ITEM PHOTO BY OWEN O’ROURKE
At 96, Margaret Connelly is the oldest-living retiree from City Hall.
By GAYLA CAWLEY
LYNN — Margaret Connelly, 96, will be informally honored as the oldest living City Hall retiree next week at the Porthole Restaurant, where her 48-year career with the Department of Public Works will be celebrated.
A celebration will be held for Connelly, a lifelong Lynn resident and St. Mary’s High School graduate, at the pub on March 16 at noon. Some of the attendees will include former City Hall employees, with most of them from the DPW department.
“I don’t think I deserve it,” said Connelly. “I loved my job.”
Connelly began her City Hall career in 1942 as a junior clerk in the DPW department after taking a civil service exam. At the time, she said it was just a street department. She studied business in college. She retired in 1990 as the senior clerk of the DPW.
She was recognized by former Mayor Albert DiVirgilio in 1990, when she was given a key to the city and a plaque for her 48 years of dedicated service to Lynn.
Gary Brenner, executive director of the Lynn Retirement Board, said it was safe to say Connelly was the oldest living City Hall retiree. He said he worked with her for awhile.
“She helped everyone,” Brenner said. “She was a great, great woman … I knew her for like 13 years when she was working. She was the head clerk in the DPW office. Everyone knew her. She was just a very, very nice woman.”
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Doris Harewood, 88, said she worked with Connelly for more than 20 years. The two have remained friends. She joked that having Connelly as a boss wasn’t easy.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better boss,” Harewood said. “I don’t think there was anyone (else) that I would have liked to have worked with.”
Connelly credits her late mother for her success. She said she had the greatest mother in the world, who she called the hardest worker she knew. She said she had a good family that made due with what they had, despite not having an awful lot growing up.
Many of her family members worked for the DPW, with Connelly’s caretaker, Laurie Mignault, 41, joking that nepotism was rampant at the time. Both her husband and only son, each named James, worked for the department. Her husband died after working in the blizzard of 1978, and her son died seven years ago.
Throughout the years, Connelly said the DPW grew. She went from running the department without any technology to adapting her skills when computers were introduced. She said she especially loved doing the word processing on the computer, as space was saved with the paper’s margins. Before computers, Connelly ran the city from a filing cabinet, Mignault added.
“I loved my job,” said Connelly. “I love the people I worked with. They were the greatest bunch of girls. We were like one big family … You’re only as good as the people who work for you.”
In her retirement, Connelly spends her days listening to Irish music and dancing. She also loves big band music. She follows a physical therapy regimen. Mignault said her client has made a full recovery from being disabled after the 14 strokes and 19 seizures she’s had in the past two years. She said Connelly has worked really hard at recovery.
“She refused to be the way she was,” Mignault said. “She said she had to get back to work.”
Gayla Cawley can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @GaylaCawley.