LAUGHLIN, Margaret (Heffernan) 91, formerly of Medfield, whose steadfast, open-hearted love, encouragement, and service were for her large extended family, many friends, and countless patients as reliable as the rising sun. She passed away of complications from COVID-19 on Saturday, April 11. Raised in Jamaica Plain, Peg was one of nine children of the late Dr. Roy & Kathleen (Walsh) Heffernan. Her devout Catholic faith was a constant source of nourishment through sunshine and shadows, and she combined it with a mystic’s direct sense of wonder and oneness, seeing divine handiwork in all the natural world and in each person she looked upon. She grew up in a loving, active family, and was an enthusiastic skier, tennis player, and swimmer. In high school she enjoyed cheerleading, dancing to Big Bands at the Totem Pole Ballroom, and supporting troops in the Second World War through numerous drives and activities. She graduated from Bouvé-Boston School of Physical Education with a B.S. in 1949, launching a lengthy career as a physical therapist. At the height of the polio epidemics of the 1950s, she treated hundreds of stricken and paralyzed children and young adults. After marrying in 1956, raising five children, and surviving breast cancer, she returned to the career she loved for two more decades. She approached her home healthcare work through the Visiting Nurse Association as a kind of religious vocation, offering skillful physical therapy, humane, hands-on support, and warm cheerfulness to thousands of recuperating, homebound, and bedridden patients. Her poems memorializing patients who died soothed many grieving families. After the death of her husband and her retirement, she found great joys in birdwatching, traveling widely with friends, organizing college reunions, taking classes, writing poetry, teaching Sunday school, visiting frequently her children and beloved grandchildren, and deepening her lifelong faith. Her shining virtues of grace, patience, humility, quiet strength, gratitude and love will remain enduring gifts and guides to all who knew and loved her. Peg was predeceased by her husband of 32 years, Robert. She is survived by their five children and in-laws: Robert & Linda (Voce) Laughlin of Boxford; Marion (Laughlin) Sowyrda of Walpole; Thomas Laughlin of Framingham; James Laughlin and Jane Di Cristina of Sherborn; and John Laughlin of New Market, NH. She was the beloved sister of Roy Heffernan (deceased) of Jamaica Plain; Joan (Heffernan) Jacobs (deceased) of Needham; Sheila (Heffernan) Clark of Needham; Michael Heffernan of Needham; (John) Timothy Heffernan (deceased) of Bow, NH; David Heffernan (deceased) of Sun City Center, FL; Thomas Heffernan of Ridgeway, CO; and James Heffernan of Hanover, NH. Also survived by 10 grandchildren.
Relatives and friends will gather for a memorial service at a date yet to be determined. In lieu of flowers, gifts may be made to VNA Care Network via http://www.vnacare.org.