Walter C. Scanlon

Walter C. Scanlon, 97, a longtime North Attleborough resident, died peacefully on December 17, 2022 in Falmouth, where he had lived since 2012.

He was the husband of Barbara M. (Aldrich) Scanlon, to whom he had been married 58 years when she died in 2006.

Walter was born in 1925 in Attleboro to the late Willard and Hazel (Carpenter) Scanlon. He graduated from Attleboro High School in 1943 and enlisted in the U.S. Army. Initially, he attended Officer's Candidate School at City College of New York to study engineering, but in 1944 he was deployed to the front in Europe. He was honorably discharged in 1946 as a private first class with qualifications as a radio instructor.

Walter married Barbara in 1948, while he was a student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He earned a BS degree in Electrical Engineering with Honors in 1950 and worked at The Foxboro Company in numerous engineering and management capacities from 1950 until his retirement in 1985. He maintained a deep interest in science and technology from high school until his death, as evidenced by the number of science and engineering magazines he read daily. He was an early adopter of personal home computers and continued to shop online for his clothes, follow the stock market, surf the web, and email his family well into his nineties.

Throughout his adult life, Walter lived in North Attleborough, where he and Barbara raised two sons and a daughter. He served one term on the North Attleborough School Committee, from 1967 to 1970, and four terms on the North Attleborough Electric Commission, from 1974 to 1986.

Walter's first priority was always his family; he was a loving father and grandfather as well as a devoted husband. Rather than attempt to discourage his sons' interests in pyrotechnics, he designed and built a remote detonator to increase their chances of surviving to adulthood with all body parts intact. He pursued quieter interests with his daughter such as exploring local waterways by canoe with a knapsack full of bread, cheese, cookies and the occasional bottle of wine. He followed the careers and adventurous exploits of his three children and four grandchildren with great interest and always looked forward to spending time with them and his three great-grandchildren.

In Barbara's later years, Walter was her dedicated caretaker. When he could no longer provide her care at home, he visited her daily at Madonna Manor.

In addition to his wife and his parents, he was predeceased by a son, Raymond W. Scanlon, who died in 2019; and his sister, Jeanne (Scanlon) Higley.

He leaves a son, David W. Scanlon and his wife, Elizabeth A. Scanlon, of Rehoboth, MA; a daughter, Kathryn Scanlon Catanach and her husband, Rodney M. Catanach, of Falmouth, MA; a daughter-in-law, Cheryl Brooks of Attleboro, MA; two grandsons, Michael D. Scanlon and his partner, Lauren Geremia, of San Francisco, CA, and Matthew T. Scanlon and his wife, Jessica Scanlon, of Norfolk, MA; two granddaughters, Laura H. Catanach of Falmouth, MA, and Tamara M. Catanach of Valparaíso, Chile; and three great-grandchildren, Thomas and Charles Scanlon of Norfolk, MA, and Pepper Scanlon of San Francisco, CA.