Cooper CEO, Wife Mourned By Governors At Service
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A prominent New Jersey political figure and his wife who were found dead after a fire erupted in their bedroom were remembered Tuesday by relatives, friends and three governors for their public service and rich family life.
John Sheridan was the architect of New Jersey's road-building fund under a Republican governor and the man who carried out a Democratic powerbroker's vision to transform one of the nation's most impoverished cities by expanding a hospital. He was president and CEO of Camden-based Cooper University Health Care.
His wife, Joyce, was a retired high school history teacher who embraced students who others found challenging. She was blunt, sarcastic, unconcerned about rules and impatient with the politicians her husband spent much of his career advising.
Republican Gov. Chris Christie and two of his predecessors in office were among the speakers Tuesday at their memorial service.
But what was left unsaid amid the laughter and tears: Their deaths on Sept. 28 remain mysteries.
They spent the day before — a Saturday — decorating their home for Halloween, a favorite tradition of hers, especially. The next morning, there was a fire in their bedroom in their house in Montgomery Township.
John Sheridan, 72, was pronounced dead at the scene. Joyce Sheridan, 69, later died at a hospital.
The Somerset County Prosecutor's Office has said the fire was arson. Officials have not released the couple's cause of death and say they need laboratory results first. But the prosecutor, Geoffrey Soriano, said in a statement last week that "there exists no threat to either the immediate neighborhood or to the local community."
Mark Sheridan, one of the couple's four sons and a lawyer who handles election-law cases for Republicans, said at the service that his parents were always together during their 47-year marriage — often in search of antiques.
"The one thought that has comforted me through the last week is that whatever they were doing, they were doing together," he said.
Former Republican Gov. Thomas Kean recalled how John Sheridan suggested dedicating a portion of the state's gasoline tax to transportation projects — an idea that was novel three decades ago but has been widely repeated since then. It was possible, Kean said, because Sheridan also built a coalition of business, labor and other groups to push for it.
Sheridan served as Kean's transportation secretary, a lawyer for GOP Gov. Thomas Cahill and the Republicans in the state Senate, and a lawyer in private practice. For nearly a decade, he has held top jobs at southern New Jersey's Cooper Health System. Family said that job was the most important to him.
During his tenure, the hospital added a cancer center and medical school and expanded its campus in Camden.
"The city of Camden today is a different place because of his vision," said board Chairman George Norcross, one of the most powerful nonelected figures in New Jersey's Democratic Party.
Joyce Sheridan taught at South Brunswick High School and was remembered Tuesday for her compassion and humor.
One colleague said when students hadn't eaten, she would make sure they got food — even if it meant breaking rules to do it. One of her sons recalled how, when they were learning to drive, she would tease them by pulling on a helmet for the ride.
"She had a very wry sense of humor about politicians," said former Republican Gov. Christie Whitman, "and never took officeholders quite as seriously as we took ourselves."
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