Jean M McCawley

Jean Marie McCawley of Quincy, Braintree, and formerly of Milton, went home on October 28, 2021 to be with her Lord at peace and knowing that she was deeply loved and appreciated by her family and many friends.

Jean was born November 14, 1926 at 31 St. Margaret Street in Dorchester, MA. She was the first of two children born to Charles A. McCawley and Mary (Tooze) McCawley. In 1930 the family moved to 344 Central Ave in Milton, into what would be for 50 years the family homestead.

Jean graduated from Milton High School in 1943. She attended and graduated from Radcliffe College – the most prestigious women’s college in the country.

In her own words written in 1997, “Though I was a French major and planned to join the foreign department of the First National Bank of Boston… I was persuaded by “Woody” to consider teaching music. After two years of training at Shady Hill, courses in the symphony and choral conducting, a music ed course at Harvard, piano, solfege, and harmony lessons, I went to Milton Academy where I was happily involved for 44 years. I continued my own music education with piano, cello, 16th century composition, 20th century techniques… In various 3-10 year periods I conducted the Dedham Choral Society, taught at the Vassar Summer Institute, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, served on the board of a community school, and I have just finished 30 years of playing Sunday and Holy Day services for a Roxbury church.

I’ve now returned from regularly scheduled commitments so there is more time for fun, friends, travel, and gardening, but I do volunteer work at Roxbury school, am on a scholarship board at the New England Conservatory, and study piano with David Deveau.”

Jean McCawley was described as “having an all-suffusing love of music” and as “the best regarded, most effective, and best known [musical] ambassador to the greater community.”

Jean was predeceased by her father, Charles A., her mother, Mary T., and her brother, Charles J. “Brother”. She was Auntie Jean to Kathy McCawley of Natick and her children Brooke, Gregg, Marc, Rachel, and TJ, and her five grandchildren; Andy McCawley of Hingham and his children Charles, Kathryn, and Carolyn; Meg Johnson of Atlantic Beach, FL, and her children Devan and Hailey; Peter McCawley of Atlantic Beach, FL, and his children PD, Amanda, Sarah, and Katie; and Brian McCawley of Springfield, VA, and his children Russell and Maura.

She leaves behind a saddened wide swath of friends and relatives, including but not limited to James Gilmartin and Anne Marie McCawley of PA, Mary Rogers and Claire Cassidy of Dorchester, and David Deveau of Cushing, ME. In Eastport, ME, she leaves behind Jackie Knox and family, Judith Flagg, Jane DuPond, Cathie Gallagher, Sharon Fickett, the Miliano’s, and Father Paul Sullivan. Finally, she will be missed by her seventy plus years of friends and musical colleagues from Milton Academy and far beyond.

To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Jean M McCawley, please visit our floral store.