Rita Crosby

RYE BROOK, N.Y. — Rita Crosby, a longtime resident of Lexington, Mass., and South Orleans, passed away on Tuesday, Nov. 18, at the King Street Home in Rye Brook.

A vibrant woman and loving wife, mother and grandmother, she was born on Feb. 28, 1913, to Thomas Tierney and Ellen O'Keefe of Watertown, Mass. One of seven siblings, she attended Boston area schools and received both her bachelor's and master's degrees from Boston University.

After teaching biology for several years at Erie (Pa.) College, she returned to the Boston area, where she taught physical education for more than 30 years before retiring from the Waltham public school system in 1979.

In December 1947, she married her beloved husband, the late John F. Crosby, who passed away in August of 2007, on Cape Cod.

She is survived by her daughter, Rita, and son-in-law, James Cain, of Larchmont; granddaughters, Meaghan Cain, a graduate student living in New York City, and Mollie Cain, an undergraduate at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla.; her sole surviving sibling, Muriel Healy of Arlington, Mass.; three sisters-in-law, Elizabeth and Barbara Crosby of Arlington, Mass., and Helen Crosby of Spokane, Wash.; and two nieces, Helen Biggs of Spokane and Maureen Love of Seeley Lake, Mont.

Friends may call at the John J. Fox Funeral Home, 2080 Post Road, in Larchmont, from 9 to 10 a.m., on Saturday, Nov. 22. A funeral Mass will be held the same day at 11 a.m. at the Sts. John and Paul Church, 280 Weaver St., in Larchmont. A private burial will take place on Cape Cod.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations be made to the Forman School, 12 Norfolk Road, Litchfield, CT 06759.