Elizabeth J. (Donovan) Day: 1918-2013

“Sail on, Silver Girl. Sail on by. Your time has come to shine.”

On January 24, 2013, Elizabeth Day sailed gently to God's light, reuniting with her beloved Frederick and leaving behind a nearly 95-year legacy of peaceful living, love, and laughter for her children—Patty (Mark) Terry of Midlothian, VA; Fred (Bich) Day of Falls Church, VA; Barbara (Fred) Briger of Colchester, CT; Kathy (Dave) Lange of Annapolis, MD; Marzie (Peter) McCoy, of Albany, NY; grandchildren—Minh, Megan, Amy, Alex, Christopher, and Shannon; great grandchildren—Viet, Xuan, Lan, Emily, Ryan, Jack, and Katelynn; many nieces and nephews; special friend and caregiver Ha Pham; “daughter” Deb (John) Pollock Partridge.

Blessed with longevity and health, Elizabeth packed a lot of living in her years. She was born in 1918 in Portsmouth, NH, to Elisabeth Keefe and Timothy Donovan, who raised Mom and her siblings, Timothy, Jr., and Katherine, in a loving climate of spirituality and humanity and taught them by example to live each day with appreciation for all blessings, with compassion for anyone down on their luck, with optimism that each morning meant not just another sunrise but also opportunity, this latter principle perhaps applying especially to the family’s unwavering faith not only in God but also in the Boston Red Sox; Catholicism wasn’t the only religion in the house. I have to believe that before her passing Mom was only one of a mere handful of Sox fans—and quite possibly the only one—who even in crib celebrated the Red Sox World Series victory in 1918 and, always believing the Sox would regain the crown, lived to see their faith rewarded 86 years later in 2004 and again in 2007.

Our mother would regale us with stories of her childhood. And her history continues to mesmerize and inspire me. Her parents, “Nana” and “Da,” met later in life, after Nana boldly forged her own path in the business world. They raised their children, of whom Mom was the youngest, in a big, rambling house on Middle Road in Portsmouth; the beaches of Hampton, Rye, and Wallis Sands were their playgrounds. Da was employed as a manager of a shoe button factory, was a successful but humble landowner, and served his community as a State Representative. Life was good.

Mom was probably about 11 years old when the Great Depression hit. Her family, although not without their own struggles, was better off than most. Da was able to continue providing for his family, and his character was such that where he saw need, he provided—be it shelter, food from his farm, or odd jobs—and did so without regard to race or color, a principle that apparently was not universal. I was always spellbound by Mom’s recounting of the night she was startled from bed by a ruckus coming from outside her window: a burning cross lighting up the night, set by white-hooded Ku Klux Klan as a warning against Da’s colorblind hiring practices.

Higher education was a requirement, not an option, in my mother’s house, regardless of gender, an unusually enlightened principle for the times. Mom graduated from Regis College in Boston and afterward enjoyed the single life working in the big city. When her father became ill—“hardening of the arteries” in those days, Alzheimer’s disease today—Mom returned to Portsmouth to help with his care. To supplement her family’s income, she took a position not far from home at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, the soil and seed for her future. The time was roughly 1943, World War II was in full swing, and the shipyard was a hotbed of activity. Though she never said so, I imagine that, as beautiful as she was, Mom had many admirers among the war-weary sailors who came into port. She talked of parties and patriot dances that were held to boost the morale of the soldiers shipping out to an uncertain future. The memory of two such events in particular stayed with Mom throughout her life, even as her mind started failing her: the night she danced with John F. Kennedy, when he was “back then just some small-time Boston politician’s son” and the double-date set up by a friend in March 1945 that sealed Mom’s fate: the friend with her own date, a handsome but cocky naval officer according to Mom, and Mom with a sailor whose name she claims to have forgotten the minute she met the handsome but cocky naval officer. Mom and Ensign Frederick Day, from Albany, NY, were married 6 weeks later.

