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On the bocce patio at the Marblehead Council on Aging, eight teams gathered June 29 to roll balls across the court where Johannah "Josie" Crowley had spent so many afternoons. This time, she was not there to greet them.
They had come for the Josie Crowley Memorial Bocce Tournament, held a few months after Crowley died at home March 22, surrounded by her family. For the friends and staff who had made the Council on Aging her second family, returning to the game she loved was a natural way to remember her.
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Crowley was a fixture at the center and a true Marbleheader who loved the town. She turned up for Veterans' breakfasts, chair volleyball and fitness classes, and she played many bocce games on the same patio where her friends came to honor her. At the center, her family said, she put others first and had a knack for making people smile.
Crowley was born in Marblehead to Mary Brady Hammond and Ralph Hammond and graduated from Marblehead schools with the Class of 1959 before training at the Salem Hospital Pediatric School of Nursing. She met her husband, John, while the two were working at Jordan Marsh, and they were together for 63 years. The couple retired at the same time 26 years ago and came back to the town where she had grown up.
In the years between, she followed John's Air Force orders from post to post, worked as a teacher's assistant at schools for students with disabilities in Pennsylvania and Indiana and volunteered for more than 20 years teaching CCD to high school students at St. Basil's in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. At home, she decorated for every holiday and was known for her ever-changing hair colors.
Pat Bibbo helped lead the tournament, which drew eight teams on what the family called a gorgeous day. The players did more than compete. They raised money for a plaque for the bocce patio, a trophy for the winning team and a lunch, turning an afternoon of bocce into something the center could keep long after the last ball was thrown.
Volunteers kept the day running, among them the Marotta family, Sheila Varrel, Judy Cuzner and Judy Fox. Janeen Glabicky offered a tribute to Crowley, as did Bibbo and John Crowley, who spoke about the wife and mother the town was there to remember.
Donations in Crowley's memory were directed to the Friends of the Marblehead Council on Aging, the same circle of friends and staff she had counted as family.
The most vivid tribute came from one of the winning players. According to a family message shared with The Independent, Victor recalled that when he and his wife first moved to Marblehead and showed up for bocce, Crowley was the one who welcomed them, with open arms, blue hair and a smile.
That welcome was the thread through the whole day. Crowley had been one of the people who made newcomers at the Council on Aging feel they belonged, and the people she had welcomed used her game to say goodbye.
John Crowley and his relatives thanked the center, the volunteers and the participants for making the tournament a tribute to her, and the plaque they paid for will keep her name on the patio where she once greeted them all.
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