John Edward Shanahan ’71

John Edward Shanahan ’71 passed away quietly on April 24, 2017, at his home in Deland, Florida, after fighting idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis for months. John was born in Manhattan on July 7, 1949, to parents Beulah and Edward Shanahan. He attended Bishop Moore High School, where he served as senior class president and excelled as a swimmer. After high school his love for reading and adventure led him to Dartmouth, where he spent some of the best years of his life. Between organizing events as social chairman at Tabard/Sigma fraternity and participating in the Dartmouth Outing Club, he met the love of his life, Martha Merrick. John spent college summers painting houses in Nantucket Island and pushing an ice cream truck in Seattle, his sense of adventure always fueling his next great story. In August 1972 he and Martha were married in Cleveland. The newlyweds lived in Manhattan, where he pursued his M.B.A. at Columbia University and began his career in banking and finance. In 1978 they moved to Scarsdale, New York, where they raised children Michael, Merrick, Barbara and Sara. He took an early retirement from the banking business and, seeing the work that Martha was doing as a nurse, he became interested in the field and began a second career as a psychiatric nurse serving adolescents. He will be remembered for his kind heart and open mind, which served him well as a foundation for his life as a great defender of justice, loving people he met from all walks of life.