Jacquelyn Ruth Boyd-Emond died suddenly of heart failure while driving on Route 6 in Wellfleet on April 19, 2023. She was 81.
Jackie was born on March 8, 1942 to Walter and Dorothy Boyd and raised on North Pamet and Depot roads in Truro. Her happiest times as a young girl were riding with her friends on their ponies and camping in the dunes; she loved jumping off the Pamet River railroad bridge and picking mayflowers in the hills.
Jackie attended Truro Central School and graduated from Nauset High in 1960. She studied for a time in Boston and worked as a volunteer exercising police horses. She later studied in San Jose, Calif. before returning to Truro.
“Mom was all about family,” her daughter, Kim, said. “You could call her for anything, and she would be there, even if that meant getting up at two in the morning. She guided all her children to find their own way.”
Her caring extended beyond family to friends, their animals, plants, and even their homes. Jackie’s care was always a gift.
Traveling was one of her passions. It seemed as if there was not a town, city, river, or mountain range she did not know. “If I was traveling cross-country and called my mom,” Kim said, “she would know exactly where I was just from knowing the highway and the mile marker.”
Among her favorites places were Big Sur, Calif., Boulder, Colo., and the Grand Canyon, where she fulfilled a dream by descending on mules and spending the night on the canyon floor with her friends Frannie and Pauline.
But Truro was always home, where some of her favorite times included weeks with Frannie and Pauline at the dune shacks.
Jackie was a voracious reader and spent a lot of time in libraries and bookstores; she amassed a huge collection of books. She enjoyed atlases and road maps and buried herself in books of all subjects. Favorites were Larry McMurty’s Lonesome Dove and Farley Mowatt’s Never Cry Wolf.
She was also passionate about the treatment of animals and would help any animal in trouble, once breaking a dog out of a hot car. Horses and wolves were special to her; she loved her rescue, Kuna (a hybrid wolf), and her childhood pony, Happy.
Jackie loved all the outdoors, but her heart was always at the Pamet River in Truro.
She is survived by her daughter, Kimberley Deane of Eastham, and granddaughter, Ashley Rorro of Orleans; son Josh Emond, wife Karen, and their twins, Eric and Sierra Emond, of Truro; son Rafe Emond of Wellfleet and his son Ryan Omara; and son Seth Emond and his three daughters, Rebecca, Rachel, and Mara, of Connecticut.
She is also survived by her brother, Tom Boyd, and wife Martha Boyd of Falmouth; cousin Martha Ingrum of Eastham; niece Rebecca Matayko and her children, Olivia, Abigail, and Nadia, of Boulder, Colo.; nephew Kevin Boyd and his children, Isabella, Ava and Ellie Boyd, of Boulder; and stepdaughter Julie Fitzpatrick of Harwich.
Jackie was predeceased by her brother Kim Boyd.
No public services are planned; a celebration of life will occur in private.
Contributions in Jackie’s memory can be made to CASAS Animal Shelter in Provincetown.
