Angela Mary Mosesso, the daughter of the late Angela L. (Baldassini) and Albert N. Mosesso, passed away at her home in Harwich, MA at the age of 72 on December 11, 2023. Angela was born in Quincy, MA, the first of six children from their marriage, sharing her first name with both her mother and maternal grandmother, a fact which she bore with great pride.

She attended North Quincy High School and later graduated from Boston State College with a BA in English Literature. The school’s motto “Education for Service,” would govern the trajectory of her working life, leading Angela to pursue a career in teaching.

This pursuit would eventually lead to her leaving Massachusetts for San Francisco, where she spent nearly a decade, starting out in the resource book room of Mercy High School. After being both inspired and cajoled by friends within the English department at Mercy, Angela embarked on the long journey of receiving a master’s degree from San Francisco State University, teaching alongside the Sisters of Mercy during the day while taking classes at night. Years later she would recount, jokingly, that her first “child” was born in the wee hours of the morning during the spring of 1984 with the completion of her MA thesis “The Shedding of Old Skin: Virginia Woolf's Influence on Sylvia Plath,” one of the first works in comparative literary analysis published regarding these two luminaries of twentieth century women’s literature.

However, by 1986 Angela had begun to miss home, and after an arduous drive back across the country with her father, which was later told with many fond recollections of stops along the way, she came to live in Brewster, MA. It was in the fall of 1986 that Angela would begin her career teaching English at Nauset Regional High School in Eastham, MA, one which would occupy her for the next thirty-one years. While she taught a number of different classes in her early years, Angela would become most well known for her role in instructing the freshman honors and senior Advanced Placement English classes at Nauset. For nearly two decades, she helped to develop the critical skills of literary analysis in hundreds of students, teaching such works as A Separate Peace, Homer’s Odyssey, Crime and Punishment, and Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, to name just a few of her favorites. Years later former students could still recount the rigors of a class with “Ms. Mosesso” with both a mix of wistful nostalgia and trepidation at the thought of the voluminous essays common in all of her classes. In addition to her time in the classroom, Angela also served as the English department chairperson for twenty years helping to steer the school’s study of literature.

In 1991, Angela would welcome her first and only child, Robert Peacock, always affectionately referred to, occasionally much to his chagrin, as “Bobby.” For the next 32 years he would serve in many roles as a confidante, a co-teacher, a constant traveling companion, and lastly as a caretaker, remaining by her side until the moment of her passing. Her friends and coworkers would say that he gave her purpose and direction outside of her career, acting like a guiding star even into his adulthood, but he would say that he could have done more for her. Angela had a zest for traveling having spent many summers driving throughout Europe. Her travels would take her from her places such as her beloved Italy to Germany, France, England, and Russia to name but a few. During her travels she would even visit the towns that three of her great grandparents had hailed from in Italy.

Angela is preceded in death by her parents Angela and Albert and her sister Sheryl. She is survived by her son Robert, her brothers Albert, Michael, and Joseph Mosesso, and her sister, Lauren Sharp. Her son would like to thank Margot of the VNA of Cape Cod who helped to allow Angela to pass in peace with dignity.

Angela will be buried at Pleasant Hill Cemetery in Wellfleet, MA at 11am on Saturday, December 16th. Former students, colleagues, and friends are welcome to attend the burial ceremony if they wish.

In lieu of flowers donations can be made to UNITED24 (u24.gov.ua) a charity benefiting the people of Ukraine in their continuing struggle for self-determination, a cause which concerned Angela even in her long illness.

Angela Mosesso was as unique as the rarest of sea glass found in a beautiful, secret cove, polished and honed by the richness of her travels, her life experiences, and the dynamic and profound role that she played as a teacher to her many students, the best of whom always marveled at the amazing, powerful, inspirational and brilliant woman that she was. My heart is aching with her physical absence, but I also know that she resides in my heart with each and every beat, and her teachings truly inhabit the very fiber of the way my mind works; her influence was that profound. It is reassuring to know that all the lessons I learned from her are also embodied in my children today, which is a true testament to her immortality. One of the epics we read as freshmen in her Honors English class was Gilgamesh, which is all about our very human struggle with mortality, (and the concept of immortality.) Just as with Enkidu, who was King Gilgamesh’s beloved companion, Angela’s flame will never be extinguished on a metaphysical plane. I know her spirit is still shining right now, and I trust her soul is soaring, reminding us all to seize the day, and to live our lives fully with the joie de vivre that she emulated to her core. She was wise, brilliant, generous, thoughtful, compassionate, empathetic and as brave and dazzling as the Greek goddess, Athena; may her totem bird, the owl, fly high overhead, communing with the heavens, reminding us all that our task here on Earth is not just to love, but to love deeply, fiercely, and passionately, just as she always did....