John Paul Healy Jr. – known as Jack to his childhood friends and Mr. Healy to his students – passed away in his Rumson home Dec. 4, 2025. He was 85 years old.
John is survived by his sister Marilyn, his son Gene, daughter-in-law Caitlyn, and his three beloved granddaughters, Madelyn Mary, Lydia Rose and Lucia Eliza Healy.
Born in Elizabeth and raised in Roselle Park, John convinced his father to let him enlist in the Marine Corps at 17. After completing his service, he moved to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where he fell in love with New York City – and the teller he sat next to at the 34th Street branch of Chase Manhattan Bank, Mary Sweeny. They were married Aug. 20, 1966.
In the early years of their marriage, John cobbled together credits from three different colleges while working a series of odd jobs, including loan collector, overnight security guard at an oil refinery, and a stint driving a Good Humor truck in Newark (apparently the most dangerous of the three). After graduating from Montclair State in 1971, he took a job teaching English at Middletown High School (later Middletown North), mainly to have summers free to spend with Mary in a ramshackle Nantucket A-frame. It never occurred to him, he said later, that he’d love – and excel at – teaching.
During his three-plus decades in the classroom, the self-described “Middletown North Faculty Misanthrope” waged a rear-guard campaign in defense of the English language, battling teenybopper verbal tics (“so, I’m like… and then she goes…”); redundancies (“free gift”; “whether or not”) and the use of “hopefully” as an adverb. A January 1996 clipping from the high school paper, The Lion’s Roar, reads: “Recognized: Mr. Healy, English teacher – ‘His class is fun because he doesn’t agree with anything you say.’ ”
In the afternoons and evenings after school let out, John and Mary worked tirelessly to fix up and rent out apartments. From the 1980 edition of Landlording: A Handymanual, he learned recordkeeping and the legal basics. From the school of life, he learned eviction, wiring, plumbing, squirrel-trapping, broken ankles and removal of abandoned boats.
John spent some of the happiest years of his life with Mary in their home overlooking the Shrewsbury River, surrounded by hundreds of books, love notes scrawled on receipts and coffee filters, and watercolors of the places they cherished on the Jersey Shore.
He remained a stoic with a sense of humor to the end, even as his illness robbed him of the pleasures of solid food. Upon learning that his diagnosis was terminal, he responded, deadpan, “Well, there goes my plan to enjoy another Brennan’s sub.” (Happily, not quite true.)
John was preceded in death by his wife and best friend, Mary, his sister Patricia, and his parents, John and Mae.
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in his name to the Visiting Nurse Association of Central Jersey Hospice Care. Please visit John’s memorial page at johnedayfuneralhome.com to share memories and condolences.
The article originally appeared in the January 8 – 14, 2026 print edition of The Two River Times.
