Dorothy Anne Upson McCabe of Sherborn passed away on Thursday, April 12, 2018, following a long illness. She was the beloved wife of the late Edward McCabe, and loving mother of Charles McCabe and his wife, Sara, of Arlington, and Cynthia McCabe of Beverly, as well as the grandmother of Fiona Flaherty of Beverly, sister of Paul Upson of Lexington, and sister-in-law of Jackie McDonough of Arlington.
Dorothy was born in Pittsfield, MA, the daughter of Warren and Euphemia Upson (Matuszak) on January 10, 1939. She spent most of her childhood years in Westfield, MA, graduating from St. Mary's High School in 1956. She graduated from Mercy Hospital School of Nursing in Springfield in 1959 and pursued a bachelor of science in Nursing from Boston College, graduating in 1962. She met Ed McCabe while working as a nurse at the New England Baptist Hospital where Ed's father was a patient. They married in April 1963 and had two children—Charles in 1964 and Cynthia in 1966. After living in Franklin, they moved to Sherborn in 1973.
Dorothy was always a nurse and pursued a varied career in nursing in the greater Boston area. She worked as an ambulance nurse, in the emergency room, in the operating room, and as a staff nurse in a number of hospitals in the Springfield and Boston areas, including Mercy Hospital, Mass General Hospital, the New England Baptist Hospital, and St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. Dorothy loved teaching and soon switched to a role as an in-service nursing education instructor at Sturdy Memorial Hospital in Norwood, MA. She earned a master’s in education from Rhode Island College in 1973 and a master’s in medical-surgical nursing from Boston University in 1978, while serving for many years as an instructor of nursing at the Newton-Wellesley Hospital School of Nursing.
In 1982, she became the director of nursing education at the New England Baptist Hospital, a post that she would hold for 14 years, adding the role of director of quality initiatives in later years and working there until January 1996. At that time she moved to the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA), where she served as director of nursing for 20 years until retiring in February 2017. A memorial tribute to Dorothy can be seen on the MNA website at www.massnurses.org.
Dorothy always had a recommendation for who to see for medical issues and was a strong advocate for nursing standards and practices, working in a variety of roles to improve patient care as well as staffing ratios in hospitals. She served on many advisory committees and boards, including St. Theresa of Lisieux Parish, the Elder Housing Committee in Sherborn, and the Beth Israel Deaconess Ethics Advisory Committee.
It wasn’t all work, though. Dorothy and Ed traveled to see their son in California and Texas, as well as annual trips to Florida to escape the tail end of Boston winters, and weekends at their house on Cape Cod. Dorothy loved gardening and was out planting, mulching, and weeding whenever she could, a love she passed on to her children. Following Ed’s passing in 1997, she became an avid traveler, helping organize two trips a year to various destinations in Europe for Massachusetts Nurses Association members, as well as annual trips to Austin to visit her son and daughter-in-law and continued time on Cape Cod every summer.
Dorothy worked until age 78 and retired last year after two decades at the Massachusetts Nurses Association. Unknown to most, she was diagnosed with a chronic form of leukemia in 1996, but managed the disease successfully for many years. Only in the last year and a half did treatments consume more of her time and energy, but she stayed independent to the end, telling family and friends that “they didn’t need to hang around” during visits to the house.
A funeral mass will be held for Dorothy at St. Theresa Parish in Sherborn on Friday, April 20, at 10 AM, with burial at Pine Hill Cemetery, Sherborn and reception to follow. Relatives and friends are kindly invited to attend. In lieu of flowers, please consider giving to Beth Israel Deaconess, to the Nursing Education Fund, in memory of Dorothy McCabe:
https://www.bidmc.org/give
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