Kenneth R. Dillon

1947 - 2021

Kenneth Robert Dillon died in the company of friends in the Care Dimensions Hospice House in Lincoln on Monday, July 19, 2021, after a short battle with metastatic cancer. He was the only child born to Dorothy "Dot" Browne Dillon and George Albert Dillon. Ken was born August 9, 1947, and grew up in South Weymouth. He graduated with honors from Thayer Academy in 1965, subsequently attending the Georgetown School of Foreign Service from which he received a Bachelor of Science Degree in 1969. Returning to Boston and Cambridge, he began a long and distinguished career in banking and finance culminating in twenty years at the Cambridge Savings Bank retiring in December 2019 as a Senior Vice President and Team Leader. Ken was from a musical family, and he demonstrated his love for classical music throughout his life. His grandmother was a concert classical pianist and his mother an accomplished cellist. An excellent pianist himself, Ken would regale any social occasion when there was a piano available with some of his favorite pieces - Shubert's The Trout, Strauss' The Voices of Spring and anything by Beethoven whose birthday he celebrated religiously each year. Nothing could be better for Ken than an afternoon or evening performance of the Boston Symphony Orchestra followed by some fine dining in one of his favorite restaurants in Boston or Cambridge. Ken had a profound knowledge of domestic and international politics, economics, and history. He had an encyclopedic understanding of railroads American and otherwise including their history, finance, and day to day operations. He enjoyed sharing this eclectic knowledge with his friends. Ken was a good friend. Although somewhat shy and retiring in high school, he kept those friendships throughout his life. At Georgetown School of Foreign Service, he was a key member of a set of students who christened themselves the T Street Group. He referred to their post graduate periodic social gatherings as Summit Meetings. Ken considered many of his colleagues in banking and even his clients in commercial finance good friends and he spent many a holiday and festive event throughout New England, Georgia, and Indianapolis with these friends and their families. Though the last in his small biologic family, Ken Dillon was part of a large and caring community. He was a generous host when entertaining and a grateful guest. He was a valued mentor to his friends' children and his younger colleagues. He was an honest broker who cared deeply about his job and his clients. He is survived and will be missed by his Goddaughters, Maria Coleman English and Abigail Burns Patterson, by his dear friends, Penny Dincauze, Keith Beardsley, Brian Kelly, Elizabeth and George Burns and family and Janice and Jack Coleman and family and by the many whose lives he made better. Family and friends will honor and remember Ken's life by gathering for his funeral Mass on Friday, September 10, 2021, at 11 am in Our Lady Comforter of the Afflicted Church, 880 Trapelo Road, Waltham. Burial will follow in Calvary Cemetery, Waltham. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to Boston Catholic Charities, at www.ccab.org/give or to Mass General Hospital Cancer Center, at www.giving.massgeneral.org.