Jeannette Cyr, of Scituate, passed away peacefully on July 7, 2015 surrounded by her loving family of children, grandchildren and great grandchildren after a brief and unexpected decline in health due to cancer.
A long-time member of St. Mary's Parish in Scituate, she was a well known person in town, and was often seen at morning mass or taking a brisk walk at the lighthouse or at Minot. Her family is so grateful that she was blessed with good health up until so shortly before her death, as she was driving and attending church as recently as ten days prior to her passing.
Jeannette Demers was born February 19, 1925, in New Bedford, MA. The youngest in a family of two boys and two girls, the family lived in a house with a large property. The family spoke French at home, and Jeannette learned English when she went to school. She was devoted to her faith as much in childhood as later in life.
She graduated high school from Sacred Hearts Academy in New Bedford in 1943 and from St. Anne's Hospital School of Nursing in Fall River in 1946. During World War II she served in the Cadet Nurse Corps, where as a seventeen year old girl she cared for badly wounded soldiers being brought back from the war. She was proud to serve her country in uniform, and more recently proud her name and those of other Cadet Nurse Corps members were listed on a national monument in Washington.
She married Charles Adrian Senecal, a member of a prominent local family of doctors and pharmacists, in 1947, and they began a family on Acushnet Avenue in New Bedford. Their three children (Charlene, Lorenzo and Donna) were born over a period of four years, and their time together ended when he was tragically killed in a car accident in 1953.
She continued raising the three children as a single parent while working as a nurse. In 1958, she met and married Leonard Edward Cyr, a friend of her brother-in-law from Army Reserves.
The family relocated to Vinal Avenue in Scituate in 1958, and she and Lenny had a daughter Michelle on March 30, 1959. Jeannette's sister Dorothy and family relocated to Scituate soon after, and the two families with their nine children in aggregate enjoyed many years of fun and togetherness as the children grew. The love and closeness of her family and extended family was the great joy and blessing in her life, and sustained her when she lost her husband Lenny in 1979 after a long battle with cancer.
She is survived by her children Charlene Bernick, Lorenzo Senecal, Donna Crowley and Michelle Pinkerton, and her children in law, Mary Senecal, Richard Crowley and Glenn Pinkerton (all of whom she loved as her own), as well as by her older sister, Dorothy Macdonald, and by her nine grandchildren and nine great grandchildren.
A visitation will be held at the Richardson-Gaffey Funeral Home, 382 First Parish Rd, Scituate on Monday, July 13th from 4PM to 8PM and the funeral will be at 10:00am on Tuesday, July 14th in St. Mary of the Nativity Church, 1 Kent St, Scituate followed by burial in St. Mary’s Cemetery. A reception will be held at the Barker Tavern, Scituate.
As an alternative to flowers, the family asks that donations in her honor be made to St. Jude's Children's Hospital, a charity she supported over many years. The family wishes in particular to thank the nursing and other medical staff at South Shore Hospital, who gave her such caring personal attention during her final days.
Her faith and hope was always with the Lord and now she has gone on to peace and rest with Him.
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