In Memory Of Elizabeth

Elizabeth was conceived at Niagara Falls with sprays of falls water in Tom’s and Mary’s face April 1942. In February 17 1943 she was born in Poughkeepsie New York.   Elizabeth was always stronger than all the boys and as pretty as any of the girls when she went through grade school somewhere between the age of 10 and 15 Elizabeth swam across the Hudson river and her Parents never knew. One of the things that used to drive the guys nuts was she always beat them in leg wrestling no matter how big and strong they were including me her husband of 30 years a 250 pound 6 foot tall man.

One of the things Elizabeth used love to do was travel with her grandmother when she was a little girl. They used to go to New York and see the sites.

Elizabeth graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1961. Elizabeth took the national regional tests for college and scored 99 percent in English. Later she attended nurse’s school and having so much empathy for suffering people was unable to finish the last semester.

Even 50 years later the boys were still trying to track Elizabeth down through the high school web page.

Somewhere around 1963 Elizabeth moved to New York and got a job working for a millionaire in the textile business. While Elizabeth lived in New York she marches for women’s rights and was a die-hard democrat.

A few years later Elizabeth ran into a banker named Dan and later become involved and had a son named David. Unfortunately due to complications at birth (breached birth) and doctors not doing surgery for this issue, David died 2 days later. This was obviously one of the most divesting things that could happen to a mother. I don’t think she ever completely recovered. Elizabeth Traveled through Europe to try to deal with the grief from the loss of David.

Elizabeth did live fifty more years and did many things for many people putting them before her right up to her passing away.

About ten year’s later Elizabeth had 2 more sons Thad and Trevor. Elizabeth was a single mother and did many things for these boys far beyond her duty as mother. One the things she did was feed them cod liver oil when they where young consequently when they grew up they where both over 6 feet 5 inches tall. When they were in high school Thad worked with art professionals and Trevor was put into a school for the gifted because he was a genius smarter than his father was.

When the boys were 15 and 13 Elizabeth moved to San Francisco. One of Elizabeth’s greatest loves was animals of all kinds and when she was young and used to walk to school there was a cow named Daisy with a bell which used to greet her every day. This is why she brought her cat “the pupa” a British short hair.

A few years after moving to SF eating lunch at Pat Oshea’s Irish pub I come into the story Elizabeth’s Husbands Mark Rainey. For 3 years I watched women walk through the door at Pat’s never one interested me until Elizabeth. It hit me like a bolt of lightening her in her painted on jeans and her pink leather coat and the prettiest face I ever saw. I know this about Elizabeth and not me, but with that said that was the best day of my life February 26 1986, which happen to be my mother’s birthday.

A year later Elizabeth and Mark moved to Oregon with Thad, Trevor and the pupa. The family had a wonderful time in the house rental for the first year. The next year they moved into a big house on a large lot. In a few years the boys left and Elizabeth and Mark had a wonderful time gardening and cooking at the house. Elizabeth was so in tune with the wild life on the property those blue Jays used to land on her shoulder and eat nuts from her hand. Mark doing tech work and Elizabeth doing volunteer work teaching reading and taking care of the house and her husband.  In 1995 Elizabeth managed clearing the land of 26 fur trees with six truckloads of logs going out weighing 90 thousand pounds each. With great knowledge of English, Elizabeth read 1000’s of books in her 31 years with Mark.

Once the land was cleared Elizabeth divided the property into 3 lots and sold the 2 that our house where not on. At turn of the millenium things got rough. Mark was out of work for 3 years and the house was within 2 weeks of foreclosure. During this stressful time Elizabeth fell down and broke both her arms. After that she had 4 heart attacks due to nasty neighbors. In 2016 a mark was found on Elizabeth’s Pancreas. One-year later Elizabeth got really sick and died in Portland Providence Hospital on April 12 2017.