Obituary for Rosary Gilheany (Scacciaferro)
Rosary Scacciaferro Gilheany, the widow of Thomas J. Gilheany, and a resident of Cedar Crest Village in Pompton Plains, N.J., passed away on Sunday March 14, 2021. She was born in New York City to Salvatore J. Scacciaferro and Josephine Mina Scacciaferro. The family moved to Newark, N.J. when she was one year old. In 1940, they moved to Brooklyn and she lived there until 1961 when she and her husband moved to New Jersey, living in Belleville, Nutley and then to Califon until they moved to Pompton Plains.
Rosary was active in community organizations, the League of Women Voters, the American Association of University Women, the Kingsland Trust, and the historical societies.
A graduate of Barnard College as a history major and of the Columbia University of School of Library Science, Gilheany began her career in medical libraries at the Academy of Medicine of New Jersey, whose library became the core of the medical history collection of the George Smith Library of Rutgers University. She was the director of the Medical Library at the United Hospitals Medical Center in Newark from 1972 until October 1989 when she became the director of the Washington Borough Public Library from which she retired in 1999.
While at United Hospitals she was awarded a grant from the National Library of Medicine to establish a Children’s Health Information Learning and Resource Center to serve the pediatric health professionals in the area. At the Washington Borough Library Gilheany was responsible for the beginning of the computerization of the library, the arrangement of a Children’s section and the awarding of a book collection of books related to New Jersey from the New Jersey Council on the Arts.
A lifelong interest in history resulted in the writing of several pamphlets. “HSLANJ REMEMBERS 1972-1981”, a history of the Health Sciences Library Association of New Jersey, of which she was a founding member, and “The Voices of St. John’s”, interviews of the first parishioners of her parish, St. John Neumann in Califon on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of its founding. In 2013, she published “A Tale of Two Families, Sicily to New York City in the 1900’s”, a fictionalized memoir based on family anecdotes and New York City history.
Survivors are her nieces and nephews; Catherine Gilheany Fink, Jane Gilheany Gavin, Stephen Gilheany, Thomas J. Gilheany, James F. Gilheany and Anne Marie Gilheany Snelling and also eight grand nieces and nephews, one niece and a goddaughter, Jane Egan.
Visiting at the S.W. Brown & Son Funeral Home, 267 Centre St. Nutley on Wednesday March 17 from 2-4 pm.
A Funeral Mass will be celebrated at St. Mary’s Church, Pompton Lakes on Thursday at 10:30 am.
Cremation and committal at St. Peter’s Cemetery in Stillwater, N.Y. will be private.
Rosary was active in community organizations, the League of Women Voters, the American Association of University Women, the Kingsland Trust, and the historical societies.
A graduate of Barnard College as a history major and of the Columbia University of School of Library Science, Gilheany began her career in medical libraries at the Academy of Medicine of New Jersey, whose library became the core of the medical history collection of the George Smith Library of Rutgers University. She was the director of the Medical Library at the United Hospitals Medical Center in Newark from 1972 until October 1989 when she became the director of the Washington Borough Public Library from which she retired in 1999.
While at United Hospitals she was awarded a grant from the National Library of Medicine to establish a Children’s Health Information Learning and Resource Center to serve the pediatric health professionals in the area. At the Washington Borough Library Gilheany was responsible for the beginning of the computerization of the library, the arrangement of a Children’s section and the awarding of a book collection of books related to New Jersey from the New Jersey Council on the Arts.
A lifelong interest in history resulted in the writing of several pamphlets. “HSLANJ REMEMBERS 1972-1981”, a history of the Health Sciences Library Association of New Jersey, of which she was a founding member, and “The Voices of St. John’s”, interviews of the first parishioners of her parish, St. John Neumann in Califon on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of its founding. In 2013, she published “A Tale of Two Families, Sicily to New York City in the 1900’s”, a fictionalized memoir based on family anecdotes and New York City history.
Survivors are her nieces and nephews; Catherine Gilheany Fink, Jane Gilheany Gavin, Stephen Gilheany, Thomas J. Gilheany, James F. Gilheany and Anne Marie Gilheany Snelling and also eight grand nieces and nephews, one niece and a goddaughter, Jane Egan.
Visiting at the S.W. Brown & Son Funeral Home, 267 Centre St. Nutley on Wednesday March 17 from 2-4 pm.
A Funeral Mass will be celebrated at St. Mary’s Church, Pompton Lakes on Thursday at 10:30 am.
Cremation and committal at St. Peter’s Cemetery in Stillwater, N.Y. will be private.