John O. Browne, known as “JB,” died unexpectedly at Cape Cod Hospital on July 7, 2024 of respiratory failure caused by sepsis. He was 79.
“JB personified all the things I found so precious about Provincetown when I first came here,” said Provincetown artist and restaurateur Sal Del Deo. “He was a working man in a working town, the bridge between the water, the woods, and the town.”
The son of the late David Augustus Browne and Mary M. (Rose) Browne, JB was born on Oct. 3, 1944 in Fall River. He grew up in a house on Mechanic Street in Provincetown. His father was a property manager, and his mother ran the Iva-Tel Guest House at 8 Cottage St.
When JB was 15, his father died of cancer, and his grandmother stepped in to help raise him. JB’s male friends and neighbors gave him a comprehensive education in fishing and hunting.
“JB learned his many skills by the way he grew up,” said his lifelong friend Peter Cook. “He was a game hunter, expert with bow and arrow and firearms.”
After graduating from Provincetown High School in 1964, JB worked as a commercial fisherman, having been hooked since he caught his first striped bass at age 12. Joe Corea taught him the trade on the Papa Joe.
JB went on to fish for bass, fluke, bluefish, and mackerel in his own Little Boat. “He had a sixth sense about fish,” said his first wife, Lee Chalmers, “an uncanny ability to know where they were.” He was also a skilled carpenter and occasionally worked during the off-season for Johnny Mike Reis’s Golden Hammer Construction, said his widow, Fran Coco.
JB met Lee in the summer after finishing high school, and they married in 1965. The couple lived briefly in Connecticut, where JB worked as a chef, before returning to run a guest house on Bradford Street.
They divorced in 1970 but remained friends. “He didn’t stop loving you just because you were gone,” Lee said.
JB married Provincetown artist Gail Browne in 1972. Gail said that JB was “educated in the ways of tides, winds, and the power of shifting sands; he was in perfect harmony with his and nature’s environment.” They divorced in 1982.
Fran met JB while on vacation in Provincetown, and they began a long-distance romance. “I moved in with him in July 1983 when I was hired by the town of Provincetown,” she recalled. They married in 1995.
Together they enjoyed the natural bounty of the Outer Cape and traveled throughout the U.S. Their trip of a lifetime was to Portugal in 1997. “He was the yin to my yang,” said Fran.
When they found baby squirrels in their yard without a mother, Fran and JB fed them with an eye dropper until they could fend for themselves. JB trained one of them to ride in his shirt pocket.
JB remained a fisherman all his life but also was a chef on larger boats. He had started at the Moors restaurant as a dishwasher but became a chef there and went on to work at the Blacksmith Shop, the Bonnie Doone, the Town House, and Captain Josie’s, which became Montano’s. JB worked at Montano’s for 25 more years.
“JB always made money,” said Peter Cook, “and he was a teacher. He taught hunting, fishing, camping, and all kinds of sports to anybody who wanted to learn.”
He was a mentor to many young people, Fran said, “teaching them not only to fish and hunt but about life itself.”
He developed and shared a vast knowledge of the foods of the Outer Cape. He gave away venison stew, beach plum jelly, squid stew, marinated mackerel, barbecued ribs, and Porco em Pau, a recipe he learned at the Moors. On hot summer days, JB would bring water to the workers in the booths at Herring Cove and Race Point Beach and to police officers directing traffic. He had treats on hand for seemingly every dog he came across.
“I never met anyone who had as deep a sense of the importance of nature as JB,” Sal Del Deo said. “He was my favorite model. I painted him a dozen times.”
JB last sat for a painting about two weeks before he died. As the session went on, Del Deo grew tired and was ready to stop, but “JB pushed me to keep painting,” said Del Deo. “He pleaded with me to paint, as if he knew his time was up.”
JB is survived by his wife, Fran Coco of Provincetown, nephew John David Browne and wife Sheva Russell Browne of Truro, grand-nephews Brandon Browne of Truro and Joseph Browne of Lebanon, Tenn., and former wives Lee Chalmers of Wells, Maine and Gail Browne of Provincetown.
He was predeceased by his daughter, Dayna, sisters Theda and Lucinda Browne, brother David Browne, sister-in-law Judy Browne, mother-in-law Eva Gratton, and father-in-law Michael Coco.
A Funeral Mass is scheduled for 10 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 28 at St. Peter the Apostle Church in Provincetown.
On Oct. 3, which would have been JB’s 80th birthday, a Memorial at Sea will take place. A Dolphin Fleet whale watch boat and several private boats will depart from MacMillan Pier at 4 p.m.
In lieu of flowers, donations in JB’s honor can be made to the Fishermen’s Memorial Foundation, c/o Chris Lavenets, 3 Fourth St., Harwich 02645 or to the Provincetown Rescue Squad Association, 25 Shank Painter Road, Provincetown 02657.
