Constance Anne “Connie” Callahan of Swampscott died at home on September 15, 2026 after a 23-year struggle with Parkinson’s disease. She was 78.
She was born on October 17, 1947 at the Mary A. Alley Hospital in Marblehead, which she said made her “a true ‘Header,” the daughter of Valmore and Dorothy (Peach) Dumais. She graduated from Marblehead High School in 1965, a year ahead of her high school sweetheart, Kevin Reed Callahan, and married him in April 1968. Their first son was born on a military base in New Jersey; by the second they had settled in Swampscott.
She worked as a secretary on the base and at the National Grand Bank in Marblehead, managed an office at Pickering Wharf in Salem, and then ran the office at Cassidy Insurance in Swampscott until the disease forced her to retire. She read voraciously, skied New England, traveled with her husband, taught CCD as a master teacher, chaperoned North Shore Youth Tours and CYO trips, lived and died with the Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins, and danced in every era, from the Beatles to Motown to Jimmy Buffett, and at the end, from a wheelchair, to Bruce Springsteen.
She leaves her husband, Kevin; her sons, Shawn and his wife Grace, Brendan and his wife Stephanie, and Kyle and his wife Dawn; her grandchildren, Shannon, Finn, Avery, Onora and Quentin; her brothers, Val Dumais and his wife Susan and Mark Dumais and his wife Lisa; eight nephews, a niece and nine grandnieces. Her brother William “Dewey” Dumais died before her.
A funeral service is Monday, September 21 at 10:30 a.m. at Our Lady Star of the Sea Church, 85 Atlantic Avenue, Marblehead, with burial at Waterside Cemetery, Marblehead. She asked that no one wear black and that there be “a little party afterwards.” The family thanks Care Dimensions and suggests donations to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. Arrangements are by the Murphy Funeral Home, Salem.
Compiled from information published by Murphy Funeral Home. Photograph courtesy of the family via Murphy Funeral Home. This is our own summary, not the family’s obituary; read the full obituary and leave a condolence at the funeral home’s page on Legacy.com. Corrections: we will fix any error promptly.
