Jeffrey Dwight Brawn

Jeffrey Dwight Brawn died in his Reisterstown, Maryland home on November 23, 2024, after a brief illness, surrounded by family, friends, dogs, stories, memories, and love.
Jeff was born in Dexter, Maine on January 13, 1955, to Hildon Maynard and Dorothy Marsh Brawn. After graduating from Dexter Regional High School in 1973, he enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, and earned an Associate Degree in Culinary Arts in 1975. He then enlisted in the Navy and served for four-and-a-half years in the Medical Corps, principally stationed at the Patuxent River, Maryland base.
After his service, Jeff worked briefly at North Arundel Hospital as a central supply assistant, then moved on to Johns Hopkins Hospital as a surgical technician in the orthopedic operating room. Two years later, he began a 34-year-long, highly-regarded career with Johns Hopkins University, in the Cardiac Surgery Research Lab. With Jeff's calm demeanor and technical skills, and with his mentorship of many medical students and residents, the Cardiac Lab continued the groundbreaking work of Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas. In fact, it's Jeff's own hands that appear in the surgical sequences of the 2004 HBO film Something the Lord Made, detailing Blalock and Thomas's roles in pioneering new life-saving heart surgeries.
His career at Hopkins was punctuated by professional sojourns with Simonds Nursery in Reisterstown, first as a landscape foreman, then as garden center manager, allowing him to indulge his fascination for plant life and the natural world. At both Hopkins and Simonds, Jeff developed life-long friendships easily and openly, and was loved by all who were lucky enough to know him.
He is predeceased by his parents Hildon and Dorothy, and by his first partner, William Smith, with whom Jeff bought the Reisterstown farm house he would remain in for 42 years. In the years that followed, you would most likely find Jeff right there at home, caring for a variety of farm animals and creating incredible organic gardens, seeking to support the biology of all life on his property.
Despite being a solitary person by nature, Jeff was boundlessly curious and always welcomed guests into his home, sharing his passions for cuisine both fine and homey, horticulture both for beauty and sustenance, and philosophies from across the spectrum and around the globe (and even beyond). A number of those guests, including extended family members and several far-from-home Hopkins residents, found a temporary home with Jeff and his ever-present Great Danes. Having grown up with the family's boxers and pugs back in Dexter, he developed an affinity for the gentle, giant Danes as an adult, as both an owner and a breeder. Jeff was almost always part of a pack of at least two of them, and they were wonderful familiars for him.
Jeff was a creature of contradictions: a whimsical exterior that held within a will of steel. To miss either of these would be to miss the measure of the man. He even, in the throes of end-stage cancer, orchestrated the very terms and conditions of his own death.
Jeff is survived by: brother and sister-in-law Roger and Judy Brawn of Dexter, Maine; brother and sister-in-law Malcolm and Alicia Brawn of Franconia, New Hampshire; brother Gregory Brawn and partner Jennifer Webber of Exeter, Maine; sister-from-another-mother Patricia Brawn of Annapolis, Maryland; niece Kim Brawn of Dexter, Maine, niece Barbara Brawn of Annapolis, Maryland, niece and nephew-in-law Valerie and Robert Morrissette of Windham, Maine; niece Catherine Fortier of Winchester, Massachusetts; nephew Douglas Brawn of North Palm Beach, Florida; grandnieces Hannah and Elyce Wigham of Garland, Maine and Minerva Wigham of Bangor, Maine; dear friend and former partner Mark Cobb; dear friend and current partner Esau "Chip" Foster, II, Ph.D.; dear friend, Shani L. Foster; Cardiac Lab coworker of 30 years Melissa Jones; "adopted" daughter Kara Ranazzo; Jay Simonds, neighbor and dear friend; and his beloved Great Danes Maze and Gabe.
Flowers are a welcome addition to his service, to be held at Eline Funeral Home in Reisterstown on Sunday, December 1. Alternatively, donations in Jeff's memory can be made to Patapsco Heritage Greenway, www.patapsco.org, who work with Serenity Ridge Natural Burial Cemetery and Arboretum on planting, maintaining and restoring natural environments in the state.
To watch to services live, please click on the link; Click here to watch Live Stream
To Attendees of Jeff's Celebration of Life, both in person and online:
On behalf of Jeff's Team, we gratefully acknowledge and thank you for your attendance and support at his service. We were delighted to share so many wonderful memories