Name: Jean M. Brennan Date: July 12th, 1930 - May 16th, 2010 Obituary: Jean M. Brennan died May 16. She was 79 and lived in Topsham, Maine. She was a native of Providence, Rhode Island where she met her husband of 37 years, Thomas J. Brennan, who predeceased her on Sept. 16, 1992. A retired paralegal, she considered her four children her greatest accomplishment. The daughter of a school teacher and a mail carrier, Jean Marie Riley was born on July 12, 1930 to Madeline E. and William J. Riley; her only sibling, William, was born 15 months later. She graduated from St. Xavier Academy in Providence in 1948, and from the Katherine Gibbs School, also in Providence, in 1950, and quickly landed a legal secretary job at the city's top law firm, Edwards & Angell, now Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge. She met her future husband Tom, a Providence College grad and aspiring salesman, after Mass one Sunday at St. Mary's Church on Broadway in Providence, the same church where they were married on June 4, 1955. They made their first home in Castleton, New York and later moved to Clinton, a small town outside Utica where they raised their four children until a job transfer for Tom led them to relocate to West Chester, Pennsylvania. Before moving to Maine three years ago, Jean worked as a plaintiff personal injury paralegal at law firms in Media, Pennsylvania and Utica, New York. In the 1980s, she worked on behalf of Philadelphia Navy Yard workers dying of asbestos exposure. Clients praised her fierce advocacy skills and deep sense of fairness. In addition to her brother Bill and sister-in-law Ann of Laurel, Maryland, she is survived by four children and seven grandchildren: daughters Lisa of Glen Ridge, New Jersey and Michaela of Ann Arbor, Michigan; sons Thomas of Yarmouth, Maine and David of St. Johnsbury, Vermont; sons-in law Scott Raab and Peter Linebaugh; daughters-in-law Charlotte and Jolene; grandaughters Riley, Isabel, Molly and Fionnuala; and grandsons Judah, Darby and Daniel. There will be a memorial mass at 10a.m. on June 4 at St. Mary's Church, 538 Broadway in Providence, RI, and she will be buried next to Tom at St. Ann's Cemetery in Cranston. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Ann Arbor-based community health clinic Packard Health, 3174 Packard Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 48108.