A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 11, at St. Mary's Church here for Josephine (Gallant) Sullivan, a joyous family matriarch long active as a church and hospital volunteer, who passed away at her home in Winchester on Feb. 5 at the age of 97.
Mrs. Sullivan's daughter Clare recalled her mother's "laugh, her generosity, her quiet faith,and always being there, with a big hug, when we came home." Mother of seven, grandmother of 19, great-grandmother of eight, beloved sister and aunt, Mrs. Sullivan was at the heart of a large extended family spanning from New England to Australia. Photos of children and grandchildren filled the antique Gothic Revival "gingerbread house" she called home in Winchester, while fanciful limericks penned for her by her late husband, Al, hung in the barn. She delighted in regular visits from her newest great-grandchildren on the North Shore, and in weekly Skype conversations with her sister, Winifred Wickes, in Indiana. Her family meant the world to Mrs. Sullivan, and she meant the world to her family.
She took great joy in rising early and drinking coffee while reading the Boston Globe and her favorite British Catholic magazine The Tablet ; in watching mysteries on PBS; and in writing, constantly, cards and letters to a vast network of family and friends whose birthdays she always remembered. Her son, Christopher, recalled "sitting for hours in her breakfast nook, enjoying our morning coffee together and talking, talking, talking about politics and religion, social and family events, and every other topic imaginable."
Mrs. Sullivan had a talent for making friends. The Study Group, a Catholic book club she and her husband and their circle in Greater Boston launched in the post-war years, met regularly for more than half a century. In Medford, she and Al Sullivan, a professor at Boston University, raised seven children and made a home for her elderly mother in a spacious Victorian house on Powderhouse Terrace, where Mrs. Sullivan also served as a "second mother" to her sister Mary Russell's four children next door. Mrs. Sullivan's children recall the nightly banter at family dinners around the extra-long table under a Grandma Moses mural in the dining room of the Medford house. In Winchester since 1980, Mrs. Sullivan was a longtime volunteer at Winchester Hospital, and as a eucharistic minister at St. Mary's brought Communion to shut-ins and the elderly.
She was born Josephine Anne Gallant in Worcester in 1917, the fifth of six children of James Francis and Stella Bond Gallant. Her early days were spent swimming and canoeing at Lake Quinsigamond, where her father, an emigrant from Prince Edward Island, was steward of a boat club. After her father passed away in 1929, her family moved to Boston's Dorchester neighborhood. At 13 she almost died from pneumonia, spending 10 weeks in the hospital after being revived by her brother, Edward, pouring whiskey down her throat. She never could stand the taste of whiskey thereafter.
Due to her supposed frailty she was dissuaded from pursuing a career in nursing. Yet she later would be primary caregiver for her elderly mother, Stella Gallant, who lived to 102. During this time, Mrs. Sullivan returned to graduate school at Boston University to earn a master's degree in gerontology.
Mrs. Sullivan was a person of boundless energy who laughed easily and talked with everyone she met. A member of a Girl Scout honor guard in the 1930s that welcomed First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to Boston, she excelled as a student at Dorchester High for Girls, then worked her way through Calvin Coolidge College in Boston. In 1941, she married Albert J. Sullivan, of South Boston, who went on to teach communications and public relations at Boston University, where six of their seven children would go to college. Their marriage lasted nearly 51 years, until his death in 1992.
On the occasion of her 95th birthday two years ago, her family compiled a book of their memories of Mrs. Sullivan. Her sister Winifred described her as "a genuinely happy person who spreads that happiness to all." Niece Cecelia Wickes Knapp wrote: "Whenever I think of Aunt Jo, I smile." And daughter Kate Sullivan recalled, as a child, leaving for school in the morning, "out the door and after about every five steps, turning and waving to Mom, who was standing waving at me in the front hallway window till I was out of sight: 'Bye Mom, love you. Bye Mom, love you. Bye Mom, love you.'"
Calling hours are 4-8 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 10, at Costello Funeral Home, 177 Washington St., Winchester. Relatives and friends are kindly invited to gather again at the funeral home on Wed., Feb. 11, at 9AM. followed by the funeral Mass at 10 a.m. at St. Mary's Church, 155 Washington St., Winchester. Interment will follow at Wildwood Cemetery in Winchester.
Mrs. Sullivan, the wife of the late Albert J. Sullivan of Winchester, leaves her daughter Jody Thrasher, of Newton; daughter Kate Sullivan, of Rockport; son Albert Jr. and wife Anne Cammer Sullivan of Framingham; son David A. and wife Rose Sullivan of Boston; son Christopher and wife Liza Sullivan of Miami, Fla.; daughter Clare Sullivan of Rockport; and son Mark and wife Lisa Sullivan of Ashland; 19 grandchildren; eight great-grandchildren; her sister, Winifred Wickes, of Bloomington, Ind.; and many nieces and nephews.
She was the daughter of the late James Francis Gallant and the late Stella Bond Gallant; the sister of the late James Francis Gallant Jr., the late Brig. Gen. Edward Gallant (USAF), the late Mary (Gallant) Russell, and the late Sister Mary Anthony, SMSM; and the grandmother of the late Christopher Lir Sullivan.
