Lillian Jean Gilfillan

By Annabel Gill

Lillian Jean Gilfillan, the former director of the endocrine lab at Children’s Hospital in Boston and a resident of West Newton for thirty-one years, died Wednesday at 79.

Jean was born on March 5, 1929, in Knoxville, to German-American architect Clem H. Meyer and Sevierville native Lillian Carrie Tyson. She grew up with an older sister, the late Josephine Dafferner, and was raised in large part by the family maid, Mary West, whom Jean called ‘my Mary’ and told many affectionate stories about until the end of her life.

Jean and Josephine’s mother died unexpectedly when Jean was in her last year of high school, and she and her sister left home shortly after her graduation. They struggled to support themselves through college at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, often going hungry or relying on friends to buy them meals, and getting through each summer by working as camp counselors in the Smoky Mountains.

In spite of her difficulties, Jean took full advantage of the intellectual opportunities offered by college, reading widely and taking language classes while earning her Bachelor of Science degree. It was in a chemistry lab there that she met her future husband, Robert Gilfillan of Winston-Salem, when she asked him to turn on her Bunsen burner. They married in a small civil ceremony in 1951, while Jean worked at the Oak Ridge Nuclear Laboratory in Tennessee and Bob pursued his doctoral degree at the University of Minnesota.

They had three children while living in Minnesota and South Carolina, and in 1960 the family moved to the Boston area, where Bob became the head of the virology department at Tufts. In 1963 they bought a Victorian house in West Newton that had been left derelict during the depression. Having inherited her father’s architectural eye and hands-on intelligence, and using her own artistic instincts, Jean spent the next 30 years renovating the house and garden, which became the center of the family’s life and where her three children and one grandchild would grow up.

Jean worked in the science department of Newton North High School and later at Faulker Hospital, before beginning her job at Children’s Hospital in the 1970s. She worked there for 20 years as the Administrator and Technical Director of the Clinical and Clinical Research Laboratory of the Endocrine Division at the Department of Medicine.

Her boss John Crigler, MD, Chief of the Endocrine Division, said ‘Her contributions went so far beyond anything that her job title could convey.’ He said that she was a leader and instructor whose ability to organize, manage, and advocate for the work being done in her lab was crucial to the lab’s ongoing existence and successes. ‘She had many friendships at the hospital,’ he added.

Jean had a powerful, enduring love of life and a strong, stubborn personality that helped her through many of the tragedies and difficulties she faced, including the death of her sister Josephine at age 50. She loved wine, gardening, classical music, traveling, antiques, her ‘big old house,’ birds, her cats, and especially her family, and she often sat on the back patio of her house in Newton with a drink in hand and a grandchild in her lap, watching what she called the ‘copper light’ of evening through the trees. She passed on her great sensitivity, her toughness, and her appreciation for all the subtle hues of life to her children and grandchildren, and she will always be with them.

She is survived by her sons Paul Gilfillan of Connecticut and David Gilfillan of South Carolina, her daughter Pam Gill of Groton, five granddaughters, and one grandson. Visiting hours are from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Badger Funeral Home on 45 School Street, Groton, Massachusetts. A memorial service is planned and will be announced.