Jeanne Leslie Heath Costello passed away peacefully at her home in Winchester on Tuesday, October 9, surrounded by children and grandchildren. She was 87.
Born in Somerville on December 4, 1930, Leslie Heath was named eccentrically for her father, an MIT-trained engineer, dreamer and inventor who operated a modest machine shop in the Union Square area. When a parish priest demanded that the infant girl be christened with the “proper” name of a female saint, Jeanne was added to the Leslie, a compromise which Leslie Heath Costello would proceed to ignore throughout her generous, exuberant, uncompromising life. Raised in a rooming house during the Depression, young Leslie Heath watched three brothers leave to join the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Navy, and finally the Dominican priesthood. An older sister decided in a nightclub to become a Maryknoll nun, serving many decades as a missioner in China and Hawaii.
Leslie, the baby of this idiosyncratic clan, grew into a fiery brunette bearing no small resemblance to the actress Elizabeth Taylor. After graduation from Regis College, Class of ’52, she joined American Airlines’ first recruited class of “stewardesses,” flying out of Idlewild Airport in New York. On a layover in Washington, DC, she reluctantly agreed to a blind date with a young Naval officer and New Hampshire native, Edward J. Costello. Four dates and many earnest letters later, they were married by Leslie’s three priest brothers in June, 1955.
Seven children would be born to Ed and Leslie in Chicago and Winchester. Returning to school at the age of thirty-nine, Leslie received one of the first masters degrees awarded to teachers dedicated to dyslexic learners, launching a nearly forty-year career in the Cambridge Public Schools. A passionate staffer in challenging schools, a warm, supportive colleague, an unforgettable mentor to younger educators, an outspoken activist with the Massachusetts Teachers Association during turbulent years of court-ordered busing and Proposition 2 1/2, Leslie Costello was known for her soups and stews and stubbornness, her gift of gab, her love of Broadway musicals and parties of all kinds, her brightly colored dresses, scarves, and knee socks. She poured herself into her work and school community and her many friends in Winchester, all while raising seven children, indulging multiple beloved rescue dogs, and feeding an unending stream of family, friends, and visiting priests and nuns.
Before and after her retirement in the year 2000, Leslie was an active member of the Teams of Our Lady, a service and study group for Catholic couples which she and her husband helped found in Winchester almost six decades ago. She anchored her book and theatre group, stayed close to former Cambridge teachers, enjoyed the beaches of the North Shore (Wingaersheek was her Sistine Chapel), and continued as a reading tutor to disadvantaged children and adults until she was almost eighty years old, living the last decade of her life with the family of her beloved daughter Patrice in Winchester, where she passed away among loved ones on Tuesday, October 9.
Leslie Heath Costello is predeceased by her parents Leslie Heath and Genevieve Stapleton Heath of Somerville, by her brothers Richard Mark Heath, John Walter Heath, and Thomas Heath, all Dominican priests of Washington, DC, Providence, RI, and Kisumu, Kenya respectively, by her sister, Mary Heath, a Maryknoll sister of Hong Kong, Honolulu, and New York, by her husband of five decades, Edward J. Costello and a son, Edward “Ned” Costello, both of Winchester.
She is survived by her daughters Lee Colombo of Andover, Maura O’Neill of Springfield, NH, Cristin of Berkeley, CA, and Patrice of Winchester, by her daughters’ husbands and partners, Robert Colombo, Keith O’Neill, Dan Corr, and Adam Feuerstein, by two surviving sons, Peter of Winchester and Mark of New York City, and daughters-in-law Denise Costello and Nan Graham, by seventeen grandchildren, Ashleigh Costello Thomas and Courtney Costello D’Aleandro, Matthew, Justin, and Daniel Colombo, Andrew, Kate, Heath, and Ethan O’Neill, Erin, Patrick, and Leslie Costello, Henry and Delia Graham Costello, by Galen Corr, and by Chloe and Graeme Feuerstein.
Relatives and friends are kindly invited to gather for Visiting Hours at Costello Funeral Home, 177 Washington St., Winchester, on Thursday, October 11 from 5-8 PM, and again on Friday at 9:30 a.m. followed by a Funeral Mass in St. Mary’s Church, 155 Washington St., Winchester, at 10:30 a.m. Burial will be in St. Mary’s Immaculate Conception Cemetery in Lawrence.
Contributions in lieu of flowers may be made to the Dominican Foundation at www.dominicanfoundation.org