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ennon’s earliest memories revolve around music. She recalls singing along to the radio as a young girl and remembers her parents belting out tunes in the house. Today, Lennon is an accomplished choral singer who performs competitively with Coastline Show Chorus, an international chapter of the Sweet Adelines. Known for their four-part a cappella harmony and energetic choreography, Coastline is comprised of 80 women from across New England singing a range of music, from American classics to Broadway hits. Lennon traces her love of a cappella to 1958, when she first saw the Buffalo Bills, a famous barbershop quartet, at Symphony Hall in Boston. “It’s a gas if done right,” Lennon said of the blended voices. Intrigued with male barbershop, Lennon learned that a female counterpart existed. She auditioned for a Sweet Adelines chapter in 1987 and never looked back. Every Wednesday evening, Lennon makes the 30-mile trek from her home in Needham to Coastline rehearsals in Attleboro. Not one to waste a minute, Lennon uses her 2001 Mitsubishi Eclipse as her personal music studio. “That old car has a CD and a tape player, so I practice sets as I’m driving or just listen to what my mood calls for that day,” said Lennon, a slender woman with a flair for fashion: On a recent winter day, Lennon wore a purple studded jacket, swirling black skirt, and cream leather boots. Her memories of Regis College are equally colorful. A “day hop,” Lennon spent hours traveling to and from Regis in the early 1960s, the oldest and first of seven children to attend college.
“I lived with my aunt who was a dance teacher in our family homestead freshman year, and took the subway three changes to Riverside where I got on the blue Regis bus,” she said. Lennon later worked as a mother’s helper for a Weston family. She said she felt lucky to be in college, no matter the struggles. “I was determined to make my parents proud. Plus, the Sisters of St. Joseph kept a close eye on us scholarship students,” she chuckled. In high school, Lennon was one of 13 young women in A Baker’s Dozen, an a cappella group. At Regis, Lennon graduated with a Fine Arts degree and minor in Spanish and German. “It was the height of folk music, so I also played guitar and sang a lot of Joan Baez,” she said. She married John Lennon, whom she had met years ago when his mother introduced them, and the couple settled in Needham, where they raised daughters Beth, Pam, and Katie ’96. Lennon worked at the Watertown Library along with Regis classmate Anne Billingham Brophy (“We met in Sister Melmarie’s creative writing class”) for a year. Then she worked as an elementary school teacher at St. Anthony’s in Allston and Immaculate Conception in Malden until her first child was born. “I enjoyed being home with the kids but was on a guilt trip. I worried that I wasn’t using my degree,” she said. She indulged her artistic bent by joining Needham Community Theatre, performing in “Brigadoon” and “Flower Drum Song.” Lennon also created show posters and designed and helped build the annual Fourth of July parade floats. After 15 years as a stay-athome mother, Lennon enrolled in graduate school. “It seemed to me that people were always telling
me their troubles,” said Lennon about her decision to pursue a master’s degree in counseling at Framingham State College. She worked at NORCAP, a treatment program for adults with dual diagnoses—substance abuse addictions and mental health issues. Realizing that she needed a doctorate degree to advance in her field, Lennon enrolled at Boston College. “I received my PhD in developmental and educational psychology in 1994,” said Lennon. After she completed her degree, she co-wrote Understanding Creativity with John Dacey, one of her Boston College professors. The book examined the biological, psychological, and social factors that contribute to the creative process. Lennon accepted a job as an adjunct psychology professor at Boston College and worked there for a decade until her husband was diagnosed with lung cancer. “It was difficult teaching and driving John to his many medical appointments,” she said. Then John learned he had Parkinson’s disease, a progressive disorder of the nervous system that affects movement. The diagnosis was devastating. A financial analyst and outdoorsman, John would eventually be confined to a wheelchair. When he died in 2010, the couple had been married for 46 years. Following the advice of famed psychologist Erik Erikson, whose theory of psychosocial development considers the whole lifespan, Lennon prepared for the next phase of her life. “Suddenly I was single and had to restart myself,” she said. At the urging of Regis classmate Gail Ryan Benson ’69, Lennon joined the Regis College Alumni Chorus. She performs at shows in the Casey Theatre and last year traveled to Barcelona to sing with the Regis College Glee Club. Two months later, Lennon
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