A Good Age: Longtime South Shore nurse remembered for compassion, independence, wit, wisdom
HULL – Born in 1963, Maria Writesel was the fifth and last child in her family of seven.
Her mother, Marie McElroy Writesel Jenkins, declared, "I won't be having any more babies, so I will be her playmate."
And that's the way it was. For more than 58 years, they did everything from walking the beach in Hull to plank exercises and yoga together, until Jenkins died Jan. 31 at age 94.
"Absolutely the greatest gift my mother gave me was the ability to find joy every day, no matter what," Writesel said. "She lived by the ocean and I live by the ocean. Living by the sea is part of my happiness quotient, and being by the ocean is what kept her spirit free. I hope my spirit stays free my whole life as well."
At a remembrance gathering at The Common Market in Quincy on Saturday, Writesel read, as her mother would have insisted, from Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "Crossing the Bar," which expresses peace in the thought of dying.
"Sunset and evening star! And one clear call for me. And may there be no moaning of the bar when I put out to sea," it reads.
While Writesel will greatly miss her, she said her mother was always "eager for the next adventure" and departing this earth meant "finding what comes next."
"She always looked forward to the next thing, never stopped being excited about life, never gave up. ... She loved a stormy day as much as a sunny day and wanted an adventure every day of her life," Writesel said.
Jenkins was not a "home baking" grandmother, and one of her grandsons, Jonathan Cannon, of Norwell, once said, "I'll take a store-bought muffin and an adventure any day over a home-baked cookie."
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A registered nurse for 50 years, she worked at Massachusetts General, South Shore, Quincy and Faulkner hospitals, as well as in private duty, hospice and agency nursing. Raised in Somerville with two brothers, she graduated from St. Joseph's parochial schools and in 1949 was a member of the last U.S. Cadet Nursing class at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge.
The corps soon disbanded. Leaving her mother a goodbye note on the kitchen table, she was off to Washington, D.C., where she worked at Providence Hospital and met her husband, James Writesel, a Navy veteran. The marriage lasted 17 years before she returned to Massachusetts as a single mother and worked double shifts to raise her children in Brockton.
Maria Writesel graduated from Brockton High in 1981. The family eventually moved to Hull.
Jenkins summered in Hull as a child when three generations of "lace curtain Irish" would travel by steamboat and rent cottages at Gunrock Beach near Cohasset. The men would go back and forth to work in Boston. Her father, who owned a trucking business, died of pneumonia when she was 9 and the ocean became a refuge.
She walked along the beach daily until she was 91, often with her daughter. She would stop to talk to others, listening to their stories.
"My mother marched to her own drummer but she was the most compassionate person," Writesel said. "She could always understand the other person's plight. She very much listened to people and could quickly get their feelings."
Writesel, who works in solar energy marketing, is a black belt karate instructor and teaches martial arts in the Xcitement Program for kids at The Weymouth Club. She credits her mother with this life lesson: "You have to walk a mile in the other person's shoes. Don't judge anybody. Just understand what they are going through and do what you can to help."
Family camping
Ann Marie White writes that the Jan. 25 column on two retired park rangers, and Greg Derr's accompanying photos, brought back many happy memories.
"Years ago, we were volunteer rangers at Nickerson State Park in Brewster with a couple of other families from Scituate. Our children remember being picked up from school on the last day, our VW van totally packed for a wonderful time. Our son earned his Eagle Scout rank, our daughter met her now-husband at Boy Scout Camp Squanto in Plymouth. Our five grandchildren are all campers, enjoying the knowledge from many camp ranger programs and learning to adapt to whatever the weather and terrain conditions throw at them."
Reach Sue Scheible at sscheible@patriotledger.com.
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This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Remembering nurse Marie Jenkins, 94, a free spirit with compassion
