Retired Educator and Active Church Member
Lee Rae Nean Brown O’Brien, of Nutley, New Jersey, passed away at home early on Tuesday, March 14, 2017 after a courageous battle with lung cancer.
Lee Rae was born in Kittanning, Pennsylvania on February 24, 1943. She was raised in DuBois until 1956 when she and her sister Laurie moved to Cohoes, New York with their parents, Eileen and Pete Brown. She graduated from Cohoes High School in 1961 and entered the Albany College of Pharmacy where she was a founding sister of the Alpha Delta Theta sorority. She graduated from ACP in 1965 with a degree in medical technology and began working in the pharmacology department at the Sterling Winthrop Research Institute. On August 6, 1966 she was married to Robert O’Brien. Lee Rae and Bob lived in Vermont, in Maryland and even in Basel, Switzerland before settling in Nutley, New Jersey, where they raised two boys.
After teaching at Clendinning Nursery School in Nutley, Lee Rae returned to graduate school and earned two Masters Degrees in Education, the first from Seton Hall University. She soon became a kindergarten teacher for the East Orange public schools and finished her twenty-eight year career as a curriculum coordinator for the school district. She also volunteered as a member of the Friends of the Nutley Library, where she coordinated an annual author’s tea.
Lee Rae was extremely active at her beloved Grace Church in Nutley. Among other roles, she served faithfully on the altar guild, the flower guild, the vestry (as warden), as a chalice bearer and even as a member of the church handbell choir. She was also active with the Episcopal Church Women and was named Woman of the Year by both Grace Church and the ECW. In 2016, Lee Rae was presented with the David P. Hegg II Lifetime Achievement Award from the Episcopal Church Diocese of Newark in recognition of her many contributions to the Church and within the community.
She is survived by her husband Robert O’Brien, her sister Laurie and brother-in-law James Ruddy, her son Sean and daughter-in-law Josie, her son Christopher and daughter-in-law Juliane, and her nine grandchildren.
A Celebration of Life service will be held at Grace Episcopal Church, 200 Highfield Lane in Nutley on Saturday, March 18th at 11am and will be followed by a gathering of family and friends in the parish hall at approximately 12:30 pm.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in her name to Grace Church at 200 Highfield Lane, Nutley, NJ 07110.
As Lee Rae said many, many times, “It’s been a good life after all.”

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