Susan A Fenner Eulogy
Notre Dame Cemetery, Therese Boucher: Worcester July 13, 2026
A big Thank You to each one who has come to say goodbye to my sister, Susan. There are so many things about her that I could share. One of these things was her longing to move back to Canterbury Towers, where she lived for twenty years, where her friends were and where she met Andy, the love of her life. Because of Susan’s desire, I took her urn to Canterbury for a brief visit. It felt right and it was the best I could do. “Here you are, Susan!” I told her. “You’re home!”
I am also thankful for her talents as a photographer and video maker. She used these gifts to connect family and friends, living and deceased. I remember the two of us going to a cemetery to take a picture of one of Andy’s relatives. The road was barely passable and the grave she wanted to photograph was at the top of a steep hill. Guess who climbed that hill, just for Susan? There were many more visits to cemeteries and Susan’s very large collection of obits in two of the widest binders I have ever seen. Susan also produced over one hundred movies, each was usually of or for a particular person. I would often get a call, “Please scan all the pictures you have of Memere and Pepere and send them to me.”
Underneath all of this activity was a genuine love for each person, and a desire to connect people with one another. Scientists call this “kinship keeping.” This gift also meant researching stories about family members. For example, we had a photo of Pepere Young, standing in front of a stone structure, wearing a military uniform. So of course, we drove to East Brookfield and searched every street and yard until we found the stone well, plus his grandfather’s grave, and the building where he signed up for the Merchant Marines. 
For more than ten years we explored cemeteries, old houses and restaurants along the way. And years before all this, Susan paid to convert the sizable collection of Fenner 8mm film into VHS. Then later, I paid to convert VHS into files on DVDs. New videos were added also, like the trip Susan, Carol, and I took to Philadelphia, where I filmed the two of them climbed up the wrong Rocky steps by mistake.
Susan had a knack for making friends. Her best friend at Canterbury was Josie. Susan first introduced me as the sister who likes dead people. “She’s not as interested in us living people”. Josie’s reply was, “Not yet.” For me, loved ones who have gone before us have had a role in shaping us, that goes beyond DNA. And, they are still real. When Susan drove by Notre Dame cemetery on the grocery bus, she would wave and say, “Hi Mom. Hi, Dad”. The roots of this careful, timeless respect are proclaimed at Sunday Masses, “I believe in “the communion of Saints (centered on Jesus), the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting”. Or as a line in Dad’s favorite song goes, “If ever I would leave you, it wouldn’t be in springtime… or winter… or fall… Oh, no! Not in Springtime! Summer, Winter or Fall! No, never could I leave you at all!” So, wave and say hi to Susan when you pass by.
Jean Fenner Beale: A Euolgy by Therese Fenner Boucher
A big thank you to each of you, for placing us in God’s loving care during the sudden death of my sister, Jean. I am sure that your prayers strengthened our family in ways I cannot even begin to count, like the God-given stamina for many family and friends who drove to Bangor, Maine. Here are excerpts from a eulogy that I offered in May 2023 in Bangor, Maine
Jean was born on Feb 20, our parent’s anniversary. In a way, she was a gift from my mother to my father; and from my father to my mother. But seeing her, or any one of my five siblings, as individual gifts to me, has only been brought into focus during Jean’s recent struggles.
One gift that Jean and I relished together was a love of the ocean. I don’t know if it is the rhythm of the waves, the liquid colors of the water, the peace of off-season beaches. But when someone loves the ocean, it also means embracing the storms that come. Jean’s recent storm began with her husband, Tom’s stroke at Christmas time. There have been long months of serious and complicated medical issues, climaxing with long term nursing home care. All the in the context of being a dialysis patient herself and caring for an adult son with downs. But Jean kept going, because she loved Tom dearly. Yet week by week, she became more exhausted. In March, she fell on the steps in their home. Then again in May, she had a second fall and broke her hip. Surgery was the next day, then a few days later, a fatal heart attack.
As I was praying for her, a quote from St. Catherine of Siena came to mind, “God is as close to us as the ocean is to a fish.” This is how close God is to Jean now and to all of us. And so, I pray. “God, we thank you for Jean. We give her back to you. May she swim into the arms of Jesus, as we rejoice in her life. Amen.”