Jack P. McShane

1952 - 2025

Jack P. McShane
January 1, 1952 - December 17, 2025
Jack P. McShane of Durham passed away, surrounded by family, at the age of 73 at Middlesex Hospital on December 17, 2025. Born in Flushing, Queens and raised in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Jack was the son of the late John P. McShane and Catherine (Klein) McShane.
Jack loved his city, riding the subway regularly and falling in love with baseball as he went to games at Yankee Stadium. He went on to graduate from Holy Cross High School in Queens, attended Queensborough Community College, and moved to Tennessee for three years before returning to the northeast, settling in Connecticut. It was 1979 when he met his wife Carol, to whom he was married for 46 years.
Jack and Carol met on Easter that year, and he knew she was the one right away. They raised a family in Durham, and they thoroughly enjoyed traveling, attending the theater, going to concerts, and participating in family gatherings together. Their back yard was the center of activity in the neighborhood, as friends and neighbors could be found there playing baseball every night in the summer months.
For twenty-six years, Jack worked as a driver for FedEx, befriending all of the regulars on his various routes, especially the ones who loved baseball and had season tickets. He was devoted to working hard and always showing up, making sure that he was doing everything he possibly could to benefit his family. After retiring from FedEx, he went to work for Regional School District 13, working as a mail courier for the schools and serving as an assistant coach for the track and cross country teams for many years.
Jack had a wide variety of interests and gave his full support and enthusiasm to all of them, but at the core of his upbeat, energetic personality was the fact that he loved people. Whether he was at a Yankees or Mets game, a Broadway show, one of the many road races he ran, or a meet with his student athletes, he was a fan of all of the amazing things that people could do. And sharing his love for all of his favorite things was paramount, as he'd be even more excited to share each of those experiences with family and friends than he was to enjoy them himself.
Family was everything to Jack, and he passed down his love and enthusiasm for living life to his kids. No matter the occasion, if they had something going on, he found a way to make it there to be their loudest supporter. As his kids turned into adults, he was also the first to offer to take them out for a celebration, ideally one that included a pint of Guinness. And when he became a grandfather, he doubled down on his devotion to family, doing everything he could to help out when his grandchildren were born. His tradition of showing up with new ideas for Wacky Wednesdays with his granddaughter Kiley brought him so much joy.
On top of all of that, Jack was a competitive and accomplished runner in New York City and New England. He was a seven-time winner of the New York Road Runners Runner of the Year Award in his age group, and he ran the New York City Marathon a whopping thirty-four times, finishing the first twenty-four in under three hours. He ran the Boston Marathon three times, too, and would officially side with the runners who said that New York City had the harder course. He set his personal record in Boston with a time of 2:43:51, slightly besting his 2:44:26 best in New York.
In addition to Carol, Jack is survived by: his son Christopher McShane and his wife Diana of Bainbridge, New York; his daughter Katelyn Moore and her husband Brendon, his granddaughter Kiley, and his grandson Jack of West Hartford; his son Michael McShane and his wife Courtney of Middletown; his sister Maureen Meagher and her husband Jack of Island Park, New York; his sister Patty McCalmont of Glen Cove, New York; his sister Barbara Winckler of Harwich, Massachusetts; and many nieces, nephews, and cousins.
Family and friends are respectfully invited to attend visitation on Friday, January 2 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Doolittle Funeral Home, 14 Old Church Street, Middletown, CT. A funeral mass will be held on Saturday, January 3 at 10:00 a.m. at Notre Dame Church, 272 Main Street, Durham, CT.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to New York Road Runners in Jack's memory at: https://donations.nyrr.org/donations/new?fundraising_effort=new-york-road-runners