Mary F. (Daly) Byrne

Waltham – Being a nurse means that you will see life begin and end . . . you will cry a lot . . . and you will laugh a lot. And you will never let your patients down.

That was the life that Mary Byrne led. She was a nurse for fifty plus years and she was really good at it. After graduating from Belmont High School in 1949 she went to Saint Elizabeth's Hospital School of Nursing in Brighton and became a registered nurse.

Her career began at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge before she took time off to raise her family. She went back to nursing at Reservoir Nursing Home in Waltham and at Emerson Nursing Home in Watertown. She was also the resident family and neighborhood caregiver.

Mrs. Mary F. (Daly) Byrne, of Waltham, died Thursday, April 20, 2017 at Forge Hill Senior Living in Franklin following a period of declining health. She was 85.

Mary was born in Boston on August 30, 1931, a daughter of the late James and Bridget (Shanahan) Daly, and had been a lifelong Belmont resident before her marriage in 1953 to Brighton native Edward L. Byrne. The couple lived in Watertown for a time before moving to Waltham fifty-six years ago.

Mary and Ed enjoyed twenty-five years together before Ed's death on August 9, 1978.

She leaves her children, James "Jay" Byrne and his wife, Linda, of Sharon, Cynthia A. Byrne of Waltham, and Diane Rohr and her husband, James, of Hudson; her grandchildren, Christine Ferreira, Stephanie Campbell, Kevin Byrne, Michael Rohr and Megan Sandman; her sisters, Catherine Riley of Newton and Margaret Dahill of Concord; four great-grandchildren and many nieces and nephews.

Mary was also a sister of the late Eleanor Daly.

Family and friends will honor and remember Mary's life by gathering to visit at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, April 25th in The Joyce Funeral Home, 245 Main Street, (Rte. 20), Waltham where her funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Burial will follow in Mount Feake Cemetery, Waltham.

Memorial donations may be made to the Alzheimer's Association, 309 Waverly Oaks Road, Waltham, MA 02452 or to the Jimmy Fund, 10 Brookline Place, Brookline, MA 02445.