Emily H. Bibbins

Emily H. Bibbins, age 91, a longtime resident of Maplewood, New Jersey, passed away peacefully on March 1, 2026.

Born in the Bronx, New York, on March 26, 1934, she was the daughter of the late Fredrick and Emily (Heinkey) Highfield. Emily lived on Maplewood Avenue for nearly seventy years before moving to Winchester Gardens and later to Delaware to be closer to her daughter. She graduated from Columbia High School and Bucknell University, after which she worked at Brown Brothers investment bank in New York City.

She met her husband, Charles H. Bibbins, at the local Outing Club, and they shared fifty-six years of marriage while raising their two children, Alison and Thomas. An active member of Morrow Methodist Church for decades, Emily devoted more than fifty years to the Turnover Sale, serving as co-director and overseeing the Men’s department well into her eighties. After her children were grown, she worked for nearly ten years at the Maplewood Library, where she delighted in the romance novels and biographies she loved to read. In their later years, she and Charlie became enthusiastic world travelers, visiting dozens of countries and embracing new cultures together, from toasting beers at Munich’s Oktoberfest to sleeping in a Bedouin tent in Morocco and riding an elephant in Thailand.

Emily is survived by her daughter, Alison Burris (C.R.) of Newark, Delaware; her son, Thomas Bibbins (Tricia) of Torrance, California; and her grandchildren Daltrey and Rheannon Burris, and Taylor, Logan, and Hunter Bibbins. In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death by her husband, Charlie, and her grandson, Skyler Burris.