Jeanette M. Cavanaugh

When she was born in 1948 in County Kerry, Ireland, her neighborhood did not have any telephone poles. The twelfth of 13 children, she grew up on a dairy farm in a home that spoke far more Gaelic than English. Her father, born in 1897, was a WWI veteran. Her mother, born in 1900, had won a local beauty pageant.

Though Jeanette left her homeland at age 20, she still had traces of an Irish accent more than half a century later.

She had first emigrated to Canada, where she received an MSW in Social Work from McGill University in Montreal. There she later met her husband, Dr. Raymond Cavanaugh, who had attended McGill Psychiatry, but was on faculty at the University of New Mexico when they met. They soon married and lived two years in California, working at a forensic psychiatry hospital while Jeanette also taught social work at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Since then, they settled permanently in Massachusetts.

A petite woman, Jeanette said she nearly died in 1982 while giving birth to her first child, Raymond Jr., who weighed almost 11 lbs. She eventually recovered and gave birth to her second child, Nicholas, in 1984.

For over a decade, she raised her children on Boston's South Shore. Following a brief period in Indiana, the family returned to Massachusetts, this time settling on the North Shore.

After retiring from social work in 2015 she became a frequent traveler — Ireland, Italy, Russia, Egypt, Peru, and almost making it to the Arctic Circle while chasing penguins on the southernmost reaches of South America.

Declining health limited her travels to the coastline of Marblehead, Salem and Gloucester. She remained an avid reader and continued to participate in her parish, Our Lady Star of the Sea.

She is survived by her husband, Raymond R. Cavanaugh with whom she shared 46 years of marriage; sons, Raymond Cavanaugh, Jr. and his wife, Eve, and Nicholas Cavanaugh; two sisters, Catherine McDonald and Elizabeth Schwartz, three brothers, James, Robert and Noel Dowling, a particularly devoted cousin, Cecilia Mulvey and several dear nieces, nephews and friends.

Visiting hours will be held on Sunday, May 4th from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at Eustis & Cornell of Marblehead, 142 Elm Street. Her Funeral will begin from the funeral home on Monday, May 5th at 10:00 a.m. followed by a Funeral Mass to be celebrated at 11:00 a.m. at Our Lady Star of the Sea Church, 85 Atlantic Ave, Marblehead. To watch the past service, please visit www.harborview.live and click the Past Streams tab. Interment will follow at Star of the Sea Cemetery, Marblehead.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made in her memory to Catholic Relief Services, PO Box 5278, Tipton, IA 52772-0517 or via https://support.crs.org/ or to Catholic Charities, 275 West Broadway, South Boston, MA 02127 or via https://www.ccab.org/. Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.eustisandcornellfuneralhome.com for the Cavanaugh family.