January 18, 2016
Naughton, Robert J.
Robert Joel Naughton, long-time resident of Westwood, and formerly of Waltham, died peacefully on Saturday, January 16, 2016, with his loving family at his bedside, after a long illness. Bob was the son of the late Edward Oswald (Ozzie) Naughton and Mary Mulcahy Naughton, and the loving husband of 35 years to his cherished wife, Karen G. Mason, formerly of Stoughton.
He was the proud and loving father of Sean P. Naughton, and his wife Melissa of Reading, and Matthew P. Naughton, and his wife Susan of Walpole; and Papa to Courtney and Sean Robert of Reading, and Nellie of Walpole. Bob was beloved for his love of family and gentle wit by an extended family of siblings, including Ann Naughton, Mary Cacciatore and her husband Joseph, Marla, Dennis, and Paul Naughton; a variety of in-laws and “out-laws” as Bob would tease, which include his adoring and loving nieces and nephews; his many adoring and loving brothers-in-law and sisters-in law; along with cousins; friends; and former wife, Christina Bailey. Bob answered to many names, including Robert, Rob, Bob, Bobby, and Harpo.
Rob inherited his love of music from his late father Ozzie, a professional musician, and shared this love with his two sons who work in the music business part time. Bob always had a love for others. He retired from Regis College as Director of Campus Services. His career also included publishing, tourism and transportation. As a long-time, active parishioner of St. Margaret Mary in Westwood, Bob was known for his caring and dedicated participation in the ministries.
Visiting hours will be held Weds 4-8 pm at the Folsom Funeral Home, 649 High St., Westwood. Relatives and friends will gather at the funeral home Thurs at 9 am and proceed to St Margaret Mary Church, 845 High St, Westwood for his Mass of Christian Burial at 10 o clock . Interment in New Westwood Cemetery. In lieu of flowers the family asks for donations celebrating Bob’s life and many accomplishments to St. Vincent de Paul Society, 18 Canton Street, Stoughton, MA 02072.
Although his family is sad, you are encouraged to share your stories about Bob with others via the guest book on the Folsom Funeral Home website. Bob loved to tell stories, especially stories about the project, his family, his children, and his grandchildren, etc. Help us keep the memory of Bob alive by your sharing your stories with his family and others.
Comments(19)
Unlce Robert you will be so missed. I feel so lucky to have had you in my life.
Lots of love and support to Karen, Sean, Matthew, Melissa, Sue, Courtney, Sean and Nellie. I hope my Emily loves her big brother as much as my mother (Marla) loved hers. Love Rachel, Michael, Andrew and Emily
So sorry for your loss.
My prayers are with all of you.
Sean, you and your Dad looked like twins in some of your pictures. I am so sorry for your loss of a loving father, grandfather, and your best friend. My love to you, Melissa, Courtney and Sean. They are always with us in spirit and memories. love, Auntie Regina
I was so fortunate to work with Bob at Regis. His good humor, contagious smile, and ever-giving heart will be sorely missed. In all he did, he kept our students at the center of his heart. Thank you, Bob, for sharing your goodness with Regis and her community.
To the Naughton family, thank you for sharing Bob with us- our lives were all a little brighter with him it.
My heart goes out to the Naughton and Mason families. The Naughton Family was one of the wittiest, interesting, caring and truly wonderful families from the Project, and Bob will always be #1. May all the great memories of a special one of a kind person help you all gather strength now and in the days ahead. Peace to Bob and to his family
So very sorry to hear about Bob. I have wonderful memories of his wit and of how devoted he was to his family and how much fun he was.
Dear Sean,
Please accept our condolences on the loss of your wonderful father. Be at peace with the fact that he raised a good son. Please take care!
From All at Forghany Law
Dear Matty
So sorry to hear of your dads passing. Our thoughts and prayers go out to you and your family at this very difficult time.
Sincerely
Joyce and Lou
Harpo was one of those few people you get to know in life who was a true friend, a smart, kind & gentle soul. He was loyal and honest to a fault. I was lucky and proud to call Bob a friend.
When visiting with Bob, you felt like you were the most important person in the world.
Thanks for sharing your husband, father, brother and papa with us.
Bob and Nancy Burke
I’m going to miss you uncle Rob
Harpo was one of those few people we meet who is a truly kind and gentle soul. He was loyal and honest to a fault. When with Harpo, you felt like you were the most important person in the world.
He generously gave of his time and knowledge in helping me (Nancy) survive and pass one of the most difficult courses I took in college. I took what I thought was an “easy” English course to complete the requirements for my English minor and although James Joyce was Irish and his writings were in English, they could just as well have been Russian because I didn’t understand a word.
