Edna Anne Mauriello

DR. EDNA ANNE MAURIELLO, 1923-2018 Dr. Edna A. Mauriello of Swampscott, 95 years old, died on December 26th after a brief illness. Born in Boston, she was raised in Beachmont, Revere and lived in Swampscott since the 1960s. She was an honors graduate of Revere High School and Salem State University and received her doctorate in Education and Counseling from Boston University. While in college and graduate school during World War II, she taught illiterate soldiers how to read and was the research assistant for the neurosurgeon who developed methods of treating aphasia in soldiers returning from the battlefield with traumatic brain injuries. Her interest in language development stemmed from that experience and along with child development experts including Fred Rogers, she was a pioneer in early childhood education and reading pedagogy and language immersion programs. She was one of the first educators in the country to recognize and advocate for special education programs. She was a Professor of Education at Salem State University for many decades and during the 1960s, served as Dean of Students. She was unique in her desire to protect students’ rights to protest peacefully while remaining committed to combating drug abuse and providing students with effective mental health resources. She founded the Counseling Center at Salem State and co-founded Project Cope (a community outreach program staffed with physicians, mental health professionals and educators to support recovery and rehabilitation of addicts). After her retirement, she was one of the first Americans to teach English in China and Poland. She was one of the increasingly dwindling pool of professors who felt teaching was a vocation, not simply a profession. As kind, patient, and generous as she was, she did not suffer fools gladly and she bemoaned the politicization of higher education. She loved the ocean, poetry, reading about new ideas, traveling, dry humor, irreverence toward puffed-up public figures and the visual and theatrical arts. She was one of the first Americans to travel to Europe after World War two and her first trip was the beginning of a life-long love affair with the cultures of Europe and the Far East. She was the daughter of the late Angelina (Caggiano) Mauriello and Eugene Mauriello, both of whom came to the United States from Benevento, Italy. She was predeceased by her beloved and devoted sister Dorothy Mauriello Foley and her cherished siblings Frederick Mauriello, Sr. and Marie Smolinsky. She was the loving and dearest aunt of Lisa Charland, Dorothy Louise Foley, James E. Foley, Christopher Mauriello, Frederick Mauriello, Jr., Jean O’Bryant, Mary Angela Richard, Donna Slonina and the late Margaret Mauriello. She will never be forgotten by her many great-nieces and nephews. Per her wishes, visiting hours will be on Thursday, January 3rd from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. at Paul Buonfiglio & Sons Funeral Home 128 Revere Street, Revere, Massachusetts with a Funeral Mass at 11:00 a.m. at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Revere and burial at Swampscott Cemetery. She loved flowers and would welcome floral tributes. Donations may be made in her memory to Care Dimensions 75 Sylvan St, Danvers, MA 01923

Buonfiglio Funeral Home

Phone: (781) 284-3376

Address: 128 Revere Street Revere MA,

Website: https://www.buonfiglio.com

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