Jane-Ellen (Farrell) Cassidy

Jane-Ellen Cassidy (Farrell) of Pawtucket passed into eternal life on June 26, 2020.

She was the beloved wife of Michael “Mike” Cassidy for fifty years. Mrs. Cassidy was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, the daughter of the late Charles R. and Anne F. (Scales) Farrell. A graduate of the Worcester City School of Nursing in 1966, she was a registered nurse for more than fifty years working at Shriners and New England Baptist Hospitals in Massachusetts and for thirty-eight years at Memorial Hospital of RI.

Rooted in her and Mike’s Irish heritage and their belief in family, faith and community, Jane-Ellen was a loving mother to Sean D. Cassidy and his wife Rachael of Pawtucket, Shannon B. Donnelly and her husband Sean of Middleton, Massachusetts, and Patrick F. Cassidy and his wife Terri of Londonderry, New Hampshire and the adoring grandmother of Noel, Joy, Brennan, Paul, Michael and Leighann. She is also survived by her siblings Charles R. Farrell Jr., June Farrell, Lynn Sztuka, Mark Farrell and several cousins nieces and nephews.

With a strong commitment to health care for everyone, throughout her career Jane-Ellen mentored legions of hospital administrators, new doctors, medical students, nurses, student nurses, and human service agency staff on the importance of coordinated medical care. Family and friends from new mothers to the elderly could depend on Jane-Ellen to offer her knowledge and experience to help navigate the health care bureaucracy when their physical and behavioral health problems seemed insurmountable. Many have credited Jane-Ellen’s dedication and support for saving their lives. In recent years, Jane-Ellen served on the board of directors of The Samaritans of Rhode Island, a suicide prevention and education agency, now headquartered in Pawtucket.

Mother Teresa is noted as saying” Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person”. That saying expresses how Jane-Ellen lived her life caring for family, friends and strangers. She will be remembered with love by all who knew her but especially by her husband, Mike and her children.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be held on Saturday, August 8th at 10:00 am at St. John Paul II Parish Church, 750 Central Avenue, Pawtucket with visiting hours from 9:00 am to 10:00 a.m. at the church prior to the service. Her burial will be private.  In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to The Samaritans of RI at http://www.samaritansri.org/  For a complete obituary, please visit www.manningheffern.com