SOCIAL SERVICES Miriam Gannon, Braintree foster-adoption mom to dozens, dies at 82

For many in their town and the state’s child-care system, Miriam and Matthew Gannon were saints, and it’s easy to see why.

For more than three decades, the Gannons adopted 23 children and were foster parents to 51 – 74 in all, many of them with disabilities and special needs. Now they and others whose lives were touched by the couple are remembering Miriam Gannon, who died on May 5 at 82.

Her biological daughter, Maryanne Zeller of Duxbury, confirmed Monday that Gannon died at her Braintree home from lymphoma. Zeller’s father, the late Matthew Gannon, died at 88 in 2010.

“It was every moment of their life,” Zeller said of her parents’ adoptions and foster parenting. “They were serving the heavenly father’s children, and they loved it. They never wanted something different.”

Their calling started early and never stopped.

Matthew Gannon was a World War II Army Air Force veteran, and a radio and TV repairman in Braintree. They met when he went to her family’s home to fix their TV, and they married in 1955. She was 20, he was 30. Zeller was born two years later.

Then in 1964, the pastor at St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Braintree made a plea for foster homes, and the Gannons signed up. As the years went on, they adopted some and had to say goodbye to others.

In a 1999 Patriot Ledger profile, the Gannons said they had made a home for a blind, schizophrenic girl, and others who were blind, partly paralyzed, autistic and mentally disabled. Many had been abused or neglected.

“This is what we did. This was our family’s home,” Zeller said. “Once a child came in the front door, they were a Gannon. They were part of the family. My parents were giving them unconditional love, for most of them for the first time in their life. They could just be children.”

Zeller said her mother especially loved Christmas, and every season kept a record of all the gifts they gave to their adopted and foster children. “We found one from 1969,” Zeller said. “They had 15 that year.”

The Gannons eventually expanded their house from four to eight bedrooms, and added an elevator and wheelchair-access areas. Miriam Gannon started her days at 5 a.m. Her husband rose later in the day and took the night shift with the disabled youngsters. A number of Zeller’s adopted brothers and sisters grew up to pursue careers and their own family lives.

Others still needed care as disabled adults. At the same time, the Gannons cared for foster children for a few months or years.

“It’s hard to see any of them go,” Miriam Gannon said in the 1999 Patriot Ledger story. “You wonder what happened to them.”

That same year, with nine children of varying ages in the house, the state Department of Social Services told the Gannons they were too old to adopt more children, at ages 64 and 74. Zeller said they continued to take in foster children until 2004.

By then the Gannons had received the Massachusetts United Way’s prestigious Courage Award, and an international Knights of Columbus award.

After Matthew Gannon died in 2010, Miriam Gannon kept looking after some of their grown, adopted children, and she kept in touch with the rest. Zeller said her mother’s cancer and other health problems got worse in the past year, “but she didn’t want to leave her children.”

Gannon’s funeral Mass will be at 10 a.m.May 10 at St. Francis of Assisi Church, 850 Washington St. in Braintree. Visiting hours will be from 3 to 8 p.m.May 9 at the Clancy-Lucid Funeral Home in Weymouth. She’ll be buried with her husband in the Massachusetts National Cemetery in Bourne.

Zeller said her mother got visits and calls from almost all of her adopted sons and daughters in the last few months of this year, and from a couple of foster children as well. She said as many as 17 adopted children plan to attend the funeral service.

“Whether it was for a brief time or a lifetime, she made each of their lives so enriched,” Zeller said.

Reach Lane Lambert at llambert@ledger.com .