Brian McCarthy

Brian McCarthy, native of East Boston and long time resident of Mission Beach, a San Diego City vital records manager, amateur jazz violinist and Catholic Worker who served in both the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Peace Corps, died May 24, 2024, at the age of 91.

Brian was born October 8, 1932, to Anne Therese Winston and Charles Jeremiah McCarthy, the last of their eight children. Both parents were children of immigrants born in Ireland, from whom Brian derived joint Irish citizenship. He spent much of his childhood along the beaches and waters of Boston Harbor—a region that would be developed into Logan Airport—and attended Sacred Heart Grammar School and (for one year) Boston College High School. But he transferred to Teaneck High School, in New Jersey, after his father accepted a job as a photoengraver in New York City, working for several major newspapers. During this time, Brian often snuck off to Manhattan to visit its bookstores, cultivating a love of literature, reading authors such as Joseph Conrad. He also developed his life-long interest in jazz. (His high school yearbook entry reads: “hopes to make music his career….this amiable fellow enjoys playing hockey and listening to Dixieland Jazz…Boston is paradise to Brian”).

Graduating high school in 1951, and likely to be drafted during the Korean War, he enlisted in the US Navy. He was deployed to Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay, where he used his time off to take in the lively jazz scene in The City, including performances by Louis Armstrong and others. Two years later, he was stationed at Aiea Heights, Pearl Harbor, Oahu, where he continued to work as a yeoman and had occasional guard duty, until being discharged after four years’ service.

In addition to being a voracious reader, Brian would go on to write memoirs of his early days in East Boston, and short stories inspired by his Peace Corps service in Borneo. For one whose life had a literary focus, he did not have an easy route to higher education. None of his ancestors had ever gone to college, and his father had only an 8th grade education. His first attempt (at Bergen County Community College) was cut short by his military service. But, with help from his brother-in-law, Bill Coveney, Sr. (husband of his sister Marie), Brian was able to enroll in St. Peter’s College in New Jersey. Next, a cross-country road trip with friends took him west. He resumed studies at University of San Francisco, another Jesuit institution. In San Francisco, he was involved in the thriving Beat Movement counter-culture, centered on North Beach (where he befriended nightclub owner, and “Pocket Opera” librettist Donald Pippin). But his studies faltered, and he lost focus, especially after the death of a friend on a mountain in Marin. He dropped out of USF and returned east.

Fortunately Brian was able to resume studies at St. Peters, where he graduated in 1962 with degrees in history & philosophy. He then began a career in journalism, starting with low level jobs in New York City, which allowed him the joy of having lunch with his father. He then landed a job as a stringer with United Press International in the American South, where he and his fellow journalists reported on the Civil Rights Movement, politicians such as George Wallace, the U-2 spy plane incident, and other events. He delivered ‘wire’ stories from Atlanta, GA and Meridian, MS using a teletype machine. During this time, he visited the Trappist monastery of Conyers, GA, founded by monks from Thomas Merton’s monastery, Gethsemeni.

In 1964, heeding the late President Kennedy’s call, Brian joined the Peace Corps and was in one of its earliest groups to serve in Malaysia, shortly after its independence. He was stationed in Sabah on the island of Borneo. While there, he met Donna Sprague, a fellow volunteer, who would become his wife. In 1966, at the end of his Peace Corps service, he moved to Japan, where he lived for a time with his cousin Ed Morgan, taught English and did a stint as a civilian reporter for the US Military newspaper, Stars and Stripes, in Yokohama. In 1967, he found himself back in Hilo, Hawaii working at the Peace Corps Training Center. Donna was also teaching there. They reunited and were married in Hilo on January 1st, 1968.

The newlyweds traveled to Manila, Philippines by ship, where Brian took a job with the Motion Picture Association of America and where their first son, Christopher, was born. In 1969, the couple returned to the US, living in San Francisco at the height of the counter-cultural/anti-Vietnam War/Hippie movement, and had their second son, Matteo Brian. Brian worked for the US Postal Service. Two years later, they relocated to New Jersey to care for Brian’s elderly parents. After his father Charles died, Brian and family were able to return to California, while his mother was cared for by other family members.

They settled on San Diego, where Peace Corps friend Ed McFadd lived, arriving in 1974, and living there for the rest of Brian’s life. They bought a home in Mission Beach, a coastal environment not unlike the one Brian had grown up in, which afforded his children the joys of swimming, surfing and sailing in the family’s boat, the Celtic. Brian worked for the rest of his career for the City of San Diego, initially as one of the first civilian dispatchers at the Fire Department, then for the City Clerk’s office as a vital records manager. He drew up plans to store the City’s vital records in the event of a major disaster. He remained in contact with many of his City Clerk friends long after his retirement.