For many hours and weeks, Harpo spent evenings tutoring me, translating Joyce’s Ullyses and Finnegan’s Wake into English so I could comprehend them.
When I got a B in that class, I credited it to Bob.
To the family, we thank you for sharing your husband, father, father-in-law, brother, and papa with us, his friends.
Bob and Nancy Burke
Dear family members,
I am so sorry to hear of Bob’s death; what a loss! He was a strong yet gentle presence at Regis for so many years.
You are in my thoughts and prayers.
Sister Betty Cawley, CSJ
I am so sorry for your loss. I worked at Regis for 7 years and Bob was always the voice of reason, a beacon of calmness and his incredible dry wit always refreshing. I fondly recall our desk side chats about life, family and work. One of my favorite quotes by him is “To manage an office” he would say, “You don’t manage the people, you manage the personalities”. He was a true original. My sincerest sympathies.
Dear Karen and family
Please accept the condolences of all of your colleagues and friends here at Pearson. You are all in our thoughts and prayers at this difficult time.
From all of us in Boston and Columbus.
Bob was one of the funniest men I’ve ever known. I remember he visited my family at my Dad’s house about 20 years ago. My dad had done a bunch of work to his house and was complaining about a scratch in his new hardwood floor. Bob’s response “well you might as well burn the house down”. His quick wit was legendary. RIP Bob and prayers to Katen and the kids and grandkids.
Your dad and husband was always a welcome presence to me at Regis. He is a man who combined two elements of life that are so important and essential….a great sense of humor and a strong faith. Although a great loss for you may he continue in those areas of life,to always be a source of strength.
All the best and blessings to you. Paul Kilroy
We loved Bob tremendously. His wit and wisdom taught and guided us, as young professionals, newlyweds, and new parents. So much of what we do now in our professional lives, our home, and with and for others, is because of what we watched Bob do and do for us.
He loved his family and was proud of you, Sean and Matthew, and forever admiring of his love, Karen. We are grateful for the many ways you shared Bob with us.
What a fine, wonderful man.
Chris Condlin & Kara Kolomitz Condlin
Dad, you will surely be missed. I know I will still benefit from your gentle guidance and seemingly infinite wisdom. I want to thank everyone for their support during these past several years while my father was sick and especially in these past few days, has been an indispensable source of strength. He truly made us all better. I wanted to share with you the eulogy that I read during his funeral mass for those that weren’t able to be with us yesterday.
For a man who was known by many different names, Robert, Rob, Bob, Bobby, Harpo, and ‘Hey You’, Robert Joel Naughton had one clear and pure identity. He was true to both himself and everyone that encountered him. The charisma and humility he was known for emanated from the most primal source of his being. He set a tone, an atmosphere, everywhere he went and in everything he was a part of and it was infectious and inspiring. Although he never aspired to power in any worldly sense, people were drawn to him because he treated you respectfully, regardless of any kind of mental or physical limitation, professional and social status, age, sex, or race. Loyal to his family, friends and colleagues he was a champion of fair treatment, often sticking his own neck out to stand up for others. As the head of Campus Security at Regis College, He became a Deputized Sherriff. He didn’t wear his badge, and he never owned a gun but he used this authority to help the officers in his department that sought careers in law enforcement by sponsoring their candidacy in local police academies. Although he was a bit of a prankster he had zero tolerance for humiliation and he was able to use his wit tactfully so that even the most sensitive of individuals couldn’t help but get a chuckle from his good natured ribbing. In the early 2000s, when we began to see cell phones attached to people’s ears as they were driving, my father, who did not own a cell phone, found an old telephone and removed the big hand set to keep in his car. When he would see a driver talking on their cell phone, he would reach down to his center console and lift this big, over-sized hand set to his ear to maybe tune his fellow motorist’s attention back to the road he or she was supposed to be focused on.
His love of knowledge took hold at an early age, checking encyclopedia volumes out of the library as soon as he could push himself through the turnstile. It’s maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but I don’t think he forgot a thing he learned from them; the catalog of information in his head was astounding. In Junior High and High School he was able to impart his gift of knowledge to his peers by devising a system to help them achieve better scores on multiple choice tests. By taking a seat at the front of the class, friends that needed some help would be able to position themselves where they could see the number of fingers Harpo had placed on his knee which would correspond with his answer, a, b, c, or d. He was a man who was strong in his own convictions while at the same time tolerant and accepting of other’s. A great questioner of authority and the unknown, and a great student of theology, history and politics, he relished the opportunity to engage in discourse and debate. In the early 1980s, Robert joined his brother Paul’s sightseeing tour venture, Boston Tours, the first of its kind to be allowed to pick people up from locations outside of the city and drive them into the city for tours of Boston. When you had a tour given by my father, sure, you would learn something about Paul Revere or the Old North Church, but it was his charming affect that would stay with you when the day was done.
