Mary Louise “Mary Lou” Oudens Monaco died peacefully on June 3rd with her family by her side. Predeceased by her parents, John and Louise, and her brothers, John and William, she leaves her beloved husband of 58 years, Dr. Anthony (“Tony”) P. Monaco, her sons, Peter, and his partner, Nancy, Mark, and his wife, Jennifer, Christopher, and his wife, Lisa, her daughter, Lisa, her grandchildren, Nicholas, Sophia, Jessica and Julia, brothers Gerald, Daniel, and Michael, and many nieces and nephews.
Raised in Manchester, N.H., Mary Lou attended Becker College and trained as a medical secretary. She had a life-long love of learning and later went back to school and earned an AB degree from Harvard College in 1982, the same year in which her first son, Peter, graduated from high school.
Mary Lou and her husband met while both worked at the Massachusetts General Hospital, married in 1960, and settled and raised their family in Newton, where she resided until her death.
Mary Lou was selfless and tireless in her devotion to family, friends and so many others. She had an extraordinary circle of close friends that included individuals nearby and from around the world. She bonded equally with 80-year-old peers, the friends and colleagues of her children, the teen and college age friends of her grandchildren, and all in between. Mary Lou was a voracious reader and an avid skier who continued skiing until after age 75 near her family’s memory-filled home at Killington, Vermont.
She and her husband loved to travel. For over fifty years she accompanied Tony to numerous international medical meetings and developed worldwide friendships which she nurtured with invitations to their Newton home. Mary Lou maintained life-long friendships with the many clinicians and research associates that came to work with her husband over the years.
Mary Lou was especially passionate about her volunteer work for, among others, the Belmont Hill School, where she served a long tenure on the Board of Trustees and, for 20 years, as Chair of the Parents of Alumni Fund, (which she helped found) and for the Women’s Lunch Place, a shelter for disenfranchised women, where she could be found regularly in the kitchen and dining rooms serving the organization’s guests as members of her own family.
Visiting hours will be held June 12, 2018, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Burke & Blackington Funeral Home, 1479 Washington Street, West Newton, MA 02465. Funeral Mass and celebration of Mary Lou’s life on June 13, 2018 at 10 a.m. at Church of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, 28 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA, followed by burial at Newton Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations in Mary Lou’s memory may be made to the Women’s Lunch Place, 67 Newbury Street, Boston, MA.