Contributor
John A. “Jay” Greene of Belmont passed away peacefully at his home on June 11, 2024, at the age of 78. He was the beloved husband for 53 years of Deborah (Howard); and devoted father of Stephanie Moyer and her husband Shannon of Downingtown, Penn.; and Justin Greene and his wife Danielle of Sudbury, Mass. He was the treasured Boom Boom of six grandchildren, whom he adored: Colin, Trent, Grant, Charlotte, Ryan, and Camden.
He was predeceased by his parents John J. and Anne Greene and his siblings Margaret Healy, Janet Sullivan, and Joseph Greene.
A graduate of Belmont High School in 1963 and New England Institute in 1966, Jay joined his father in the running of the William J Cox (later John J. Greene, Inc.) Funeral Home. As a funeral director in Belmont for more than 45 years, he put people at ease during the most difficult times of their lives. Jay had a way with people—no one was ever a stranger. He treated everyone with kindness and loved to make others laugh.
He was an active Belmontian throughout his adult life. He was a Town Meeting member, a member of the Belmont Sesquicentennial Celebration Committee, the Belmont Town Club, and the Belmont Boosters’ Club, for which he ran the annual golf tournament for many years. He was on the Belmont Fire Station Reuse Committee and later on the Fire Stations Building Committee. He was also a member of the Rotary Club of Belmont and a long-time corporator of Belmont Savings Bank, serving as a member of the BSB Board of Directors in 2009 when the bank went public, through 2019 upon the acquisition of BSB by Peoples United. He also enjoyed coaching and helping with his kids’ sports teams.
Jay loved to travel, especially with family. In the last months of his life, he traveled to Hawaii, fulfilling his dream of visiting Pearl Harbor and the Battleship Missouri on Oahu; also traveling to Kauai, the Big Island, and Maui, where he went to the top of Volcanoes National Park and Haleakala Crater.
Jay was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran. His family would greatly appreciate donations in his memory to The Angelman Syndrome Foundation, angelman.org.
Services were held in July and were under the direction of Brown and Hickey Funeral Home.
