Noreen T. French

Noreen Grady was the second of five children born to Mary & Thomas Grady and grew up a happy, active, and inquisitive child on their farm outside of Charlestown in County Mayo, Ireland. She attended grammar school in nearby Tonroe with her siblings, Marian, Jack, Evelyn and Thomas. Noreen loved learning and excelled in school. She graduated from high school with high marks and was accepted into teacher training at Mary Immaculate Training College in the city of Limerick.

Noreen’s first teaching position was as “principal-teacher” in a one-room schoolhouse in County Cavan, and one of her unusual responsibilities was to start the fire every morning to heat the school before her students arrived. She was one of the first in her county with an automobile –a Ford Popular, which she drove around Cavan and to her hometown for family visits. At that time, no driver training schools existed, so after a quick demonstration of how to start and stop the car, she had to teach herself how to drive!

After a few years teaching in Cavan, Noreen left her teaching post for America, to join her two beloved sisters living in Manhattan. She went back to school full-time to get her U.S. teaching certification, working evenings in the meat department of a local grocery store, and graduated cum laude with a B.A. in English Literature from Hunter College.

Noreen enjoyed living with her two sisters in their East-side “cold-water walk-up” apartment and teaching at a Catholic grammar school in Harlem. She met her future husband, Andrew J. French, Jr., at a St. Vincent Ferrer dance. They were married at St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church the following year and settled on Long Island to start their family, bringing into the world their first-born son Andrew, followed by daughters Beth and Patricia.

Noreen taught in Plainview for a few years before moving to Suffolk County to teach the next 30+ years in the Elwood school district, first at Manor Plains, then Cuba Hill and Harley Avenue elementary schools. She always said she enjoyed every moment of her 40+ years in the classroom.

Once she retired from teaching in 1993, she fully enjoyed every moment after that too. A devout Catholic, she attended daily mass, volunteered within her parish school classrooms, and served as a Eucharistic Minister to nursing homes and the homebound. She traveled the world, taking trips and cruises with her family and friends, including frequent visits to see her beloved grandchildren, trips back to Ireland for weddings and other family celebrations, a few religious pilgrimages to visit the Holy City of Jerusalem, the Marian Shrines at Ephesus, Lourdes, Fatima, and Knock, and to view the Shroud of Turin. She was active in her community Ladies Golf leagues and local art guilds, exhibiting and winning awards in several local art exhibit competitions over the years. She had an ambitious schedule for a retiree, to say the least. She approached life with joy and boundless energy.

Noreen had set a goal to visit all 50 U.S. states in her lifetime, and she nearly made it, with only 4 missed before she was sidelined from travel by illness. That’s 92% of goal— still pretty impressive an achievement!

Noreen was the last remaining member of her generation in our extended family, pre-deceased by her parents, all four of her siblings, her son Andrew and her nephew John Devlin, many beloved in-laws, aunts, uncles, cousins and close friends. She will be greatly missed by her family in the U.S., Ireland and England, including her daughters Beth and Tricia, her grandchildren, and many nieces, nephews and cousins.

In lieu of flowers, donations in her memory can be made to one of the following favorite charities:

• Hunter College Scholarship Fund: www.hunter.cuny.edu/give/

• St. Vincent de Paul Society, St Paul Conference: https://stpaulsvdp.org

• St Mark’s R.C. Church - Donations for a Mass in her memory at St Mark’s R.C. Church on Randall Rd in Shoreham, NY.