Jeanne Ojala died peacefully at Seashore Point Wellness Center in Provincetown on Dec. 31, 2024. She was 90.
Jeanne Mable McLeod was born in Boston on Easter Sunday, April 1, 1934 to the late Amelia and Francis McLeod. The family lived near the Charlestown Shipyard and in 1940 moved to the Old Colony housing project in South Boston.
The project teemed with children, and Jeanne was often enlisted by her younger brother Bill to play first base in neighborhood pickup games until a painfully errant throw led her to retire from baseball with her good looks intact.
Cheerleading became Jeanne’s athletic outlet, but her real passion was dancing. Daughter Karen recalls her mother teaching her and her sisters the Chiquita Banana song and dance.
After graduating from South Boston High School in 1951, Jeanne worked in the administrative offices of Stop & Shop at the top of Boston’s John Hancock Building.
While on holiday with a girlfriend in Buzzards Bay one summer, she answered a knock on her cottage door. There stood a thirsty midshipman from the Mass. Maritime Academy asking for a glass of water.
Ralph Ojala was from a conservative Finnish family that operated the Ojala Farm Lunchroom in West Barnstable. His mother and aunts were shocked when they met Jeanne in her red pedal pushers and duckbill hairstyle, Karen said. Ralph and Jeanne were married for 61 years and had seven children.
Jeanne spent most of her childrearing years in Manchester, Conn., where she was a member of the Little Theater Group, dancing in musicals and singing in the chorus. Carousel was her favorite show. She also worked at Sears in Connecticut and later in Barnstable, where she was a parishioner at Our Lady of Victory Church in Centerville.
As Ralph’s career at United Technologies evolved, Jeanne accompanied him on overseas commissions, experiencing sights and sounds that a Southie girl growing up in the Depression could scarcely have dreamt of. Jeanne was especially taken by the tulip fields in Amsterdam.
One of her dreams was to work at Disney World in Orlando, which she fulfilled by managing a gift shop there before retiring and returning to Cape Cod.
In 2015, they found a home at Seashore Point, and after Ralph died in 2016, Jeanne stayed on. Karen visited regularly, bringing Jeanne her favorite treat, a coffee ice cream soda.
Jeanne had an easy laugh, a quick temper, and an abiding sympathy for working-class Americans, grown from her roots in the projects of Boston. She was a lifelong example of love and commitment through her marriage and the nurturing of her children.
Jeanne is survived by her children: Karen Ojala of Dorset, Vt.; Karl Ojala and wife Susan of Elmore, Vt.; Kristi Ojala and partner Rick Lapointe of West Yarmouth; Kimberly Ojala of West Dover, Vt.; Kara Wilkey of South Yarmouth; Keri Trattel and husband Andrew of Nantucket; and Katrina Reckell of Dover, Vt.; by 15 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren; by her brother, William McLeod of Windsor, Conn.; and by her nephew and nieces, Sean, Patricia, Barbara and Nancy.
A private service for family is planned for April.
