Haverhill City Councilors on Tuesday honored the late Lisa (Duggan) Guerin, who died over the weekend following a brief illness. She was the wife of former Mayor John J. Guerin Jr.
Council President Thomas J. Sullivan offered a moment of silence in honor of Guerin, his first cousin.
“We grew up in Bradford together and we were very, very close,” he said. “As children, we hung out all the time, whether we were at Bradford swim club, which is where we spent many of our summers.”
Sullivan pointed out he and Lisa would join the Veterans of Foreign Wars Santa Parade Committee, founded by Sullivan’s father, John. Sullivan, who would become chair, said he went on to serve with his cousin many years.
A Haverhill High School alumnus himself, Sullivan recounted how she and Guerin “rediscovered” each other at a political event in 1992, more than a decade after they both graduated from Haverhill High School.
“That night, she caught his eye, he caught her eye and they would marry within a year,” he said. Married for 28 years, Sullivan said she was a “very, very loving person.”
“She loved her family, she loved her husband, she loved her friends,” he said. “We all loved her, and we are going to miss her dearly.”
Councilor John A. Michitson said he is “pretty devastated” by the news, noting he got to know Lisa while serving together during her husband’s four terms on the City Council and two-year term as mayor.
“The mayor—Mayor John Guerin at the time—had to lay off more than 20% of the city workers. Let me tell you, it hit hard to have to do that,” he said.
He noted Lisa was always there to support her husband in those years after the former city-owned Hale Hospital closed.
Besides the VFW Santa Parade Committee, she was a member of the Haverhill Historic Commission. As the former first lady of Haverhill, according to her obituary, she developed a lifelong, quiet philanthropy to support numerous local causes and organizations.” Funeral services will be private.
In other City Council news, Sullivan was re-elected president and Timothy J. Jordan re-elected vice president in separate 10-0 votes with Councilor Michael S. McGonagle absent.