John Keegan

John (Jack) Joseph Keegan of Scituate, Massachusetts, passed away peacefully at the Pat Roche Hospice Home in Hingham. He was on his way to his ninety-second birthday. In many ways, Jack’s life was a search, for peace, for home. Born in Laurelton, Queens, and raised in Brooklyn, he lost his mother at the age of three. When he reached school age, he went to the St. Joseph School in Newburgh, New York. Jack graduated from Xavier High School in Manhattan, and perhaps it was among the Jesuits at Xavier that he developed his lifelong love of learning and of God. After his graduation from Niagara University, Jack joined the Trappist community at St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, where he spent a year in contemplation, planning to enter the priesthood. At the end of that year, however, his novice master, Brother Thomas Keating—who later founded the Contemplative Prayer Movement and remained his spiritual advisor—told him that he didn’t believe this was his calling.

Jack entered the military and was deployed to Korea just after the end of the conflict and afterward, in keeping with his commitment to serving others, attended Boston College, where he earned his master’s degree in social work—and met Mary Lough, who became his wife and partner of 56 years, until her death in 2015. After a decade in Dorchester, Jack and Mary found their last home in Scituate. For their fiftieth wedding anniversary, Mary framed the ticket stub from the first movie he ever took her to, Around the World in 80 Days.

He found his professional home in the Marshfield Public Schools, working as an adjustment counselor, his spiritual home here at St. Mary of the Nativity, and his beloved coffee home at Dunkin Donuts. Their five children, Pat (Ann Montgomery), Kathy (Doug Brandt), Mike (Mary Keegan), Sue, and Matt (Jen Sherburne) are all brilliantly different and have themselves followed widely varied paths.

Nearly 25 years ago, Jack and Mary discovered ballroom dancing and attended weekly (or more frequent) dances and classes at the South Shore Dancers in Norwell (www.southshoredancers.org) and spent getaway dance weekends at Purity Springs Resort in New Hampshire. Shortly after Mary’s passing, Jack took daughter Kathy aside and showed her the last page in his little black date book. He said, “If something happens to me, I don’t want you to think I’ve been dating. All of these women keep asking me to dance, and I have to remember their names!” And it was in the dance halls that he was to meet his second great dance partner and companion, Claire Briand, of South Dennis, who was with him until the end.

Jack was also grandfather to eight: Katherine, John (Katherine Treat), and Ryan; Jane and Lucie; and Eliza, Henry, and Vivian. He was predeceased by his brother, Larry, and is survived by his sister, Joan Martin. His journey on earth is ended, yet in the most important way, he has gone home. Throughout his life and to the end, Jack Keegan was a truly good human being.

A wake will be held on Wednesday, December 6, from 3 to 7 pm, at the Richardson-Gaffey Funeral Home, 382 First Parish Rd, in Scituate.

Jack’s funeral mass will take place at 11 am on Thursday, December 7, at St. Mary of the Nativity, 1 Kent St, in Scituate.

Donations can be made in Jack’s name to the Norwell Visiting Nurses Association (www.nvna.org) and St. Mary’s (https://giving.parishsoft.com/App/Giving/stm1ke274).