Table of Contents
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The names that follow come from a specific group: people who died in 2025 whose lives were publicly documented through local obituaries. They were selected not only because they lived in Marblehead, but because their lives had public footprint — as teachers, musicians, civic volunteers, veterans, poets, nurses, gardeners, caregivers, engineers, coaches and neighbors.
Some were born here. Others arrived later. Most made the town their long-term home, shaping institutions that still help define Marblehead — its schools, churches, libraries, clubs, clinics and commissions.
This is not a complete accounting of loss. It is a record of a certain kind of life: rooted, steady and visible in community.
Many were in their 70s, 80s or 90s. They came from different places — Cambridge, Alabama, Revere and Beverly — but often spent decades in Marblehead, arriving as newlyweds, raising families here or settling in retirement.
Born mostly between the late 1920s and early 1940s, they came of age before the internet and the culture of self-promotion. They tended to stay — in jobs, in marriages and in towns — and many lived in Marblehead for 40 or 50 years, or longer.
Often described as members of the Silent Generation, many were anything but quiet in the life of the town. They ran meetings, chaired committees, taught classes, played in orchestras, kept minutes, took photos, told stories, raised money, coached teams and showed up early — year after year. Some wrote books. Some ran for office. Many worked behind the scenes.
This is the first of two articles remembering Marbleheaders who died in 2025. Part 1 focuses on people who helped build and sustain Marblehead’s civic infrastructure — those who chaired commissions, founded organizations, ran newsrooms, built businesses and served on boards. Next week, Part 2 turns to the people who shaped Marblehead’s daily life from the inside — teachers, artists and caregivers. If we missed someone, information on how to submit a name for a possible Part 3 appears at the end.
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Edwin "Ed" "Turk" Gehring Smith built his life around steady institutions — the kind that don't announce themselves until you realize how much of a town runs through them. After serving as a naval officer during the Korean conflict, he and his wife, Margaret "Maggie" Smith, settled in Marblehead to raise their family.
He joined his father at Brockway-Smith Co. (BROSCO), eventually becoming president and chairman, guiding the family business through decades of change.
In town and on the North Shore, he gave his time to boards and member-driven places, serving as president of Tedesco Country Club and as a trustee of Salem Hospital.
He also carried a lifelong love of music — singing with the Whiffenpoofs at Yale, then later with a barbershop chorus in Naples — the same kind of group commitment measured in rehearsals and years.
He died Oct. 9 at 94.
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Rosemary Collins believed in fixing things. She grew up in Beverly and married into Marblehead, where she stayed for 62 years. She was a licensed EMT in two states, ran her own real estate business, volunteered at conservation camps in Maine and chaired the town's Conservation Commission. She walked Phillips Beach nearly every day with her Papillon, Archie. She liked thrift store finds and broken things that still worked.
Her motto was simple: "Leave everything better than you found it."
She died Aug. 7 at age 83.
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Sean M. Casey spent his final year doing careful, unglamorous work that most residents never see up close: taking the town's bylaws, special acts and long-standing practices and pulling them into one readable framework. On Marblehead's Town Charter Committee, he served as the principal drafter, producing early versions of the charter document the committee was charged to create.
He was a lifelong Marblehead resident, born Jan. 8, 1957, and raised in the Shipyard neighborhood — a world the obituary describes in plain terms: park leagues, barber shops, multi-generational families and a local sense of reputation. As a young man, he worked summers as a camp counselor for the town recreation department, then co-founded the Shipyard Association in the late 1970s to push back on zoning issues affecting the neighborhood.
Away from town, Casey built a career inside government language and process, working for decades as a regulatory consultant for federal agencies. Back home — especially after moving back full time in 2008 with his wife, Shannon Egan, and their two children — he turned that same patient exactness toward local civic life, attending Town Meeting regularly and serving on commissions.
He also worked quietly through Marblehead history. For years he compiled "One Town's War," a manuscript reconstructing the experiences of roughly 1,300 Marblehead residents who served in World War II using records, letters and oral histories; draft chapters on Pearl Harbor and D-Day were published by the Marblehead Museum.
When the Select Board created the charter committee in 2024, Casey set that research aside and took on the work of drafting — footnoting, tracking edits, aligning versions and writing down the legal basis for provisions in a way the committee could carry forward.
He took a temporary leave in late 2025 because of illness and died of cancer.
He died Dec. 4 at age 68.
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If this end-of-year reflection helps you pause and notice the neighbors who quietly sustained boards, committees and local efforts, that’s the kind of civic record The Independent exists to keep. You’re able to read this because 66 Marblehead residents support this work with monthly or annual contributions. Our newsroom runs on about $80,000 a year, with roughly 95% going directly to journalism. Joining today helps us reach 100 members by year’s end and continue this work into the year ahead. 🟦 Click here to become an Independent member
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F. Carlton "Carl" Siegel came to Marblehead in the 1960s for what was supposed to be a six-month assignment with General Electric in Lynn. He stayed for 63 years.
