John Finbar "Jack" Sullivan, Jr.

John F. Sullivan, Jr. passed away on May 1, 2025.

Master plumber, Vietnam veteran, CCD teacher, Old Gold smoker, boiler of lobsters, bestower of nicknames, lord of the kitchen table, and owner of the best laugh in the Bay State, Jack grew up in Jamaica Plain and raised his family in Quincy.

He was through and through a man devoted to family. At the center of that was his beloved wife of 53 years, Elaine Sullivan, who often reminded him that he moved up in the world when the Jamaica Plain boy met the girl from Mission Hill. The fateful moment came in 1967 when he gave Elaine and her friends a 1:00 am ride to the Cape in his Mustang. Not long after his return from Vietnam, Jack married Elaine in 1971 and moved to Quincy in 1974, where they raised their family in St. Ann’s Parish. They had five children: Tom, Peter, Christine, Mary, and Susan. Also mourning Jack’s passing are his children’s partners, Joan Slattery, Elizabeth Eilers Sullivan, Brian Miller, and Ryan Sousa; and Jack’s seven grandchildren, Finbar, Anna, Grace, Liam, Kieran, Seamus, and Maggie. He is survived by his brother James, his three sisters, Marguerite, Christine, and Kathleen, as well as many beloved nieces and nephews. In addition to his parents, John and Marguerite, he was predeceased by his brother Joseph and his sister Patricia.

Like his father and two younger brothers, Jack was a master plumber who could look at the Boston skyline and point out the many buildings he had worked on. His career included a decade of running his own general-contracting business, Neale & Sullivan, followed by two happy decades working at the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority, where among other duties, he taught plumbing apprentices and served as a union treasurer.

In all things, Jack’s enthusiasms were personal and absolute. He loved a well-sharpened knife, a corned beef dinner on St. Patrick’s Day, scalloping on the Cape with his brothers, deer hunting in Maine with his best friend Jimmy Craig, a good Western (they were all good, Lonesome Dove especially), and the writings of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. Long into his battle with cancer, he still split the wood and kindling for his fireplace. He passed away in a room he built, “the family room,” with Elaine by his side.

If life is best measured in laughs and the love of family, Jack Sullivan won.

Relatives and friends are respectfully invited to greet the family during the visiting hours on Thursday May 8, 2025, from 4-8 PM in the Keohane Funeral Home, 785 Hancock St., QUINCY. A Celebration of Life Service will be held in the funeral home at 9:15 AM on Friday May 9, 2025, prior to the Funeral Mass in St. Ann’s Church, Quincy at 10 AM. Burial in St. Anthony's Cemetery, Falmouth.