Jean Mary (O'Grady) Sheehan, 92, of 27 Dogwood Drive, Easton, Conn., died Nov. 21, 2014. She lived a long, interesting life filled with travel and adventures and raised four boys who bookend the baby boom. She was born Sept. 15, 1922, in New Brunswick, N.J., eldest child of Mary (Paulus) and John Vincent "Ding" O'Grady. She attended public schools in New Brunswick, skipping 3rd grade, and graduating with honors from New Brunswick High School in 1939. Eager for adventures outside her hometown, she spent her teenage summers as a camp counselor in N.Y. State. On days off, she would travel to New York City, which remained a favorite destination. With a scholarship from state government, she was able to attend N.J. College for Women in New Brunswick. Although she longed to live on campus, her scholarship covered only tuition. So her social life was carried on under the watchful eyes of her parents, a situation that certainly whetted her appetite for travel and adventure. She graduated in 1943. Then, with the reluctant consent of her father and her pastor, she joined the U.S. Navy WAVES. She traveled the South as a Navy recruiter, persuading members of civic groups to allow their daughters to join the WAVES and contribute to the war effort at home so men could go overseas to fight. On Sept. 16, 1944, she married Daniel B. Sheehan, a naval aviator. The couple remained proud of their naval service, a feeling they passed on to their family. Jean saw her husband's naval aviator's wings awarded to one son and two grandsons. Two of her sons became Navy officers and two grandsons, Marine pilots. After the war, the only flying job her husband could find was overseas, for Creole Oil in Venezuela. Before leaving, he taught her to drive -- an adventure many marriages would not survive. She then drove herself, her infant son and her non-driving father from Atlanta to New Jersey, another big adventure in the time before interstate highways. Soon, she joined her husband in Venezuela and lived there for seven years, an adventure that included cooking fresh-killed game, picking ants out of the sugar and home-schooling her children and those of the other company pilot in the camp. Returning to the United States in 1954, the family settled in Easton, Conn., where she remained until her death. In her early years in Easton, she was a substitute teacher in the town's public schools and a suburban mom to her older sons. The family explored America on a series of camping trips. She studied for a Master's Degree in Education at Fairfield University in the 1950s but didn't complete the requirement for supervised student-teaching -- an affront, in her eyes, to someone who had already taught so much. In the late 1960s, with her younger sons in school, she began to volunteer at Notre Dame of Easton Roman Catholic Church, where she had been a founding parishioner in 1955. Her work coordinating the church's catechism became a formal job when she was named the parish's first Director of Religious Education. In that role, she convinced the pastor to allow girls to become altar servers, a chance usually denied to them by church doctrine. She retired in the late 1980s. When her husband died unexpectedly in 1972, she determined that her two small boys should have the same sort of travel and adventure that the older ones had had. The family owned a travel trailer which she wasn't comfortable towing. She had it taken to Sweetwater Forest Campground in Brewster, Mass., on Cape Cod, where she and her family spent summers for more than 30 years. Once her own children were grown, she invited her grandchildren to camp there with her, creating generations of wonderful memories of biking, hiking, swimming, boating and cooking out. Jean's son Timothy and her sister Joan also summered for decades in the campground, creating a sometimes raucous, always loving family compound. A few years later, she bought a small camper and traveled cross-country with her sons, re-creating trips she and her husband had taken with their older sons. To her, a weeklong school vacation was an excuse to take a two-week trip. Her sons' teachers may have objected, but the family went anyway. She kept that camper for 20-plus years and, after her sons were grown, kept camping with her sister, Joan. She had a close, loving and fun relationship with Joan. Even though they were born a decade apart, they looked so alike that young relatives would have trouble telling them apart. They shared a love of reading, hiking and bicycling and would often, without prior coordination, wear similar clothes. Once the camper rusted away, she continued traveling – to Australia, Europe, South America, often with Joan and sometimes with large groups of extended family. Even her annual routine involved travel, as she split her retirement years among her house in Easton, her trailer on Cape Cod and a condominium in West Palm Beach, Fla., willed to her by her beloved Aunt Lee. Walks around her neighborhood in Easton, often shared with longtime neighbors Ann Kochan and Marge Hackett, were part of her routine for years – one of many reasons her friends and family will remember her as a woman in motion. She is survived by her sons and their wives, Daniel B. Sheehan Jr. and Barbara M. Sheehan of Rose Valley, Pa.; Timothy O'G. Sheehan and Sheila R. Goggin of Lowell, Mass.; Christopher C. Sheehan and Laurel J. Cole of Rocky Hill, Conn.; and Jonathan P. Sheehan and Mary E. Jensen of West Chesterfield, N.H.; a sister and brother-in-law, Joan and Al Daszkiewicz, of East Brunswick, N.J.; seven grandchildren, Jennifer A. Sheehan of Southbridge, Mass.; Allison S. Mignone and her husband, Mike, of Steamboat Springs, Colo.; Daniel B. Sheehan 3rd and his wife, Lena, of Encinitas, Calif; David E. Sheehan, and his wife, Lucia, of Fredericksburg, Va.; Rebecca F. Sheehan of Silver Spring, Md.; Joseph D. and Mark C. Sheehan of Rocky Hill, Conn.; and four great-grandchildren. Her husband, parents and a brother, James V. O'Grady, died earlier. The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Jean O'Grady Sheehan- Class of 43 Scholarship Fund, C/O Associate Alumnae of Douglass College, 181 Ryders Lane, New Brunswick, NJ, 08901. Her scholarship fund is meant to allow on-campus living for local women who couldn't otherwise afford room-and-board fees. Calling hours are Friday, Nov. 28, from 3-7 p.m. at Redgate-Hennessy Funeral Home, 4 Gorham Place, (corner of Main Street) Trumbull, Conn. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held Saturday, Nov. 29, at 10 a.m., at Notre Dame of Easton Roman Catholic Church, 655 Morehouse Road, Easton, Conn. Burial will follow with full military honors at Mountain Grove Cemetery in Bridgeport, Conn. To send online condolences please visit www.redgatehennessy.com