Marguerite Mary (Dean) Armstrong, of Worcester, Massachusetts, born June 3, 1920 to Michael A. and Margaret T. Dean of Millville, Mass., passed away in her home on June Street on Friday, February 23, 2018 at the age of 97 peacefully and painlessly with her family after a brief illness.
Known affectionately and simply as “Dean,” Marguerite, had a long and successful life as a wife, mother, grandmother, Nurse, Nurse Educator, Nursing School Administrator and Peace Corps Veteran.
Marguerite was widowed by her husband, Thomas M. Armstrong Sr. of Worcester, on November 8, 1972 and was predeceased by her eldest son, Thomas M. Armstrong Jr., a United States Marine, on September 13, 1964 and by her youngest son, John T. Armstrong, a Retail Manager, on September 13, 2009. Marguerite is survived by her middle son, Michael D. Armstrong M.D. and his wife, Maura B. of FL; her four grandchildren; her caring and faithful friend Luisa Heffernan of Worcester; many nursing friends and students including her former student Jean McLaughlin now residing in Florida; her lifelong friend, John Foley Jr.; her extended family of the Irish O’Donoghues and the Moynihans of Killarney, Co. Kerry, Ireland; and her extended family of Dixcove, Ghana, West Africa and the Peace Corps in Ghana including Georgia Ann Gibson, Mark Stoughton, Doris Hubble, Stephen King, Larry Lutz and Sister Jane Chantal.
Marguerite was the middle child of five of Michael A. Dean of Millville and Margaret T. (Buckley) Dean, of Boston. Her brothers Dr. Michael A. Dean Jr. and Joseph P. Dean, and sisters Pauline A. Doran, and Olive G. Jackson all predeceased her. Her unofficially “adopted” daughter, Kathleen O’Donoghue, of Killarney, Ireland, also predeceased her in 2012. Marie Moynihan, Kathleen’s sister, survives her. Marguerite has many nieces and nephews including the Deans of Millville, the Foley’s of Uxbridge, the Jacksons of CA and RI, the Poulies of CT, the Zahornackys of CT, the Deans of Hawaii and Jackie Grimm of FL. She was especially close to her niece Pamela Dean Kobetitsch of Millville. They celebrated Millville’s 100 years in Millville together in 2016.
Marguerite was educated at Long Fellow Grammar School and graduated from Uxbridge High School in 1939. Growing up in Millville was very exciting for her. Marguerite enjoyed ice skating on Mansfield Pond in winter; swimming and lifeguarding at Ironstone Reservoir all summer long; picking blueberries and strawberries in season; exploring the ever-dangerous Blackstone River; dancing at Bowen’s Barn and at Polish picnics; attending St. Augustine Church’s minstrel shows and drumming (positioned to the rear because of her height) in the Drum and Bugle Corps. The legendary American aviatrix Amelia Earhart was her idol at the time and she sported her lookalike leather jacket even in summer, much to her mother’s chagrin who insisted she look like and behave like a “lady,” not a “tomboy.” She would of course become quite the elegant and sharply dressed lady later on.
Marguerite graduated from Burbank Hospital School of Nursing in Fitchburg Mass., in 1942 as a Registered Nurse. She married Thomas M. Armstrong on November 7, 1942. Her first position as an R.N. was on the American Indian Reservation in Parker, Arizona.
Her husband Thomas left for World War II in Europe in 1943 until late 1944, and Marguerite gave birth to her first son, Thomas Jr., on the first day of Spring, March 21, in 1944 while Thomas Sr. was still overseas. With her newborn in tow, Marguerite returned to her roots and to her parents’ home in Millville. During this time, she was employed as a Public Health Nurse at Woonsocket Rhode Island Hospital in the Maternity Department and also volunteered for the American Red Cross. Then, in 1951, Marguerite, with “Red” – her husband’s nickname because of his fiery hair color - and baby “Tommy” moved to Worcester in Central Massachusetts. After the birth of two more sons, Michael Dean in 1952 and John Timothy in 1956, Marguerite returned to nursing on night duty at Worcester City Hospital where she worked for more than 3 years.
During her husband’s years-long hospitalizations at various Massachusetts Veterans Administration facilities after serving in World War II and upon his untimely death in 1972 at age 54, Marguerite became the sole provider for her three boys who were growing up under her devoted care. She returned to school and attended Boston College for her Bachelor of Science in Nursing; Boston University for her Masters Degree in Administration; and Worcester State College for her Masters in Education.
