Mary Margaret May"" Sullivan

Mary Margaret (May) Sullivan celebrated her 90th birthday, August 4, 2014, with all nine of her children and their families present to honor the occasion. On July 30, 2015 May passed away peacefully in Longmont, Colorado.

The daughter of Irish immigrants, May was born in New York City in 1924, to Delia and Michael Vaughan. After graduating from St. Michael’s Academy in 1943, May began working as a bank teller.

On New Year’s Eve, Stephen Sullivan asked May to marry him; the couple became engaged on Valentine’s Day; they married on June 4, 1949. The family moved from NYC to Emerson, New Jersey in 1956.

May was the mother of nine children – Stephen Sullivan of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; John Sullivan of Grand Junction, Colorado; Mary Lou Riley, Patty Ann Sullivan, and Kevin Sullivan, all of Longmont, Colorado; Michael Sullivan of New Zealand, Kathleen Hoops, of Los Angeles, and Kerry Sullivan of San Luis Obispo, California; and Tim Sullivan of Centennial, Colorado. When the youngest, Tim, was 4 years old, May began to also care for infants of unwed mothers through Catholic Charities. She fostered the babies (23 in seven years) until the birth mothers decided to either keep the babies or give them up for adoption. May cared for one baby boy for nine months. She always said, if allowed, she would have adopted many of the children.

May stopped doing foster care after she began babysitting for Mary Ellen and Richard Offer, attorneys who lived nearby. May cared for the Offers’ five daughters five days a week from the time they were 3 months old. The girls, Brennan, Ryan, Meghan, Maureen, and Molly, often referred to the Sullivan's as their “second family.” May never missed a Baptism, graduation, or a child’s sporting event.

May became widowed in 1990, after Stephen died un-expectantly. In 2003, she moved from New Jersey to Longmont, Colorado where several of her children had settled. While living in Longmont, May began each day by attending Catholic Mass at St. John the Baptist Church before catching a bus to Blackhawk, Colorado.

May is survived by her children, their spouses, 15 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to St. Jude’s Children Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, or the Covenant House in NYC. Services are pending at Howe Mortuary.