Jennifer Abraham Page, 84, died Feb. 26.
A Belmont resident of 43 years, Jennifer was known for her warm smile, quick wit, and passion for justice. She was a professional educator, serving as a public school teacher, a demonstration teacher, and a curriculum developer at the Arithmetic Project. Jennifer was also a faculty member and Vice President at Lesley College (now Lesley University), and held various roles with the Urban Initiatives, the Institute for Response Education, and Wheelock College. After retiring, she devoted herself to local politics and government.
In 1966, Jennifer had a daughter, Andrea, with her first husband, David Page; they divorced in 1970. In 1977, Jennifer and Andrea moved to Belmont, where Jennifer co-chaired the Belmont Committee for a Nuclear Weapons Freeze and co-founded Grants for Peace, awarding scholarships to Belmont High School seniors for promoting peace and justice. At Freeze Committee meetings, she met her beloved husband Joe Mayer and his son Daniel, also of Belmont. They were married in Belmont’s All Saints Church in 1996.
With deep listening and engagement, Jennifer drew in neighbors and business leaders alike to find common ground. A Belmont Town Meeting representative for decades, Jennifer helped craft a Vision Statement for Belmont that was adopted unanimously by Town Meeting in 2001, and she served for years on the Belmont Vision 21 Implementation Committee to achieve this vision.
Jennifer co-organized the first Meet Belmont, a community resource fair for new Belmont residents. She regularly served the town as an election-day poll worker.
Jennifer loved bringing people together in community work, reunions with friends, and her annual 4th of July backyard picnic. She deeply loved her grandchildren and saw them regularly. In 2021, after the death of her husband, Jennifer joined her daughter Andrea in Nashville, Tennessee.
Jennifer is survived by her daughter and son-in-law, Andrea and Patrick Page-McCaw of Nashville; sister and brother-in-law Jo Ann and David Reiss; step-son and his wife, Daniel and Katerina Mayer of Berlin, Germany. She was beloved by her grandchildren, Rebecca and Sarah Page-McCaw, and Felix and Charlie Mayer, as well as her niece and nephew, Sharon Reiss Baker and Ben Reiss.
A Memorial Celebration will be held on Sunday, May 25, at 2 p.m. at Wellesley Friends Meeting, 26 Benvenue St., Wellesley. A Zoom link is available.
Memorial gifts may be made to the Jennifer Page and Joe Mayer Scholarship Fund of Project Zero, offering professional development opportunities to public school teachers (attn: Mary Kate Oliver, Longfellow Hall HGSE, 13 Appian Way, Cambridge, MA 02138).