Upon completion of her postgraduate degree programs, Marguerite turned her attention from nursing to nursing education. She taught in the L.P.N. program for Practical Nurses at David Hale Fanning Worcester Vocational School, formerly The Girls’ Trade School, on Chatham Street. While there, she wrote and procured the grant for the first E.M.T. program in Worcester. The first 100 firemen and policemen received this certification. In recognition of her work, Marguerite received the Key to the City in 1981 from the Honorable Jordon Levy, the then Mayor of the City of Worcester.
An extremely dedicated and hard worker, Marguerite loved her nursing career and during her heyday mentored and helped train a generation of future health providers and educators. Her heart and her home were always open to struggling students in need of her professional support and guidance.
Marguerite’s last position was Dean of Health Occupations at Worcester Technical Institute on Bell Hill. Then, as the devoted daughter of “Mike and Margie” Dean, Marguerite retired early in 1982 at age 62 to care for her ailing and widowed father in her home on Reid Street until his death in his early 90s.
Marguerite remained active and busy during her early retirement years. She was a dedicated volunteer with the Visiting Nurses Hospice Association in Worcester and was a founding member of the “Rose Monahan Hospice Home.”
In 1990, Marguerite happened across an advertisement in the AARP magazine looking for retired, skilled volunteers to help out in developing countries worldwide. She wholeheartedly signed up as a Peace Corps member and was assigned, at age 70, to spend two years as a Health Educator in the tiny, hot and dusty coastal fishing village of Dixcove, Ghana, West Africa.
Plying her many and varied skills, the white-haired septuagenarian, dressed in traditional Ghanaian garb, at first assisted in children’s vaccinations in the small village she made her temporary home. The children of the village were initially in fear of this shockingly white-haired, tall “alien” woman, who never wore a headdress unlike their own mothers because her husband had commented years ago on how beautiful her hair was! The shock, though, quickly wore off as Marguerite mingled among the villagers and became a fixture there for the next two years.
When Marguerite arrived, the village of Dixcove lacked running water, electricity, paved roads and reliable public transportation. As the village’s once-upon-a-time Catholic Church was washed out to sea before Marguerite came on the scene, she regularly attended, but did not join, the Methodist Church in Dixcove where she commenced an enduring friendship with its then Pastor, now Methodist Bishop Egyir. When a visiting Catholic priest would come to the village, Marguerite would also organize Mass in a makeshift “chapel” made out of shrubs on the beach in Dixcove, which parishioners fondly dubbed “St. Philomena’s Church.”
Shocked and saddened by the chronic childhood diarrhea and other infections due to poor sanitation and poor personal hygiene rampant in the village at the time, Marguerite, always the mover and the shaker, proposed and was instrumental in procuring grants and constructing public outhouses and outdoor showers, establishing hand washing facilities and lining two wells for clean water in her adoptive village. The villagers happily rallied around this now highly-respected and admired elder American lady they dubbed “Aba,” and gladly participated in all her projects.
As a gift upon completion of her Peace Corps stint in Dixcove in 1992, the village awarded her a small parcel of land hoping that she would remain on with them. However, because she was always troubled that there was no Catholic church in Dixcove where she and the villagers could worship and practice their deep, enduring Catholic faith, Marguerite decided to use the plot for other, more noble, purposes. On her return to the United States, Marguerite decided she would donate the land to the Catholic Church in Ghana where she was determined to build a bricks and mortar chapel and Catholic school which she would permanently name “St. Philomena’s.”
In the late 1990s, Marguerite tirelessly raised funds at home and rallied the Dixcove villagers abroad to have St. Philomena’s Church built. She was ever grateful for the generous assistance of many friends, family, nursing associates, including Connecticut hospital administrator Carmen Tortora and his wife; her former Parish Priest Father Henry G. Bowen who passed away and later Parish Priest Father Chester “Chet” J. Misiewicz; and the supportive members of her church, St. Charles Borromeo in Worcester. St Charles Borromeo closed its doors June 30, 2010 and merged with Blessed Sacrament Parish. All the tremendous support, donations and pledges over the years of such items as mahogany pews, church doors, a Cross set into the wall made out of 15 glass blocks donated by nursing friends, and the splendid Monstrance from St. Charles’ Church etc. made her cherished dream possible. A Crucifix came from a neighboring family on June Street. Marguerite personally paid for the altar, made of teak wood, and procured peat crosses for the church’s corners from her extended family in Ireland.
