Renie posted a condolence
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Mommy's life started over 91 years ago in a world much different than the one we live in now. Her adolescent years saw her experience the hardships of the Great Depression along with Nana and Pop, her sister Marie and her brothers, Phil and Joe. Those years were followed by the horrors of a country at war, World War II. But the end of the war brought her to her sweetheart, Tom. The two of them began a new life together and brought five wonderful children into the world, myself, Pat, Carole, Tommy and Ginny. They lived most of this chapter of their life together on Jarvis Place where my family stayed for over 40 years. But tragedy struck early and Mommy became a widow at the young age of 45 with five young children to support in her new role as mother and father. She worked two jobs for the next 30 years to take care of her family. But she struggled in those early years of the 1960s and 1970s for times were harder for a working woman. When I became a mother myself I asked her one day, how did she do it; what made her carry forward. And her response were words that were a mantra for her her whole life "you do what you have to do". And she did. As the years went by, our family expanded and Mommy had new sons and a daughter. My wonderful husband Donald, Tommy's beautiful wife Grace and Ginny's warm-hearted husband, Paul. Then the new loves of Mommy's life appeared - her grandchildren. Her first born grandchild DJ, who at 23 she still called her little boy. Then her first granddaughter, Gianina, who she was so proud of her being a student at the University of Oxford in England, then my beautiful daughter Megan, who spent phone hours chit-chatting with her Grandma, then sweetie Thomas, the fourth generation to carry on the name Thomas Thornton, which started with his great-grandfather, then her precious Theresa, who is her namesake and finally Jake, who was always to her, her littlest one and the baby of her baby, Ginny. But it came upon us to say our good-byes; good-byes that were sudden and too quick. Though the five of us are all now in our 50s and 60s you are still and will always be, Mommy. Mommy we all love you and will never forget you.
