Anne I. McCabe
June 6, 1944 - December 8, 2024
Anne I. McCabe (Glaser) passed away to eternal life peacefully on Sunday, December 8, 2024, at Windrose of Weymouth – the end of a long, blessed, purposeful and joyful life. She was warmth in form and a ray of light for all lucky enough to know her.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts on the day Allied forces heroically liberated the beaches at Normandy during World War II, Anne was the only born daughter to Grace (McDonald) and Robert Glaser, a then active-duty soldier in the U.S. Army who waited more than a year to meet his baby girl after serving in Korea. ‘D Day Annie’, as she was sometimes nicknamed, was proud to share her entry into the world with a day of jubilation and liberation.
Anne’s formative years were spent in West Roxbury, Boston, where she made fast friends and fans with many young boys on the neighborhood playgrounds. An only child, she formed close relationships with many dear, local cousins and one special best friend named Dottie, which would last a lifetime. By age eight, Anne’s wish came true when her 12-year-old cousin Barbara moved in, expanding their nuclear family and granting Anne the gift of a lifelong big sister.
A student of the Saint Theresa of Avila Catholic grammar school and, later, Mount St. Joseph Academy high school, Anne volunteered one summer as a teenage ‘candy striper’ in one of the local hospitals, discovering her life’s calling for nursing and caregiving. In 1962, she began her studies as a commuting student of Boston College’s School of Nursing, where she also enrolled in the U.S. Navy for continued service after graduation in 1966. How she loved being a BC Eagle, making new friends with fellow nursing students, and completing clinical rotations in hospitals around town. Her favorite among them was a period tenderly caring for newborn babies from the maternity ward of the Faulkner Hospital.
By 1967, new R.N. and Navy Officer LTJG Anne McCabe was sent to the Naval base in Pensacola Florida, where she served active duty in care of Navy servicemen during the height of the Vietnam War. It was from this fateful place that she met and became instantly smitten with a tall, dashing Navy officer and aviator named Graham McCabe. The lightning strike was mutual, and within seven months, they were engaged, married, and relocated to Boston to be closer to Anne’s family and friends.
It was just a short nine months later that Anne and Graham welcomed their first child - a baby girl. Two sons followed over the next eight years, granting Anne’s dream of becoming a mother to babies of her own. The family of five settled in Milford, just west of Boston, where they created many sweet traditions and shared happy memories at holidays, during summer vacations, at play in the backyard, and with extended family.
After 10+ years of devoting herself to motherhood, volunteering as a CCD teacher, and pursuing passing hobbies like guitar, piano and painting lessons, Anne felt the tug of nursing again, returning to work part-time, and then full-time, as an Intensive Care Unit nurse at Milford Hospital. For the next 30 years, Anne worked rotating shifts on weekends, overnights from 11p-7a, and on many holidays to balance her career and be there for her family. Nursing, caregiving, and bringing kindness and compassion to people was Anne’s vocation, and her fellow nurses became some of her dearest friends. The lost hours of sleep, the pre-dawn clock alarms, and missed soccer and football games were sacrifices she made without complaint. Yet she still made time for fun trips to Chicago, New York and Florida to visit her kids after they grew up and left the nest. Nothing made her more proud than seeing her children grow and thrive.
When Anne retired from nursing in her sixties, she and Graham embraced retirement with the joy of well-earned freedom. Yet she continued being a caregiver to her own mother, who moved in with them after becoming widowed by the cruelty of an Alzheimer’s journey that claimed Anne’s father. She relished time with her mom, and summer months at their second home on Cape Cod, where she ‘nursed’ plants and flowers back to good health. There was even more joy with the arrival of grandchildren – eight in all over the course of 23 years. There was almost nothing else that made Anne happier than being called on to babysit for a weekend or an evening to play with her grandkids and give her own kids a break. Truth be told though, time with family on cruises to the Caribbean, or road trips with friends to try her luck at Connecticut slot machines, might count as a close second!
It was a painful irony when Anne herself was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s dementia in 2015; her worst fears realized. Yet she adapted to the challenges with the same courage, humility, humor and persistent spirit that those who had known her in earlier years came to appreciate. Her last decade brought heartbreaking changes that a woman as sharp and self-sufficient as Anne would never welcome. Yet through it all, she maintained her smile, her sparkle, her singing spirit, and her love of friends and family. Alzheimer’s never robbed Anne of her essence.
Anne is survived by her daughter Kim McCabe of Weymouth, MA; her sons Scott McCabe of Northfield, IL and Steve McCabe of Wellesley, MA; her two daughters-in-law, Tanya (Zadorozny) and Lauren (Pessotti); her eight cherished grandchildren Scott Jr., James, Graham, Finley, Chase, Liv, Lila, and Griffin; her ‘sister-in-love’ Sally (Van Dyke), beloved first cousins Barbara Norton, Bette Anne Trask, Ruth Stevenson, and many other extended relatives from both sides of her McDonald and Glaser families. She was predeceased by her loyal husband of 54 years, Graham, her parents Grace and Robert Glaser, and many dear aunts.
In lieu of flowers, life-supporting memorial donations may be made in Anne’s memory to the Alzheimer’s Association of MA/NH https://www.alz.org/manh to advance treatment and care for people and families dealing with dementia, or to the Milford Regional Healthcare Foundation https://foundation.milfordregional.org/donate/online/ to support patient care at the hospital where Anne devoted most of her career.
Visiting Hours at the William J. Gormley Funeral Home, 2055 Centre St. WEST ROXBURY on Monday, December 16th from 9-11am followed by a Funeral Mass in St. Theresa of Avila Church at 11:30am. Relatives and friends invited. For guestbook, please visit gormleyfuneral.com.