In 1995, with the approval of Bishop Daniel Patrick Reilly of Worcester, and the late Catholic Bishop John-Martin Darko of Sekondi-Takoradi Diocese in Ghana, the cornerstone of St. Philomena’s was laid and the villagers themselves started the construction. The Reverend Matthew Williams became the church’s first Pastor. The church was officially commissioned in November 2001 and Marguerite attended the dedication celebration on the Dixcove hilltop. She also visited in 2005 and between 2008 and 2009, the finishing touches on the church were made with the addition of three classrooms and a used Church Bell from the WhiteChapel Foundry, the manufacturer of “Big Ben” in London, England, purchased and donated by Marguerite’s son, Michael, with a new clapper installed by her niece Debbie Dean’s husband, Michael Zahornacky of Connecticut. The church’s late caretaker in Dixcove, Anthony Badure, rang the bell for the first time on Palm Sunday in 2010. He phoned Marguerite so she could hear the bell majestically pealing while summoning worshippers in nearby villages and locals alike to the Palm Sunday High Mass. St. Philomena’s celebrated its 15th Anniversary on September 11, 2016.
Continuing her selfless life of service to others and bottomless quest for learning, Marguerite in 1997, along with her good friend and former nursing student, Jean McLaughlin of Worcester and Delray Beach, Florida, volunteered on a health mission to the Ural Mountains in Russia to help care for the stricken children who had been sickened by the Chernobyl nuclear explosion. Marguerite also attended health education programs and conferences with Jean in China and the Philippines. On a pleasure trip to Jerusalem in a group with her late friend, Arlene Mc Manus of Cape Cod, she left the group and went to Egypt alone to see the Great Pyramids and the legendary Alexandria Library reckoning that that might be her last chance to get there.
During her lifetime in her homeland in the United States, Marguerite kept busy and active in many activities as a mother, nurse, teacher and exemplary citizen. She was a devout Catholic, a humble servant of God, a founding member, more than 55 years ago, of St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Worcester and a major fundraiser and past President of the church; a Secretary of the “Way Street P.T.A.”, a Cub Scout Den Mother, and a Nurse’s Aide teacher for the American Red Cross. She also belonged to the Worcester Chapter of Catholic Nurses, the Worcester Women’s Club, WISE – the Women’s Institute of Senior Elders - part of Assumption College - the Burbank Hospital School of Nursing Alumnae and the Retired Teachers Association.
A devoted mother of three, and de facto single mother for much of her child-rearing years, Marguerite raised her family well, instilled in her boys good breeding and manners and fostered in them a love of sports, learning, culture, the arts, music, American history and World War history, among other things. She was a consistent presence in their ongoing education and extra-curricular activities such as theater, baseball and hockey and attended countless practices in her precious family-oriented spare time from breadwinning. She once drove across town backwards, stuck in reverse gear, to get her son, Michael, to hockey practice on time! Being a mother was her greatest pride and joy in life, she always said.
Following the lead of her father who set a goal to visit each of the 48 contiguous states in the nation with his five children bundled in the family car, Marguerite took her three sons to visit many important Civil War sites, national parks, monuments and landmarks in the United States. And, going one step further than her father, she brought her children by boat, rail and air to many cultural and historic sites in Europe as well, including Ireland, England, France, Belgium, Germany and Greece. She also brought them to visit Canada, including the Niagara Falls, Montreal and Toronto. The children also enjoyed summers on Cape Cod and winter breaks as youngsters with their grandparents in Miami Beach, Florida.
During her lifetime, Marguerite, a lover of all things Irish, spent much time in Southwest Ireland, in her beloved County Kerry, with her extended family, Kathleen O’Donoghue and Marie Moynihan of Killarney, Co Kerry whom she met and “adopted” in Worcester back in the 1960s. Over a span of 50 years or so, Marguerite attended countless baptisms, confirmations, weddings, wakes and funerals of their growing families and grandchildren. In the last years of her life, she continued to thoroughly enjoy many Irish summers spent beachside with Kathleen, she quips, “the daughter she never had,” in the picturesque fishing village of Glenbeigh, Co. Kerry; vacation trips to the beaches of Cape Cod with her sons and grandchildren; and time spent in Southeast Florida with her now only surviving son, Michael and his wife, Maura, and her former nursing friends, including Jean McLaughlin. She maintained regular contact with Bishop Darko, who has since passed, and loved ones in Ghana and received delightful visits and calls from her very good friend, Bishop Egyir and his daughter B. Egyir of Ghana to her home on June Street. She also had fun times beachside in West Yarmouth, Cape Cod with Michael, Maura and her friend, Carol Coburn of Hartford.
