Ann M. Curley

Ann M. Curley, of Bridgewater, died peacefully of lung cancer, Oct. 20, in her sixty-fourth year, after a lifetime of service to family and community, as a devoted mother and nurse. Beloved wife of forty years to Professor Thomas M. Curley of Bridgewater State University, she took great pride in her three fine children, Jonathan of Jersey City, N.J., Geoffrey of Brooklyn, N.Y. and Jessica (Curley) Beauchamp of Bridgewater. Also survived by many nieces and nephews, including her beloved brothers, Robert Rowan of Cotuit and Peter Rowan of Tampa, Fla. The daughter of the late Frank Rowan of Boston and Mary (O'Toole) Rowan of County Galway, Ireland, Ann was born in Brookline, July 13, 1946. Having attended Mount St. Joseph Academy in Brighton, she enrolled at Cambridge Memorial and Melrose-Wakefield Hospitals to become in 1967 a registered nurse. Following service at Mass General, she worked at Yonkers General Hospital in New York and Fairfax Hospital in Virginia but spent most of her successful career at the Brockton Hospital. A masterful emergency room nurse there for twenty years, she strove courageously for quality health care in her daily duties and on the picket-line during a four-month strike at Brockton against mandatory overtime and understaffed conditions. Her compassionate curiosity about human diversity made her travel around the world, from China, India and Australia to Europe, Egypt and the Mideast. An elegant hard-working woman who dedicated her life to the care of others and to the support of her husband and children, she was voted the supreme professional honor of Employee of the Year at the Brockton Hospital in 2003. In her professional and private life, she fulfilled the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi: "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope." Visiting hours were in the Prophett-Chapman Cole & Gleason Funeral Home, 98 Bedford St., Bridgewater, Tuesday, Oct. 26, from 5 to 8 p.m. Memorial Mass held in St. Basil Chapel, 122 Park Ave., Bridgewater State University, Wednesday, Oct. 27, at 10 a.m. Memorial Donations may be made to the Jimmy Fund of the Dana Farber Hospital in Boston, 10 Brookline Place, West 6th Floor, Contribution Services, Brookline, MA 02445. For directions and online guest book, visit www.ccgfuneralhome.com. Prophett-Chapman Cole & Gleason 508-697-4332