Sharon Watson, South Jersey teacher
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Sharon Walsh Watson would take her schoolchildren to sing Christmas carols at the Cherry Hill Mall.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Sharon Walsh Watson would take her schoolchildren to sing Christmas carols at the Cherry Hill Mall.
She taught large classes at St. Peter School in Merchantville, so "she would typically take half the class," 20 to 30 children, to the December events, said son John.
Besides teaching English and history at Catholic schools, her son said, her Christmas caroling and playing guitar at weekly Mass were "consistent with her faith and the teachings of her faith."
On Thursday, May 5, Mrs. Watson, 78, of Boothbay Harbor, Maine, a former Catholic schoolteacher in Haddon Heights, Merchantville, and Pennsauken, died of complications from heart disease at home.
Mrs. Watson lived in Pennsauken from the 1960s through the 1980s and in Gibbstown and Maine after that.
She was born in Merchantville, where she grew up. She graduated from Camden Catholic High School in 1955 and earned a bachelor's degree in English summa cum laude at Rutgers-Camden.
From 1969 to 1974, she taught at St. Peter in Merchantville, her son said, where as an eighth grader she had won an English achievement award.
She taught at St. Cecilia in Pennsauken from 1974 to 1984 and at St. Rose in Haddon Heights from 1984 to 1986.
From 1986 until 1990, when she retired, she taught at Veterans Memorial Middle School in Camden.
At her several schools, she taught English in sixth through eighth grades, her son said, as well as history and social studies.
"She felt a particular calling to that vocation," he said.
Having learned to play the guitar, "she taught several of her children and nieces," he said.
Though her Irish immigrant ancestors were a few generations removed from her own, she flew three times to visit her family county of Mayo in the 1990s and 2000s.
"She loved poetry," her son said, "and her favorite was Yeats. As long as I can remember, the poem of his closest to her was 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree.' "
The poem promises: "I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree. . . . And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow."
Besides her son, Mrs. Watson is survived by her husband of 60 years, Donald Jr.; sons Donald III, Paul, and Michael; daughters Sharon Max, Bernadette Scopa, Rosemary Coleman, and Jennifer Mullen; 18 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
Visitations were set from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, May 11, and 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Thursday, May 12, at the Inglesby & Sons Funeral Home, 2426 Cove Rd., Pennsauken, before an 11 a.m. Funeral Mass at St. Peter's Church, 43 W. Maple Ave., Merchantville, with interment in St. Joseph's Cemetery, Swedesboro.
Condolences may be offered to the family at www.inglesbyfuneralhome.com.
610-313-8134@WNaedele