Laurence Gilgun, 77; educator tickled the ivories in Woburn

Laurence ''Lolly'' Gilgun learned to play the piano when he was 3 and spent much of his life on the keyboards.

A hair-splitting argument could be made that Lolly Gilgun wasn't a born performer - not technically, anyway. He didn't start plunking out melodies until he was 3, feet dangling from a piano bench as an aunt introduced him to the wonders of music.

From then on, though, he usually was found at a keyboard in high school, college, and as a middle school administrator, when he created the annual Green and Blue Revue at Joyce Middle School in Woburn.

"The musical involved not only the performers, but the stage hands and all the students and the teachers," the Rev. Bernard Gilgun of Shrewsbury said of his younger brother. "The whole school would be involved in the production. That was a big part of his mixing with the kids and getting to know them."

A second-generation Irish immigrant whose fondness for his ancestral homeland always took a back seat to his love of Woburn, Mr. Gilgun died Monday in Winchester Hospital of complications from lung cancer. He was 77 and had always called Woburn home.

"One of the greatest things I remember about him was that he was a stupendous piano player," John Mateus of New York City said of his grandfather. "He was always playing piano, no matter the family occasion."

Indeed, Mr. Gilgun's last performance was Aug. 24, when he played "Happy Birthday" for Ann Gilgun, his wife of 54 years.

Born into a well-known Woburn family - his older brother John grew up to be mayor, his brother Frederick became a judge - Laurence P. Gilgun came to be known as Lolly by happenstance.

"My father was the youngest for about nine years, and then David came along," said Susan Mateus of Woburn. "David couldn't pronounce 'Larry' very well and it came out 'Lolly.' Being a pianist at the time, my father kind of needed a nickname, and it stuck."

By the time Mr. Gilgun graduated from Woburn Memorial High School in 1948, his musical talents were in demand at school and social events. That continued when he went to the University of Lowell, where he graduated with an education degree, and to Salem State College, from which he received a master's in music.

Though the Gilgun brothers went into politics, the judiciary, the church, and the education field - all fields that require a certain grace and congeniality - Mr. Gilgun was always the most popular, Bernard Gilgun said.

"It was his personality, temperament, and piano playing," he said. "You see pictures of him in his college yearbook - he's sitting at the piano with a beer up there, playing for everyone. Who wouldn't like him?"

One person who took a liking to Mr. Gilgun was Ann Murphy, who met him one day through mutual friends in front of St. Charles Church in Woburn.

"He took one look at her and said, 'That's the girl I'm going to marry,' " their daughter said. "He knew he had to go to college first and get an education, but he said she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen."

The couple married in 1954, after Mr. Gilgun served in the Army during the Korean War, stationed at the US military academy at West Point.

He spent his entire career as a teacher and administrator in Woburn, first as a teacher at the Goodyear School, then as assistant principal at the high school, and finally as the first principal at Joyce Middle School, which was named for the doctor who had delivered the Gilgun children. He retired in 1992.

Throughout his career in schools, Mr. Gilgun played regularly for events such as the annual Mayor's Appreciation Dinner for senior citizens, and he once put the history of John, Robert, and Edward Kennedy to music in "The Grandsons of Honey Fitz." Mr. Gilgun's musical took its title from the nickname of John F. Fitzgerald, the maternal grandfather of the Kennedy brothers.

"It was very, very clever, and it played around in the towns," said Bernard Gilgun, who is in residence at St. Anne's Church in Shrewsbury. "The musical was very biographical and was a tribute to Jack and Bobby and Teddy. It was very much like you were reading their story, but Lolly put it to rhyme and music."

After retiring, Mr. Gilgun worked for a while with his wife at her travel agency. He served on Woburn's Democratic Committee and traveled extensively with his wife, including to Ireland, where his grandfather had left County Leitrim to immigrate to the United States.

"His father was proud to be an American, and he was, too," Mr. Gilgun's daughter said. "He wasn't wishy-washy about Ireland: 'Yeah, it's nice, but we live in Woburn.' "

It was in Woburn where Mr. Gilgun was recognized on the streets and in shops by former students and those who had seen him play, people who through the years had been charmed by the piano player.

"If you stepped in a room where he was just for a minute, you knew you were in the room with someone special," said his son Frank of Woburn. "That's Lolly."

In addition to his wife, his daughter Susan, his son Frank, brother Bernard, and grandson John, Mr. Gilgun leaves another son, Laurence Jr. of Salem; two other daughters, Ann of Woburn and Kathleen Colangelo of Wilmington; a sister, Margaret Collamore of Peabody; four brothers, John, Frederick, Richard, and David, all of Woburn; and eight other grandchildren.

The Rev. Bernard Gilgun will say his brother's funeral Mass at 11 a.m. today in St. Charles Church in Woburn. Burial will be in Calvary Cemetery in Woburn.