He became one of the town's dependable doers, the person attached to the things you see every day without thinking about who made them. Friends and town officials said the hand-carved signs in front of Marblehead schools and parks were his work, along with the lighthouse replica at the Village School and the metal entry sign at Waterside Cemetery.
He served as chairman of Marblehead's Water and Sewer Commission and spent decades in Rotary, including 27 years as the club's treasurer, keeping meticulous manual records in his distinctive penmanship.
His Marblehead contributions were also seasonal and physical: planting flowers on the traffic island at Maple and Lafayette, hanging the lights at Chandler Hovey Park for the Fourth of July and Christmas, saying yes to Rotary's rubber duck race and annual Easter egg hunt.
On election nights, he could be found at Abbot Hall, recording results on tally chalkboards he had built himself.
He died Feb. 20 at age 92.
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Nancy (Welch) Ryan grew up in Marblehead and spent summers sailing "Brutal Beasts" in Marblehead Harbor — the kind of local childhood detail that sticks because it's so specific to this place. At 12, when rheumatic fever kept her home for months, she read voraciously and found a book about Jane Addams that pointed her toward a life in social work.
She trained at Boston College and worked a long career with Catholic Charities, focused on the practical problems that follow people into offices and shelters — housing, homelessness, poverty. The obituary doesn't frame it as a calling so much as a steady direction: she kept doing the work.
In 1981, she founded My Brother's Table in Lynn, creating a place for a warm meal for people who were hungry or alone. Even in the details about her family life, the same pattern shows up: afternoons baking cookies with her grandchildren, not just for family but for "guests, friends and neighbors."
In retirement, she split time between Marblehead and Naples, Florida, where she found more ways to volunteer — including helping in an elementary school serving farmworker families and working with Habitat for Humanity and Catholic Charities. She remained active in her church in Marblehead and Naples.
She died Feb. 27 at age 88.
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Ed Bell was the kind of leader who didn't need to raise his voice to be heard. In newsrooms from Boston to Washington, D.C., his authority came from a deep well of experience and an insistence on fairness that set the standard for everyone around him. He mentored a generation of journalists not by preaching to them, but by showing them exactly what the job required: rigor, accuracy and the ability to listen until the real story emerged.
In retirement, he moved to Marblehead and got to work all over again. He co-founded the Marblehead Current in 2022, serving as co-chair of Marblehead News Group Inc. and chairman of the editorial board. He became a founding board member and treasurer of Marblehead Community Access and Media. From 2012 to 2023, he hosted "Up for Discussion" on MHTV. In December 2024, shortly before his death, MHTV named its main studio in his honor.
He chaired the Marblehead Council on Aging, served as a trustee and race committee member at the Boston Yacht Club, and joined the Rotary Club of Marblehead Harbor, where he became a Paul Harris Fellow. He was a 32nd degree Mason, a member of Philanthropic Lodge and a Shriner. He volunteered with ShelterBox, an international disaster relief charity. At St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, he served as a eucharistic visitor and represented the parish as a delegate to the 2018 Diocesan Convention.
In 2019, he was named Marblehead's Rey Moulton Person of the Year.
His commitment to institutions ran through his personal life, too. He served three terms on the Danvers School Committee, driven by a deep interest in his children's education. He was chairman during his daughter Andrea's senior year and had the honor of signing and presenting her diploma, along with those of her classmates. He and his wife, Barbara, bought a second home at Bretton Woods, where they spent weekends skiing in winter and golfing in summer, entertaining family and friends year after year.
He was a working reporter at heart. He carried the weight of the institutions he believed in — the press, the council table, the public square. But he didn't carry it loudly. His presence was felt more in how seriously he treated the job than in how often he spoke.
He lost his daughter, Jennifer, to a drunk driver in 1987. He lived with that. He cared deeply about education. He cared deeply about words. He married Barbara Michaud in 1972, and they were together for nearly 53 years.
He died Jan. 17 at age 84.
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Harry Christensen stood at the front of Marblehead High School classrooms and told students what war really looked like. He didn't soften it. He talked about riding a tank through the jungle. About ambush. About the explosion that threw him from the turret and killed everyone else in his crew. About carrying shrapnel in his body for the rest of his life. About the names he was called when he came home.
He didn't stop there. He told them what came after — the years of pain, the law degree, the small practice, the 20 years on the Select Board. He told them why he kept showing up.
"Somebody has to say it plain," he said.
