Wilma “Carol” (Andrews) Cavanaugh

Wilma “Carol” (Andrews) Cavanaugh passed away peacefully in her Hingham home surrounded by her loving husband James Cavanaugh and her five adult children on Thursday, October 5, 2023. She was 93.

Born in North Fryeburg, Maine on February 22, 1930, Carol was one of six children born to Langdon and Carolyn (Baker) Andrews. She loved Maine and always valued her Maine roots.

Carol graduated from Fryeburg Academy, Fryeburg, Maine in 1947 and graduated from University of Maine, Orono, and Central Maine General Hospital in the first graduating class of the Bachelors of Nursing Arts Degree program in 1952. After graduation she began her career as an Instructor of Nursing Arts in Lewiston, Maine.

In 1954, Carol moved to Boston where she worked for the US Public Health Service as a Head Nurse and then Beth Israel Hospital as an Instructor of Medical and Surgical Nursing. She was proud of her career and her professional success after college.

She met her husband James “Jim” Cavanaugh at a Norwood Elks dance, and they were married in June 1958 after he graduated from Northeastern University. After they were married, she continued with her career until her children were born. Together Carol and Jim made homes in Portland, Maine; Providence, Rhode Island; Manchester, New Hampshire; Topsfield, Massachusetts and Upper Saddle River, New Jersey before they settled in their current home in Hingham, Massachusetts in 1988.

Once the children were grown, Carol returned to the nursing career that she loved as a nursing educator at North Shore Community College in Beverly, Massachusetts and later at Labouré College in Dorchester, Massachusetts. In 1992 she was inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau, the Nursing Honor Society as a community leader in Nursing.

Always active in her community, Carol enjoyed serving in her local Catholic parishes, where in 1973 she was commissioned as an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist (now Eucharistic Minister) in the inaugural class in the Boston Archdiocese, a service she performed until very recently. She was also a long-time religious education instructor. She was active in other community activities such as the Topsfield Board of Heath in the 1970’s. Later in Hingham, she enjoyed volunteering at the Red Cross and being a hostess for the Hingham Historical Society and administering flu vaccines with her RN daughter, Carolyn Randall, well into her 80s.

An avid hiker in the White Mountains, she was proud to successfully summit Mt. Washington as a fifty-something. She enjoyed every minute of her time at “Pinewold” on Kezar Lake in Maine, a family camp built by her father and shared by her siblings. She spent time there every summer with Jim and her children and loved seeing her siblings and nieces and nephews. More recently, she especially loved introducing her grandkids to the joys of the lake such as the sounds of the loons, swims to the raft, canoe rides out to the rocks and cheese and crackers on the porch at 5 PM.

A longtime fan of the Red Sox, more than anyone in her family, she celebrated their World Series win in 2004 and enjoyed games, whether listening, watching or going to Fenway Park.

More than anything, Grammy loved watching her grandchildren grow into the engaged and thoughtful people that they have become. She attended their performances, concerts and plays, cheered their sports teams and skating shows, attended their graduations. Beginning in March 2020 during the Pandemic, the Cavanaugh family gathered weekly via Zoom to share stories, birthdays and milestones of life. She loved hearing it all.

Carol was predeceased by her parents Langdon and Carolyn (Baker) Andrews, her siblings Ruth (Andrews) Porter and her husband Ralph, Langdon Jr. and his wife Dorothy (Libby), Albert and his wife Joanne (Hoar), Beverly (Andrews) Lapointe and her husband Richard and Paul and his wife Janet (Philbrook), her sister-in-law Catherine (Cavanaugh) Campbell and her husband Jim, brother-in-law Francis, brother-in-law Joseph and his wife Lois (Donovan), brother-in-law William and his wife Ginny (Huff), brother-in-law Thomas, her sister-in-law Claire (Hamrock), her infant son Paul David and infant grandchild Grace Teresa.

Carol is survived by her loving and devoted husband of 65 years, Jim; and children, Carolyn (Cavanaugh) Randall and husband Alan, Jim Jr. and his wife Kristen, David and his wife Jeaneen, Peter and his wife Eileen and Ann (Cavanaugh) Gioioso and her husband Joe. Also, her grandchildren, Stephanie, Katie, Sarah, Madelyn, Christopher, Joanna, Patrick, Maggie, Megan, Shannon, John, Christina, Connor, AJ, and Peter, her sisters-in-law Phyllis (Spillane) Cavanaugh and Carol (Brandli) Cavanaugh, her brother-in-law Michael and many nieces and nephews.

Relatives and friends are respectfully invited to greet the family during the visiting hours on Thursday, October 12, 2023, 4-7 PM in the Pyne Keohane Funeral Home, 21 Emerald St. (off Central St.), HINGHAM.

A Funeral Mass will be Celebrated in St. Paul’s Church, Hingham at 10 AM on Friday, October 13, 2023.

Services will conclude with interment in St. Paul’s Cemetery, Hingham.