Obituary of Mary Carmel Funge
Mary Carmel Funge (née Brennan), 88, of Mountain Lakes, NJ, passed away on Monday, February 17, 2025.
The fifth youngest of six girls, Mary was born in Grand Falls, Newfoundland, to Mary and Michael Brennan on December 26, 1936. (When she was born, Newfoundland was a British colony; by the time she’d graduated high school, Newfoundland had joined Canada. But whatever country she happened to be in, Mary was always a proud Newfoundlander!)
In 1958, Mary graduated with a nursing degree from Mount Saint Vincent College, a women’s college in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Not long afterwards, she headed to America with two classmates, looking for adventure. She worked as a nurse at St. Francis Hospital in Jersey City, and, through her sister’s husband, she met a civil engineer named William Funge. They married in 1964 and, after a stint in Bloomfield, NJ, moved into their home in Mountain Lakes in 1972.
Although primarily occupied with homemaking and raising her three children, Mary kept her hand in nursing, working part-time at the Sarah Frances Nursing Home in Boonton Township. She enjoyed her co-workers and her patients. She was an active member of Saint Catherine of Siena Church in Mountain Lakes for five decades. When she wasn’t taking care of her family, her home or her patients, Mary enjoyed playing bridge and tennis, relaxing at Island Beach, and having a cigarette and a coffee with her friends. Mary sustained many lifelong friendships. She outlived numerous dear friends and relatives, but had regular contact with her best childhood friend from Grand Falls, nursing school classmates, former work colleagues and, of course, Mountain Lakes friends until she died.
With walls full of family photos and sayings, Mary delighted in people and their eccentricities. She was known for her quick wit, lyrical Newfie accent and good humor. She loved a good sing-a-long (regularly encouraging her kids’ friends to perform for her), a scratch-off ticket, sudoku, poetry, and a Cadbury Fruit and Nut bar (or three). Fiercely independent, Mary lived in her Mountain Lakes home until she died.
Predeceased by her husband Billy and her sisters Lorraine Brennan, Pauline O'Driscoll and Bernice Finn, Mary is survived by her loving children Ann, Michael (Beth) and John (Amanda); her beloved grandsons Christopher Funge and Max Funge-Ripley; her sisters Ann Cox and Margaret Hanrahan, as well as many nephews and nieces.
Please join the family in celebrating a Memorial Mass at St. Catherine of Siena Church, Mountain Lakes, NJ, on Friday, May 9, 2025 at 10:00 am with a reception to follow. The interment will be private. In lieu of flowers, please share a memory, story or condolence about Mary on normandean.com.