Christensen taught special education before becoming a lawyer. He represented families, often the ones with few options. He fought for town causes, local veterans, historic buildings and the principle that Marblehead could govern itself.
"What does the state have to do with Marblehead?" he'd ask — not as a joke, but as a line in the sand.
At Abbot Hall, he helped build the Maritime Museum. At the base of the old high school, he cared for the Duncan Sleigh memorial — a granite marker honoring a young Marine who died saving his platoon in Vietnam. Harry trimmed the grass around it himself, made sure the name stayed visible.
He could be blunt, formal, unbending. But he was consistent. He answered calls. He read the packets. He showed up to everything, prepared.
He died April 20 at age 78.
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Cheryl Ann LaLonde, Ph.D., lived in Marblehead in a way people noticed on ordinary days — out in town, moving at her own pace, making small stops feel like encounters.
For more than 20 years, she worked at Brigham & Women's burn center as a biochemistry specialist, focused on problems that decide whether burn patients survive, including multi-system organ failure. Coworkers and family described her as someone who kept in touch with patients beyond the hospital, including taking some fishing and showing them how to do it.
After retiring in the early 2000s and moving back to Marblehead, she put her energy into gardening. Neighbors saw the raised beds — built with precise spacing so her wheelchair could pass through — and she'd pause to talk with anyone who stopped to ask what she was growing or how she was doing it.
She was also a familiar sight crossing town on her scooter, a large white bird perched on the handlebars, with a dog trotting alongside.
She died Oct. 3 at age 73.
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Mary Elaine Shea spent decades doing work that rarely drew attention but shaped daily life in Marblehead all the same: nursing. She served as director of nursing at Mary A. Alley Hospital, part of a long career that also included home care, hospital work and teaching nurses how to do the job well.
Her life in town was rooted in care and routine. Beyond the hospital, she volunteered as a Girl Scout leader and room mother, showing up for the ordinary logistics that keep children's days running on time.
In later years, her Marblehead ties ran through family, including her daughter Susan, who lived in town.
She died Jan. 26 at age 83.
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Dr. Maximiliaan Kaulbach spent decades in Marblehead and moving through town in more than one role — doctor, coach, chorus member, neighbor.
He practiced cardiology on the North Shore, building North Shore Cardiology Associates in Salem and bringing in new tools and services locally — a coronary care unit, a cardiac catheter lab and a pacemaker clinic — while also serving as president of the medical staff at Salem Hospital for two years.
In Marblehead, many people would have known him less from exam rooms than from a field. In 1976, he and his wife co-founded the Marblehead Youth Soccer Association, and in the early years they handled the work themselves — registering players, coaching and packing teams into station wagons.
He also kept a steadier, quieter presence in town life: for 30 years he sang with Marblehead's Old North Festival Chorus, a yearly commitment measured in rehearsals and performances rather than announcements.
He died at home May 16 at age 94.
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Arthur "Buddy" Talbot grew up in South Salem and made a life in Marblehead after marrying his wife, Carol. They raised their children here, joined local institutions and stayed. Buddy served as commodore of the Marblehead Yacht Club in 1997, the year the USS Constitution sailed into the harbor. He helped steer the club through change — handling logistics, maintenance and budgets without fuss.
He kept showing up long after his official role ended. Later in life, he became a regular at the Council on Aging, playing bocce and supporting fellow veterans. He never called attention to himself. He just did the work.
He died Nov. 9 at age 77.
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Deborah B. Fletcher lived in Marblehead with a calendar that stayed full — not with appointments, but with people. Her obituary describes a mother and grandmother who rarely missed a birthday, school event or game if her children or grandchildren were involved, the kind of consistency that becomes the backdrop of a family's town life.
She also showed up for neighbors she didn't know well. She volunteered at the Marblehead Community Counseling Center and later at H.A.W.C., where she ran a support group and served as a legal advocate in the court system.
For more than 40 years, she kept a regular rhythm on the North Shore tennis circuit — playing several times a week, fiercely but fairly, with partners and teammates who became close friends.
Outside of that, her Marblehead life reads like a familiar local loop: gardening, a weekly coffee group, movies and plays, museum outings, fiction, puzzles and time at home with her cats.
She died Sept. 20 at age 84.
Editor’s note: This is not a complete list of Marblehead’s 2025 losses — including many people we’re aware of — but a reported record drawn from publicly documented obituaries and verifiable community roles. If someone you loved died in 2025 and you believe they belong in this remembrance, send their name, a link to an obituary or public notice, and their Marblehead connection — along with a brief note about how they lived their life and impacted others, in small and large ways — to wdowd@marbleheadindependent.com. If we receive enough verified submissions, we’ll publish a Part 3 drawn from community recommendations.
