LYNN — Former City Councilor at-large Deborah Smith Walsh is being remembered by family and friends as a passionate fighter for people who needed a voice.
Walsh, 72, died Friday night at Kaplan Family Hospice in Danvers following a five-and-a-half-year battle with cancer, said her brother, former state Rep. James E. Smith.
“She was an incredible warrior. She battled back several times,” Smith said.
Walsh, wife of John Coleman Walsh and mother of former state Rep. Steven M. Walsh, Marissa Walsh and Joseph Walsh, served four terms on the Lynn School Committee between 1981 and 1991 and served as a councilor at-large from 1991 to 2003.
“She instilled in us a passion for public service. She looked at policy through the lens of the most vulnerable which meant she never lost sight of what was most important — helping people. Working for the common good was her vocation,” said Steven Walsh.
Walsh used her public voice to advocate for the underserved. Friends and colleagues said the crown jewel of that crusade was Walsh’s instrumental role in Lynn Community Health Center’s 2012 expansion.
“I am convinced the new building would not have been able to be developed without Debbie,” said Lori Abrams Berry, who served as Center executive director from 1996 to 2017.
Berry said Walsh worked as the Center’s community relations director drawing on her deep Lynn roots and countless connections across the city to help expand Center initiatives.
Former council colleague and Lynn Economic Development & Industrial Corporation (EDIC/Lynn) Executive Director James M. Cowdell recalled how Walsh and Berry came to him in 2010 with the vision for the Center’s expansion.
“They had no land or money but she (Walsh) was such a strong voice for the expansion and the people the Center served,” said Cowdell.
The daughter of Helen and Ernest “Dutchie” Smith, Walsh grew up on Gateway Lane off Walnut Street with her brothers, Jim and Ernest. Their brother Steven died in 1961.
She attended Callahan Elementary School, Breed Junior High and graduated Classical High School in 1965. Jim Smith said his sister studied nursing through a program affiliated with the Chelsea Soldier’s Home, graduated first in her class, and worked at Union Hospital.
It was September, 1981 when Walsh, living in East Lynn and raising her children, harnessed her community involvement and familiarity with politics to launch a write-in campaign for Lynn School Committee.
Her father was a committed supporter of former presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson and she worked her brother’s four legislative campaigns.
Without her name on the city election ballot, Walsh had to scramble through that September to collect enough write-in or “sticker” votes to get her name on the November ballot.
But the mother of two children in the Aborn School knew what she was talking about when she questioned class sizes and teacher layoffs. Voters listened and Walsh won a committee seat and was re-elected again in 1983 in part by proclaiming, “People want to have confidence in our public schools.”
“Educationally, she was a strong leader. She was a very principled person,” said former city council president and Lynn Housing Authority & Neighborhood Development Executive Director Charles J. Gaeta.
Walsh ran unsuccessfully for Ward 2 City Councilor in 1985 but won a committee seat again in 1987.
“Debbie was an exceptional person dedicated to her great family, her city and to always helping others,” said former Council President Richard J. Coppinger.
By 1989 when she ran for a fourth committee term, Walsh was known well beyond the former committee meeting room on Franklin Street.
Active in community organizations for three schools, she was a past president of Lynn Community Health Inc.’s board of directors and involved in literacy, mental health advocacy and Democratic politics.
“She was a strong advocate for people who needed a voice at the table. When she fought for a cause, she fought to the end — you saw that with her battle against her illness,” Gaeta said.
Walsh jumped from the School Committee to the City Council in 1991 — a watershed year in Lynn politics that saw the late Patrick J. McManus elected mayor and the election of African-American councilor Matt Wills.
“We always joked that we started out on the council on opposite ends. Towards the middle and end of her career, we were generally on the same side,” Cowdell said, adding, “Politics to her was a means to assist people.”
The pair fought together for equality for the mentally ill and Cowdell recalled Walsh’s passion for advocating for seniors.
Walsh joined the council as the first woman in 16 years to win an at-large seat. She was the top at-large vote-getter in 1991 and 1993.
Laura Gallant, an attorney with Northeast Justice Center, campaigned for Walsh and worked with her to combat an initiative to tear down local buildings ostensibly for public safety reasons.
“She was in a lot of ways the heart of the city. She went to more meetings than anyone I knew in my life,” Gallant said.
When the late Walter J. Boverini announced his pending retirement from the state Senate, Walsh threw her hat into the ring for the election to pick his successor, quipping, “My kids said, ‘Go for it.'”
She lost that election to Edward J. Clancy Jr., a former councilor who was West Lynn-Nahant state representative at the time and would later be elected mayor after serving in the state Senate. By 1995, Walsh was a force in developing the city’s arts and cultural district — a role her son Steven subsequently adopted. Four years later, she was still the top at-large vote-getter. The Lynn Boys and Girls Club in 2000 saluted Walsh with its Commitment to Youth Award.
“My mom was an inspiration to so many people, especially women, in the city of Lynn. She prided herself on being a voice for people who felt they did not have anyone to speak for them. She represented everyone — all of Lynn’s residents,” said Marissa Walsh.
In 2003, for the first time in 11 years, Walsh’s name was not on a city ballot.
“You get to the point where you want to step back,” she told The Item.
She said goodbye to politics but stayed involved in a dizzying array of community roles spanning the Lynn YMCA, My Brother’s Table, Family and Children’s Services and several school community councils as well as her support for the Lynn Community Health Center.
“She understood the workings of politics in the city but was concerned for the city’s most vulnerable. She was irreplaceable,” Gallant said.
Jim Smith said the large diverse crowd that attended his sister’s council farewell party at Gannon Municipal Golf Course was a tribute to her popularity and local friendships.
Mayor Thomas M. McGee said Walsh’s service to the Center equaled her commitment to serving Lynn as an elected official.
“She was such a strong voice for the expansion and the people the Center serves. She made a great impact on the city of Lynn and was involved so much in making the city a better place,” McGee said.
Berry described Walsh as the Center’s “liaison to the city” who repeatedly drew on deep connections across Lynn to advocate for the Union Street health facility.
The expansion tripled the Center’s size and provided urgent care and specialized medicine. Walsh, said Berry, helped initiate a recuperative care program for the city’s most needy and worked closely with former School Superintendent Dr. Catherine C. Latham to expand school-based health care.
She was “One solid lady and a very special sister,” said Jim Smith.