It was in these decades in San Diego that Brian’s love for running blossomed. He ran daily during lunch break with workmates, and on weekends competed in hundreds of 10k’s and dozens of half-marathons. In 1983, he completed the Boston Marathon, a life-long goal, cheered on by several family members still living in the area. Part of his training for Boston and for the San Diego marathon involved meticulously documenting every run. He logged over 30,000 miles in his life, more than enough to circle the world, and for two solid decades (1982-2002) sustained a monthly average of 122 miles (over 4 miles per day). Brian quit smoking around the time he took up running, but jogging was not just about health: he held a 5-mile fun-run/party, “McCarthy’s Run”, on St. Patrick’s Day annually for 15 years.

If running was one focus, music was another. Trained in violin at the New England Conservatory of Music as a child, he also played trombone in the Teaneck High marching band, and had a life-long love for horn players, including Bix Beiderbecke and Wild Bill Davidson. He returned to violin in retirement, playing in jazz ensembles for decades. In 2019, he joined with friends to form “Let’s Reminisce” playing old favorites at venues all around San Diego. His final performance came a few months prior to his death. He also loved classical music, including Mahler, Satie and Spanish guitar, and like his sister Cathy (an opera singer-turned-nun) he loved opera, and attended many performances in San Diego, accompanied by Donna, and often his son Matteo and daughter-in-law Melissa. (On one occasion, while walking on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain, Brian found another opera lover and both broke out into a spontaneous rendition of Nessun Dorma, which Donna recorded.)

Brian had a strong presence in Mission Beach for many years. He wrote a column on running for a local newspaper, the Mission Beach Star, served on the Mission Beach Precise Plan and the Mission Beach Town Council, where he often fought rampant commercial development. He was a member of the “Save the Coaster Committee”, a citizen group that successfully preserved a historic, but then-derelict 1925 roller coaster, and returned it to working order. (For this work, he was awarded a life time pass to ride the Belmont Park coaster.)

One pastime in retirement was genealogy, in which he was joined by Donna for extensive research. Together, they looked up countless census records & national archives, and traveled to Boston, Portland, ME, and Newfoundland. On multiple trips to Ireland, joined variously by his brother Eddie & sister-in-law Eileen, by Matteo & Melissa and other family members, they traced down ancestors and living relatives in counties Roscommon and Cork. (On these trips, and others, he would make sure to send out post cards to as many people as possible, going to great lengths to find them as they became more rare.) Brian’s Winston-McCarthy genealogy file contains almost 12,000 people, many with typed anecdotes from his memory or family lore. He appears on the chart as the 30th and youngest grandchild of Dennis McCarthy & Bridget Toucher; the last of a generation of cousins that began in 1901.

Like his Irish ancestors before him, he was sustained by the Catholic faith, attending St. Brigid’s Church in Pacific Beach for decades, then, during the pandemic, viewing mass streamed online from Boston’s St. Cecilia Church. He put his faith into practice, attending weekly Centering Prayer meetings, and volunteering every Friday (for over 20 years) to feed the hungry, with friends at the Catholic Worker. A distant cousin, Alicia Greeley-Cook, also a Catholic Worker, regularly brought him communion. Throughout his life, he supported the Carmelite monastery of Concord, NH, where his sister Catherine (a.k.a. Sister Mercedes) lived.

A jovial drinker for much of his life, he came to realize some 30 years ago that alcohol threatened his health and well-being. With considerable effort, he managed to remove it from his lifestyle, redirecting his focus to the things and people he loved, and on service to others.

He is survived by Donna, his wife of 56 years, his sons Christopher & Matteo and their wives, Rachel and Melissa, grandson Seeger, and many nieces and nephews, the children of his sisters Marie & Jean and brothers Paul, Edward & Charlie. Two of his sisters were nuns and pre-deceased him: Sister Mercedes, OCD, mentioned above, and Sister Mary Brian, RSM (a.k.a. Anna Catherine McCarthy.)

Funeral services will be held Wednesday, August 7th at Saint Bridget’s Church in Pacific Beach at 11:00, followed by a Celebration of Life lunch at the church hall (with music by “Let’s Reminisce”) In lieu of flowers, donations in his honor may be made to the Catholic Worker.

(http:// www.sandiegocatholicworker.org) or A Faith That Does Justice at (http://www.faith-justice.org)

Guests are welcome to wear “Aloha Attire”. Brian was fond of this phrase, which is found in obituaries of many people with connections to the Pacific Islands. Indeed, Brian himself enjoyed reading obituaries, as you have, hopefully, enjoyed reading his.