B. Christene Mahoney

Mahoney, B. Christene (Gannaway) 77, of Braintree, died Jan. 9, 2015 at home.

A Registered Nurse, she lived in the Braintree-Weymouth area for close to 50 years after moving in 1961 with her then newly married husband Raymond J. Mahoney in to work at South Shore Hospital (she as a Maternity Nurse, he as an X-ray technologist). She worked in the surrounding community as a nurse for more than 30 years, including stints at the Elihu White Nursing Home, Braintree Hospital and John Scott Nursing Home, from where she retired when she was 63.

In addition to her beloved husband Raymond, she is survived by her daughters Keren Mahoney Jones and her husband Rick of Mansfield, along with their three children, Eve, Harry and Jill; Kathy (Mahoney) LaRosee and her husband Howie of Braintree and their five children, Elizabeth, Michelle, Derek, Ryan, and Kelly; and four great-grandchildren, Tyler, Aiden, Dylan and Donny. Her devoted son, Kevin James Mahoney, preceded her in death, as did her sister Tobie Miller and brother, Forest Gannaway, her brother, Raymond Gannaway and his wife Marty, of Dwight, Ill, her nieces, Lynn Miller and Debie (Miller) Mewhirter, both of Illinois, and many other loving nieces and nephews.

The daughter of Lester and Thelma Gannaway, she grew up in Illinois and was a 1955 graduate of Dwight High School. She won a Rotary Scholarship to study nursing and graduated with Bachelor Science degree from Brokaw Nursing School at Illinois Wesleyan University. It was through nursing that she had some of her greatest traveling adventures, met her future husband, when they both joined the U.S. Public Health Service in 1960 to work caring for the Native Eskimo population at Mt. Edgecume Hospital Alaska and made some of her most lasting friendships, including her very closest friend Ginny Cordingley, whom she met while they both worked at Braintree Hospital. She was not one to join organizations, yet in the close-knit neighborhood where she raised her family, if someone had a worry about a child or if an elderly neighbor took sick she was always available to answer a question or walk down the street to visit. Sometimes people called her the “nurse to the neighborhood.” 

She loved to read and loved music, especially classical and musicals such as Oklahoma! and South Pacific. She was a skilled seamstress and self-taught amateur gourmet cook. She truly enjoyed her role in later life as “Nana” to her bevy of grandchildren and they all knew it was true when she said she was a “kid at heart.

Memorial donations may be made in Christene’s name to South Shore Hospice of Weymouth, MA or to the Dana Farber Cancer Institite in Boston.

Relatives and friends are respectfully invited to attend the visiting hours on Tuesday from 4-8 PM in the McDonald Keohane Funeral Home SOUTH WEYMOUTH at 809 Main Street (Rte 18 opp. So. Shore Hospital)  Funeral services will be celebrated on Wednesday at 10:30 AM in McDonald Keohane Funeral Home.

Cremation will follow.