian house in Winchester painted peach-pink and filled with art and books, Sarah Jane (Shean) Bollinger ran a bed-and-breakfast, where she formed lasting friendships with the many patrons she hosted over the years. She asked thoughtful questions of the tourists who passed through her doorway, and she read constantly, so that she could keep up with any conversation.
Ms. Bollinger, whose eclectic array of jobs included aiding with the design of Aruba’s national flag, died April 13 after a brief battle with lung cancer at Kaplan Family Hospice House in Danvers. She was 72.
When Aruba was designing its flag in the 1970s, Ms. Bollinger was asked to participate in the selection of a meaningful and appropriate design.
Hundreds of designs came pouring in, and Ms. Bollinger helped to combine the best features among them, resulting in a flag with colors representing the island’s key features, and a four-pointed star representing the top four languages spoken on the island.
Her son, Murray, of Somerville, was young at the time but recalls living on the island for a month while his mother went to work on the flag. The story goes, he said, that they used Crayola crayons to sketch their ideas. The flag was adopted on March 18, 1976.
Ms. Bollinger was born and raised in Massena, N.Y. She studied engineering, English literature, and political science at Cornell University, graduating in 1960. Many years later, in the 1990s, she earned a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, then went on to write for several local newspapers.
Her Winchester home, to which she moved in 1968, featured a large, rambling garden that included peonies, raspberries, and the herbs that she often used in her cooking.
She worked for many years as an editorial assistant to a doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital, and at Horticulture magazine in Boston, her son said.
For about a decade, she ran the Incidental Tourist, a small bed-and-breakfast, out of her home. Her interviewing skills, honed during her journalism studies, came in handy when dealing with her guests.
Meticulous about remembering birthdays, she often whipped up culinary feasts for large groups of guests. Those soirees often included homemade bread and a few of her specialties: homemade pomegranate sorbet and whiskey-vanilla and green tea ice cream.
In addition to her son, Ms. Bollinger leaves her brother, John Shean of Massena, N.Y., and several nieces and nephews.
A memorial service will be held at 3:30 p.m. today, at the Jenks Center in Winchester.