Joseph Ryan Bresnahan, Sr., 86, of Wolfeboro, NH and Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Florida passed away unexpectedly at Holy Cross Hospital in Florida on January 6, 2026 with his loving wife of 62 years, Jane, by his side.<\/p>\n
Joe was born in Haverhill, MA on July 28, 1939 to Joseph J. and Helen (Levis) Bresnahan.\u00a0 Joe was raised in Bradford.\u00a0 He graduated from St. John\u2019s Preparatory School, Danvers, MA in 1959 and St. Anselm\u2019s College, Manchester, NH in 1963.\u00a0 Joe and Jane married April 27, 1963.\u00a0\u00a0He was the owner of J. Bresnahan Company of Haverhill, Massachusetts and Plaistow, New Hampshire, a company founded by his grandfather in 1890. He expanded the moving and storage business to include self-storage and worked with dedication side by side with his son, Joe, and later his grandsons, Joey and John, until retiring at the age of 75. His son and grandsons proudly continue the multi-generational family business in which he took great pride. Joe happily retired to the beach at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, FL during the winter months while spending summers at his home on Lake Winnipesaukee, Wolfeboro, NH, which he often referred to as \u201cGod\u2019s Country\u201d.\u00a0 Joe was a member of the Haverhill Lodge of Elks and the Knights of Columbus.\u00a0 He was also a member of the Kingswood Golf Club, Wolfeboro, NH and Palm Aire Golf Club, Pompano, Florida.<\/p>\n
Joe is survived by his wife, Jane (Baker) Bresnahan; his daughter, Karen Bresnahan of San Ramon, CA; his daughter Kimberly Dikeman (Craig) of Pepperell, MA, and his son, Joseph R. Bresnahan, Jr. (Karen) of Atkinson, NH.\u00a0 He is also survived by his six grandchildren Sean O\u2019Connell (Drew), Brian O\u2019Connell, Reed O\u2019Connell, Joseph R. Bresnahan, III, John Bresnahan, Rylee Bresnahan, and his great granddaughter, Caitlin O\u2019Connell.\u00a0 He is also survived by his sister, Helen McKittrick (Joe).\u00a0 His sister, Mary Ellen LeBlanc (Don) predeceased him in 2021.<\/p>\n
Visitation will be at the Comeau Funeral Home, 486 Main Street, Haverhill, MA on Friday, January 16, 2026 from 4:00PM until 6:00PM.\u00a0 A Celebration of Life Mass will be celebrated at Sacred Hearts Church, 165 South Main Street, Bradford, MA on Saturday, January 17, 2026 at 10:00AM. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Burn Institute – Shriner\u2019s Children\u2019s Boston, Office of Philanthropy, 51 Blossom Street, Boston, MA 02114 or donate.shrinerschildrens.org<\/a> Please visit www.comeaufuneral.com<\/a> of Comeau Funeral Home on Facebook.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Joseph Ryan Bresnahan, Sr., 86, of Wolfeboro, NH and Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Florida passed away unexpectedly at Holy Cross Hospital in Florida on January 6, 2026 with his loving wife of 62 years, Jane, by his side. Joe was born in Haverhill, MA on July 28, 1939 to Joseph J. and Helen (Levis) Bresnahan.\u00a0 Joe was raised […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10550,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-obituaries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comeaufuneral.com\/2025-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comeaufuneral.com\/2025-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comeaufuneral.com\/2025-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comeaufuneral.com\/2025-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comeaufuneral.com\/2025-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comeaufuneral.com\/2025-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9263,"href":"https:\/\/comeaufuneral.com\/2025-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9236\/revisions\/9263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comeaufuneral.com\/2025-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comeaufuneral.com\/2025-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comeaufuneral.com\/2025-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comeaufuneral.com\/2025-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}