Colin E. Bourn ’59

Colin E. Bourn, Ashby, MA, and Creggan, Northern Ireland, died August 19 from Paget’s Disease.

Raised in Whitton, Twickenham, London, Colin was born an elder twin (by 10 minutes). Growing up in London, Colin attended St. Edmund’s Primary School, Whitton, St. James Primary School, Twickenham, and St. Benedict’s School, Ealing. During World War II, Colin and his twin evacuated to his mother’s family home in Creggan. It was in class with Miss Crossey at the local primary school that Colin learned to knit, a passion he pursued long into his eighties!

In 1955, Colin immigrated to the U.S. to enter the seminary. He spent his novitiate year in Mystic, CT, continuing his studies at Saint Michael’s in Vermont. Colin graduated at the top of the Class of 1959, Summa Cum Laude, with a bachelor’s in philosophy. Colin continued his theological studies at Saint Michael’s for an additional three years and was active in the Society of Saint Edmund.

In January 1962, Colin decided to leave the seminary and moved to Ashby, MA, to teach at Ashby High School. He taught for three semesters while completing a Master of Education at Fitchburg State College in 1963. He also began his FSC tenure teaching in the summer sessions of 1962.

In the fall of 1963, Colin moved to Amherst, MA, to pursue a Master of Arts in English at the University of Massachusetts. At UMass, Colin met his future wife, Kathleen M. Fenton, whom he married in Whitton, Twickenham, London, on July 27, 1965. Colin and Kathy made their home in Ashby, raising a family and embedding their lives within the local community.

Colin joined the Fitchburg State College English Department faculty full-time in September 1965 and continued teaching at FSC until retiring on the last day of the millennium in 2000. Colin taught and subsequently coordinated the English course offerings for the FSC evening and summer school programs throughout his tenure. He was a popular teacher, promoted to associate professor in 1988, awarded the Vincent J. Mara Excellence in Teaching in 1996, and professor emeritus in 2002, among other accolades.

Colin was passionate about 19th-century literature, particularly Jane Austen. For most of his adult life, he was an active member of the Jane Austen Society. Colin was an avid fiber artist, forever gifting his knitting, embroidery, needlepoint, and other bespoke crafts and projects to friends and loved ones. Colin loved to garden and devoted much of his spare time to refinishing furniture and renovating and preserving the 18th-century home that he and Kathy purchased in the spring of 1968.

Colin was not just a teacher but an active local community member. He served on the North Middlesex Regional School Committee for 25-plus years, represented Ashby’s Democratic Party as an elector at state conventions, was a lector at St. Camillus Catholic Church, Fitchburg, for more than 20 years, and was a docent for Boston by Foot for more than a decade.

In 2000, Colin and Kathy built a retirement “bungalow” in Creggan, where they spent half of every year living in the rural countryside, reconnecting with friends from Colin’s youth, exploring their Irish roots, and establishing new family connections, community, and traditions.

His wife of 42 years, Kathleen, died in 2007, his twin brother died in 2023. Colin is survived by three sons, a daughter, a sister and extended family.