An avid reader, churchgoer, history buff and world traveler, Marguerite had many other pastimes including knitting her signature Afghans as gifts to her loved ones, managing the Irish Booth at fundraisers for St. Charles Borromeo, baking delicious treats, collecting coins for the “March of Dimes,” attending the Irish Club in Worcester, hosting holiday dinners with family and friends and visiting the sick and elderly in her community. She has always been the “go-to” person wherever her interests and concerns took her.
Marguerite was also a diehard New England sports fan and fanatically followed her favorite teams, the Red Sox, the Celtics and the New England Patriots over the course of her lifetime which spanned the Great Depression, World War II and the Korean, Vietnam and Gulf Wars. She adapted well to changing times even getting herself a cellular phone, a Kindle, and DVD player!
Since 2006, after an injury from a fall and subsequent hip replacement and her declining vision and hearing in recent times, Marguerite was unable to be as physically active as her ever-energetic and spirited personality would have liked. Her mind, though, remained sharp as a tack until the end. She still lived alone and quite independently in her home on June Street, and had been lovingly cared for at her home by her very great friend, Luisa; her son, Michael and his wife, Maura; and Demetrius “Jimmy” Koulisis. She was also surrounded by other great friends Fr. Richard Trainor of Blessed Sacrament Church; Maura Horgan, Peg Hickey, Bernadette Hogan Jean Cummings, Phyllis Friedrich LePlant, Renee Bouchard and Tommy Steele.
A fitting tribute to Marguerite’s life and work in the Peace Corps was featured in an article titled “Dean’s List: Worcester nurse educator in search of a bell for her church in Ghana” in the Worcester Telegram and Gazette News in July 2008. It was noted in that article that highly intelligent and talented women of her era, such as herself, were limited to four life choices: becoming a nun, nurse, housewife or a teacher. Poignantly, had times been different in her day, Marguerite would certainly have been outstanding as an excellent physician. Instead, she chose nursing as did her two sisters while her older brother, Dr. Michael Dean, became a noted surgeon graduating from Yale University in Connecticut. And, her middle son Michael also fulfilled his childhood dream of becoming a Medical Doctor to Marguerite’s pride and joy.
In July 2010, The Catholic Free Press featured Marguerite in a front-page article titled “Back to Africa: Worcester woman keeps her missionary spirit active at 90.”
Despite personal tragedies during her long life including the early demise of her beloved husband Thomas at age 54 , the tragic losses of her two sons Thomas and John Timothy aged 19 and 53 respectively, eerily occurring on the same day and date, Sunday September 13, 45 years apart, Marguerite lived a remarkably rich and fulfilling life, all told. In a note written to one of her sons decades ago, Marguerite offered this sage advice: “The lifetime He gives each of us is too short to waste on fussing, fighting and holding grudges. Life is good, Love it, Protect it, Cherish it, Live it.” Marguerite herself lived her life to the fullest, selflessly in service to others, and followed this philosophy to the end. Indeed, Marguerite “did it her way,” and the world is a better place because of her.
Marguerite will be sorely missed but will remain an inspiration and example to all whose lives she touched.
Marguerite’s family would like to thank the staff at Beacon Hospice of Leominster for their kindness, care and compassion they offered her especially Helen and Jen.
According to Marguerite’s wishes, she will be cremated and there will be no Mass or services in Worcester. Burial will be private in St. John’s Cemetery, 260 Cambridge Street where part of her ashes will be buried with her father, mother, husband and two sons and the remainder will be buried in her church in Dixcove, Ghana, Africa where her bell will be rung in her name, in Killarney, Co. Kerry, Ireland by her great friend Kathleen O’Donoghue, Jr. of Killarney and in West Yarmouth, Cape Cod.
In lieu of flowers, Marguerite requested memorial contributions be sent in care of her son, Dr. Michael D. Armstrong, 311 June Street, Worcester, MA 01602 for her St. Philomena’s Church in Ghana. O’CONNOR BROTHERS FUNERAL HOME, 592 Park Avenue is directing arrangements. To share a memory of Marguerite or to send a message of condolence to family please visit www.oconnorbrothers.com
May she rest in peace.