Mary Gaffney, 68; inspired, guided Pentucket students

MARY GAFFNEY

At Pentucket Regional High School in West Newbury, where she taught or counseled for 40 years, hundreds of students considered Mary Gaffney a second mom.

With them, she shared her love of the written word, and her zest for life and how to meet its challenges.

At home, she was the "strong and independent" single mother of three, working several jobs to keep her young family afloat, said her daughter, Brenda M. Dresser, a teacher from West Newbury. "Our father left us when I was 4," she said. "As we grew older, we started to realize how lucky we were and started to give her presents on Mother's Day and Father's Day."

Mrs. Gaffney, a legendary English teacher and guidance counselor at Pentucket who fulfilled a lifetime dream on her 65th birthday by going up in a hot air balloon, died Sept. 18 of complications of diabetes at her West Newbury home. She was 68.

"Mary was probably the most committed educator I have ever been around, totally dedicated to her kids," said William Martin of Tewksbury, a former colleague at Pentucket. She not only taught English literature and creative writing, he said, but threw herself enthusiastically into directing the annual school play and being involved in most other extracurricular activities and athletics. "Mary realized, more so than all of us, that the follow-up outside the classroom was equally important to the student."

Over the years, hundreds of her students thanked her for caring by making "pilgrimages" to see her on their visits home, said Geralyn White Dreyfous, a 1980 Pentucket graduate and an Academy Award-winning documentary producer living in Salt Lake City.

"Mary was just a great hero to her students," Dreyfous said. "She was a remarkable teacher with a big heart for the underdog. She had a lot of tragedies in her life, but they didn't defeat her. By sharing them with her students, she allowed them to be more honest with one another.

"Mary was part nun, part social worker, part cheerleader and school mascot," Dreyfous said. "Kids confided in her when they were in trouble."

She actually visited students at home when they were hurting, Dreyfous said. "She was a quiet giant who never hit the headlines."

"Mother was a trouper," Dresser said. She persevered after developing gestational diabetes during pregnancy at age 30. When one of her children developed leukemia, she dealt with that while holding down as many as three jobs. When she could fit it in, she waited on tables, and during summers she worked at pools, so her children could swim for free.

To celebrate her 40th birthday, she parachuted from an airplane in Orange.

About two years ago, Mrs. Gaffney fulfilled a lifelong dream and went up in a hot air balloon over Concord, N.H. She had already lost part of a leg to diabetes and had a hot air balloon "tattooed" on her prosthetic. Last year, a teenage grandchild flew with her in a helicopter in the Bahamas.

Born Mary Katherine Busalacchi in Boston, she grew up in Medford, one of four children of Francesco A. and Margaret M. (Proctor) Busalacchi. She excelled in sports and graduated from Matignon High School in Cambridge.

She graduated with a bachelor's degree in education from Boston College's Lynch School of Education in 1963 and started teaching English at Pentucket that year. Her enthusiasm was contagious, said Maureen White of Groveland, a retired teacher and longtime friend.

"Mary was an icon in the Pentucket school system," she said. "In 1983, she got the boys on the football team, where she often ran the hot dog stand, to play roles in the musical, 'Guys and Dolls.' They were reluctant at first, but it was a hit."

When Mrs. Gaffney decided to become a guidance counselor at Pentucket High, she earned a master's degree in education in 1991 at Salem State College and focused on counseling and psychological counseling.

Neighbors and friends looked after her children while she became qualified to take on yet another job. "As kids, we thought [that] working two or three jobs, . . . not having a dad around, was normal," Dresser said. "Our mom worked hard to make that seem normal, never missing our games and recitals."

For a time while teaching, she worked at Baldpate Hospital in Georgetown, and then at Turning Point Inc. in Newburyport, caring for people with drug and alcohol problems.

Geri Shepherd of Merrimac worked at Turning Point with Mrs. Gaffney and recalled her dedication to clients. "If they were out on the street, you'd see Mary sitting on the curb or in a dark stairwell listening to them. Mary loved life and people. She took her own tragedies and would find the comedy in them, with her big laugh and a bigger smile."

Mrs. Gaffney retired from Pentucket in 2002 after she had been incapacitated by a fall.

Her work ethic was an example for her children, said her son, Mark, a high school teacher in Skokie, Ill.

In spite of her failing health, she did not slow down. An avid golfer, she was chairwoman of an annual golf tournament to raise funds for the American Cancer Society and for the Pentucket Scholarship Fund.

When town issues bothered her in Groveland, where she had lived, she ran and was elected town moderator.

She loved that two of her children became teachers. "We chose her profession, not because of its rewards," said Mark, a former newspaperman. "The rewards were not financial. Mother really cared about the kids. When they see that you actually care about them, they feed on that. They know when you are just saying something and when you really mean it. Mother always did."

Dresser said the family will plant a tree at Pentucket High in memory of their mother. A team is being formed to honor her in the Walk to Fight Diabetes on Oct. 11 in Boston.

Besides her son and daughter, Mrs. Gaffney leaves another daughter, Maura A. Callahan of Groveland; a sister, Catherine Reinheimer of Bristol, N.H.; two brothers, Frank Busalacchi of Billerica and Jack Busalacchi of Stoneham; and six grandchildren.

Services have been held.