In lieu of flowers, donations in her memory may be made to Care Dimensions, 75 Sylvan St., Suite B-102, Danvers MA, 01923.
Mrs. Sullivan's daughter Clare recalled her mother's "laugh, her generosity, her quiet faith,and always being there, with a big hug, when we came home." Mother of seven, grandmother of 19, great-grandmother of eight, beloved sister and aunt, Mrs. Sullivan was at the heart of a large extended family spanning from New England to Australia. Photos of children and grandchildren filled the antique Gothic Revival "gingerbread house" she called home in Winchester, while fanciful limericks penned for her by her late husband, Al, hung in the barn. She delighted in regular visits from her newest great-grandchildren on the North Shore, and in weekly Skype conversations with her sister, Winifred Wickes, in Indiana. Her family meant the world to Mrs. Sullivan, and she meant the world to her family.
She took great joy in rising early and drinking coffee while reading the Boston Globe and her favorite British Catholic magazine The Tablet ; in watching mysteries on PBS; and in writing, constantly, cards and letters to a vast network of family and friends whose birthdays she always remembered. Her son, Christopher, recalled "sitting for hours in her breakfast nook, enjoying our morning coffee together and talking, talking, talking about politics and religion, social and family events, and every other topic imaginable."
Mrs. Sullivan had a talent for making friends. The Study Group, a Catholic book club she and her husband and their circle in Greater Boston launched in the post-war years, met regularly for more than half a century. In Medford, she and Al Sullivan, a professor at Boston University, raised seven children and made a home for her elderly mother in a spacious Victorian house on Powderhouse Terrace, where Mrs. Sullivan also served as a "second mother" to her sister Mary Russell's four children next door. Mrs. Sullivan's children recall the nightly banter at family dinners around the extra-long table under a Grandma Moses mural in the dining room of the Medford house. In Winchester since 1980, Mrs. Sullivan was a longtime volunteer at Winchester Hospital, and as a eucharistic minister at St. Mary's brought Communion to shut-ins and the elderly.
She was born Josephine Anne Gallant in Worcester in 1917, the fifth of six children of James Francis and Stella Bond Gallant. Her early days were spent swimming and canoeing at Lake Quinsigamond, where her father, an emigrant from Prince Edward Island, was steward of a boat club. After her father passed away in 1929, her family moved to Boston's Dorchester neighborhood. At 13 she almost died from pneumonia, spending 10 weeks in the hospital after being revived by her brother, Edward, pouring whiskey down her throat. She never could stand the taste of whiskey thereafter.
Due to her supposed frailty she was dissuaded from pursuing a career in nursing. Yet she later would be primary caregiver for her elderly mother, Stella Gallant, who lived to 102. During this time, Mrs. Sullivan returned to graduate school at Boston University to earn a master's degree in gerontology.
Mrs. Sullivan was a person of boundless energy who laughed easily and talked with everyone she met. A member of a Girl Scout honor guard in the 1930s that welcomed First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to Boston, she excelled as a student at Dorchester High for Girls, then worked her way through Calvin Coolidge College in Boston. In 1941, she married Albert J. Sullivan, of South Boston, who went on to teach communications and public relations at Boston University, where six of their seven children would go to college. Their marriage lasted nearly 51 years, until his death in 1992.
On the occasion of her 95th birthday two years ago, her family compiled a book of their memories of Mrs. Sullivan. Her sister Winifred described her as "a genuinely happy person who spreads that happiness to all." Niece Cecelia Wickes Knapp wrote: "Whenever I think of Aunt Jo, I smile." And daughter Kate Sullivan recalled, as a child, leaving for school in the morning, "out the door and after about every five steps, turning and waving to Mom, who was standing waving at me in the front hallway window till I was out of sight: 'Bye Mom, love you. Bye Mom, love you. Bye Mom, love you.'"
Calling hours are 4-8 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 10, at Costello Funeral Home, 177 Washington St., Winchester. Relatives and friends are kindly invited to gather again at the funeral home on Wed., Feb. 11, at 9AM. followed by the funeral Mass at 10 a.m. at St. Mary's Church, 155 Washington St., Winchester. Interment will follow at Wildwood Cemetery in Winchester.
Mrs. Sullivan, the wife of the late Albert J. Sullivan of Winchester, leaves her daughter Jody Thrasher, of Newton; daughter Kate Sullivan, of Rockport; son Albert Jr. and wife Anne Cammer Sullivan of Framingham; son David A. and wife Rose Sullivan of Boston; son Christopher and wife Liza Sullivan of Miami, Fla.; daughter Clare Sullivan of Rockport; and son Mark and wife Lisa Sullivan of Ashland; 19 grandchildren; eight great-grandchildren; her sister, Winifred Wickes, of Bloomington, Ind.; and many nieces and nephews.
She was the daughter of the late James Francis Gallant and the late Stella Bond Gallant; the sister of the late James Francis Gallant Jr., the late Brig. Gen. Edward Gallant (USAF), the late Mary (Gallant) Russell, and the late Sister Mary Anthony, SMSM; and the grandmother of the late Christopher Lir Sullivan.
In lieu of flowers, donations in her memory may be made to Care Dimensions, 75 Sylvan St., Suite B-102, Danvers MA, 01923.
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