Nona Mary (Rohan) Mahoney, 86, of Bristol, R.I., died Oct. 15.
Born in Boston, she was the daughter of Michael J. Rohan and Julia F. (Fraher) Rohan. She graduated from Girls’ Latin School and Emmanuel College, and received a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
She began her career at the former Boston Post newspaper, where she became women’s editor. She left that job to start
a family.
Having seven children in as many years spurred her interest in early childhood education, and she founded the Blue Hill Montessori School. After her husband’s death in 1969, she studied at the Language Clinic at Massachusetts General Hospital to become certified to teach students with learning disabilities. She taught for many
years at the Charles River School in Dover and at Milton High School. She also tutored students with learning disabilities.
She lived in Milton for 35 years.
Mrs. Mahoney was a lector at Catholic Masses. Her faith played a large part in her ability to accomplish so much despite having lost the use of a leg in 1955, in one of the last polio epidemics in the United States. She was also a breast cancer survivor.
In retirement, she performed with the Next Move Unlimited Theatre Company, one of the first professional theater companies to bring performers with disabilities and their issues to the stage. She also volunteered with the Talking Information Center in Marshfield, reading newspapers and books to be broadcast on the radio for visually impaired people.
Wife of the late Dr. John P. Mahoney, she is survived by her children James Mahoney and his wife, Nancy, of Mansfield, Sheila Mahoney, of Silver Spring, Md., Stephen Mahoney, of Meriden, Conn., Elizabeth Mahoney and her partner, Lewis Colby, of Tisbury, Ellen Mahoney Sawyer and her husband, Scott, of Edina, Minn.; John Mahoney and his wife, Nancy, of Cranston, R.I.; and Rosemary Mahoney and her partner, Aias Tchacos, of Athens, Greece; her grandchildren, Brendan Picker and Amanda Picker, both of Albuquerque, N.M., Lily Sawyer and Elizabeth Sawyer, both of Edina, Minn., Ellen Mahoney, of Mansfield, and Rose Mahoney and Rohan Mahoney, both of Cranston, R.I.; and two great-grandchildren, Max Chandler and Maya Chandler, both of Albuquerque; and many cousins, nieces and nephews.
She was the sister of the late Ellen Rohan, Elizabeth Rohan and Mary Rohan Grier.
A funeral Mass will be celebrated on Saturday,
Dec. 5, at St. Brendan’s Church, 589 Gallivan Blvd., Dorchester.
Donations may be made to the scholarship fund at Emmanuel College (www.emmanuel.edu), 400 The Fenway, Boston, MA 02115.