No matter how busy he was, he always made time for family. As a kid, I loved baseball and during the summer my father would bring me on his tours of Boston and we would take baseball gloves along. We’d park somewhere on a less populated cross-street and play catch at lunchtime. He wasn’t always interested in sitting with the rest of the fans but he never missed a game. He was never late to pick me up from my first job at Roche Brothers Supermarket and the car was always plenty warmed up on a winter’s day, often having a song cued up on a cassette tape for when I got in, usually old favorites like The Beatles or CCR but sometimes something that had recently piqued his interest like Don Walser or The Blind Boys of Alabama. He took care of the little, but crucial, things like making sure all the trash barrels in the house were empty, the laundry was done and a hot meal was on the table at dinner time. He showed me how to shovel a walkway extra wide so that it would be safer to walk down and pointed out that it’s easier to keep it that way all winter long when you establish your dimensions after the season’s first storm.
He instilled in my brother, Sean and I, our love of music. I remember falling asleep to Little Richard’s Golden Hits playing from my Fisher Price cassette tape player as early as 5 or 6 years old and I’ll never forget when he and I made a compilation tape together entitled Matt’s Tape ’87. The first song he played for my consideration was, “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin. I remember being so taken with lead guitar line that opens the song that I wanted to hear it again. So, “Cat’s in the Cradle” appeared as both songs 1 and 2 on the A side of Matt’s Tape ’87. I think it was inspired by Johnny Cash’s 1968 concert album, “Johnny Cash at San Quentin,” which opens with his song, “San Quentin,” and is received by the inmates to which he played with such fervent enthusiasm that he played it again. If Johnny could do it, then so could we.
Robert took care of his Aunt Ann, his father’s sister, when she was in an independent but assisted living facility, The Mill in Waltham, visiting weekly and bringing her groceries and other needs. He would speak on the phone with his mother, Mary, whom the grandchildren called Mimi, and we would visit regularly. Bob was a Eucharistic minister who would bring communion to the residents of Fox Hill Village’s nursing home, The Clark House, here in Westwood. He brought me with him when I was accruing community service hours as a Confirmation candidate here at St. Margaret Mary and immediately I was struck by the repoire he had established with both resident and staff alike; everyone’s face just lit up when they saw him. It was like this with everyone, whether shooting the breeze with Mal from Frank’s Smoke Shop where he bought the daily paper or discussing history with his dermatologist, Dr. Saul Markowitz. He was a fan of G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, William Manchester, Yeats, Joyce, and Goetre. He read voraciously and always had the radio or TV on as he checked through the tasks of his day, absorbing information as effortlessly as he did breathe.
Seeing how much he and my mother cherished one another was particularly inspiring. It was only out of love that one became frustrated with the other, like if my Mom was working too much and not giving herself enough free time or if my father had once again indulged in one too many cookies. They were truly sweet and kind to one another and also tough when toughness was called for, great partners. It’s not easy to be partners for 35 years, in anything, particularly in marriage, but they made it look easy and seeing that love fully realized is now a part of me and I thank you both for that.
My father was strong, both physically and emotionally but also equally tender and compassionate. Over these past 5 years as his illness took greater and greater hold, our family has been fortunate to be able to keep making memories with one another, spending time outdoors, and going to movies and restaurants. I had said to him a couple times over this past year, “Dad, I’m really sorry you’ve had to go through this,” and his response each time was, “I’m glad it’s me.” In his final hours I was holding his hand and I asked him to squeeze my hand if he was nervous and he didn’t squeeze. I asked him to squeeze my hand if he was comfortable and he squeezed my hand assuredly. I said, “I hope you’ll check in” and he said, “I will.” I love you Dad, you are one of a kind, we’ll miss you a whole lot. I’ll look you up when I get there.
Robert and Ann would visit our Dads at the old main Waltham Fire Department station as kids. My Dad and I loved Robert. Our Dads have welcomed him into heaven and are all together again. God Bless Robert and the Naughton family. I have loved you since Ann and I became the best of buddies at seven years old.
Love Always and Forever,
Cindy Small Noon