In Memoriam: Longtime Monmouth Beach Resident, Writer, Mike Sheehan, 85

Longtime Monmouth Beach resident, writer, Michael “Mike” Patrick Sheehan, died on Tuesday, Feb. 14. He was 85.

Mike Sheehan
Photo/family via John E. Day Funeral Home

“In an age when people aspire to quick fame, a well-curated online persona, and the flash of a big job title or fat bank account, Mike Sheehan was an anomaly: He was content.

“Mike loved his life of quiet pleasures and routine: a good conversation, the delight of an engrossing book, the pursuit of the best pizza. For many years this was Freddie’s in Long Branch until its closure forced a slow-paced but satisfying search for the next best slice. He reveled in menu-planning for holidays, cooking for a crowd of family, and evenings on the porch with Ellen. As he often reminded his family, ‘We are rich in the things that count.’ For Mike, family was everything. He knew the joy, safety, and camaraderie of being part of a large first family, as the youngest of 14 children born in Brooklyn to Dr. George and Loretto Sheehan. And he knew loss, as he outlived nearly all of them.

“The quintessential introvert, Mike preferred thoughtful conversation over a beer with two people to the rowdy possibilities of a room full of strangers. He didn’t like to travel but he did it anyway, and once home again he savored memories of trips to the Outer Banks and visits to his children in
North Carolina, Maryland, Maine, and Pennsylvania.

“He had a nimble mind and stayed curious about characters, good stories, and ideas all his life.”
Loved ones of Mike Sheehan in his obituary

Mike was educated at Regis High School and then at Red Bank Catholic before enrolling in Manhattan College and graduating from Caldwell College. A writer by vocation, he worked in communications and marketing for 20 years with Blue Cross and then Blue Shield of New Jersey, before freelancing for more than 20 years as Marketing Messages.

“His ease with words flowed into weekly Friday emails to his children and outlaws, filled with stories — day-to-day life with Ellen, reports on the summertime dew point and relative humidity, musings on pop culture and politics, stories of People I Get Behind in lines, and tales of getting pulled over (again) by Long Branch police for his too-tinted windows,” his obituary continued. “The email distribution grew to include grandchildren deemed grown enough and friends who wanted in on the never-breaking — but always thoughtful — news from the Friday Message Man.”

He had a long and happy marriage to Ellen Sheehan, his true love of 54 years whom preceded him in death in 2021.

“He took great delight in the doings of his four children,” Maura, Michael, Becky, and Kathleen, and is survived by them. He is also survived by: his “brilliant grandchildren,” Erin and Sean Knight, Fiona and Felix Sheehan, Ellie and Leo Lomangino, and Sidonia Summers, and Albert, Haley and Joseph Bruce; his sister, Liz; sisters-in-law, Beth Parisi and Diana Kohl; brother-in-law, Joseph Kohl; his many nieces and nephews; his children’s spouses and partners, Tim Knight, Molly Sheehan, Bob Summers and Bert Bruce, the “outlaws” he and Ellen loved who loved them back; and his dear friends, Maggie Hopkins, Joan Magnetti and Linda Friedman.

Family and friends may visit Thursday, March 2, from 2 to 4 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m. at the John E. Day Funeral Home, Red Bank. A funeral mass will be celebrated on Friday, March 3, at 10 a.m. at the Church of the Precious Blood, 72 Riverdale Avenue, Monmouth Beach, followed by a committal service at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Middletown.

Donations may be made in Michael’s memory to the First Nations Development Institute at https://www.firstnations.org/

— Edited obituary prepared by family via John E. Day Funeral Home