Mom and Dad started out in a small cape cod-style house in the rural western outskirts of Albany. By the time I was 5, our family  of seven had outgrown the house, and Dad moved us to a larger but older home in the city, closer to his downtown office and to Vincentian Institute, where my older siblings attended high school. I loved the city house, with its creaky floors and pocket doors and closets big enough, dark enough, to conduct scary séances with friends. In hindsight, I’m sure my Yankee blueblood mother might not have been quite as enamored with the house, situated as it was in the middle of an unelegant street, facing a large, bland apartment building home to some dubious characters; a small strip of grass for a front lawn; tight alleyways separating our house from those on either side where stray cats would gather nightly; a narrow backyard whose privacy was protected only by a rusty chain-link fence. But as child I didn’t notice any of this, and I never heard Mom complain.

In that house on Lancaster Street, Mom worked her magic as a seamstress: For her daughters she sewed everything from our stylish coats with matching skirts at Easter, to our full-length dresses for prom, to plaid ponchos and bell-bottom pants for the first day of school. She taught us her craft, though only one of us inherited her talent.

In that house on Lancaster Street, Mom prayed as she sent her only son to Vietnam and cried upon his safe return home.

In that house on Lancaster Street, Mom played “Moon River” on the piano while Dad accompanied her on his harmonica.

In that house on Lancaster Street, Mom decorated the dining room with crepe paper and balloons in celebration of every birthday.

In that house on Lancaster Street, Mom lived an unsung life, raising her children, attending PTA meetings, volunteering at school, doing our laundry. She nursed our wounds, hemmed and mended our clothes, even cut and styled our hair (not to mention her own).

In that house on Lancaster Street, Mom survived the teenage years of five children. She counseled naive hearts and heads, comforted the unwise after the fact, and taught accountability.  

In that house on Lancaster Street, Mom prepared three meals a day, including dessert after dinner every night of the week in order to satisfy my father’s wicked sweet tooth.

In that house on Lancaster Street, Mom mourned the passing of her own mother, who came to live with us as she aged beyond her own capacity to care for herself.

In that house on Lancaster Street, Mom persevered as a single parent for nearly a year while my dad worked by day as an engineer with AT&T and then by night and by weekend as a utility worker, climbing telephone poles and repairing electrical lines, to support the company during its massive labor strike in 1971. When the strike was finally settled, Dad had earned enough overtime income to buy a fixer-upper fisherman's shack in a tiny harbor town in Rhode Island, a shabby little place our parents would eventually transform into a quaint little cottage that would become, and is to this day, the geographic nucleus for our family.

In that house on Lancaster Street, Mom exercised everyday with Jack LaLanne on TV to maintain her size 4 figure. Mom was into fitness long before it became a health trend, and she continued to be a role model for fitness for her children up until her body just got too tired.

Mom loved God and, following Him but in no special order, my Dad, homeless dogs, her children, floating on ocean waves, her Irish heritage, lobster rolls, grandchildren, the Red Sox, dancing with my father at the Officer's Club in Newport even if it meant having to crash a wedding or the Submariners Ball, walking the beach, clam cakes at Captain Jack's, watching the ocean fog “creeping in on little cat’s feet” up the hill from the harbor to the cottage porch, a crisp glass of chardonnay, birthdays, Snug Harbor’s annual 4^th of July parade, golf, whiskey sours on Christmas Day, New England, Irish ballads, swimming in the sea on August 15 in celebration of the Feast of the Assumption.

Dad passed away in 1987, 67 years young, leaving my mother broken in both heart and spirit. In the 26 years since, Mom did her best to carve out a new life for herself from the ashes of the old; she enjoyed traveling, spending time with her children and grandchildren at the cottage, sitting on the deck at dusk watching the fog roll in, and golfing with friends. At one of these outings, in fact, Mom found love and companionship again in the autumn of her life. She married Bill Pollock in December 1993, and they grew old together contentedly until his death in 2009.

On a day shortly before Mom passed, my sisters and I sat by her hospital bed and sang softly, which seemed to comfort her—Irish ballads, hymns, any gentle song we could think of that we actually knew the words to. Barbie suggested Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Waters,” which seemed soft and appropriate, but we soon realized we knew the tune better than the lyrics, and what lyrics we thought we knew bore little resemblance to the words the poet-musicians actually wrote. Only when we looked up the lyrics on the Internet did we realize how perfect that song truly was.

“Sail on, Silver Girl. Sail on by. Your time has come to shine. All your dreams are on their way.
See how they shine.”

Sail on, Silver Girl.