C. Helen (Tighe) McIntyre, 89, of New Bedford died Monday November 26, 2012 surrounded by her family at Emeritus of Dartmouth Assisted Living. She was the wife of the late Edward Kirby McIntyre.
Born in New Bedford, the daughter of the late Francis P. and Delia (Carney) Tighe, she lived in New Bedford all her life.
She was a communicant of St. Lawrence Church.
Mrs. McIntyre was formerly employed as a registered nurse in the delivery room at St. Luke's Hospital until her retirement.
She was a graduate of New Bedford High School and St. Luke's Hospital School of Nursing. She was a member of the Catholic Woman's Club and St. Luke's Hospital Alumni Association.
Her family would like to thank the staff of Emeritus of Dartmouth Assisted Living and Community Nurse and Hospice Care for the exceptional care given to Helen.
Survivors include four sons, Edward Kirby McIntyre, Jr., and his wife Pamela of Franklin, Mark Henry McIntyre and his wife Carol of Nashua, NH, Joseph Benedict McIntyre and his wife Christine of New Bedford, and Robert Alexander McIntyre of Fairmont, WV; three daughters, the Honorable Frances Ann McIntyre of Boston, Margaret-Mary McIntyre Sundin and her husband Robert and Regina Elizabeth McIntyre, all of Fairmont; nine grandchildren; a great-granddaughter; and nieces and nephews.
She was the sister of the late Thomas Tighe, Patrick Tighe, Edward Tighe, and Mary Reilly, and aunt of the late William F. Reilly, who was like a brother to her.
Her Funeral Mass will be celebrated on Thursday at 10 AM at St. Lawrence Church. Burial will follow in St. Mary's Cemetery. Visiting hours will be on Wednesday from 4-8 PM at the Saunders-Dwyer Home for Funerals, 495 Park St., New Bedford. In lieu of flowers, remembrances may be made to Holy Family-Holy Name School, 91 Summer St., New Bedford, MA 02740. For directions and guestbook, please visit www.saundersdwyer.com.
EULOGY FOR C. HELEN MCINTYRE
GIVEN BY MARGARET-MARY MCINTYRE SUNDIN
AT ST. LAWRENCE CHURCH THURSDAY NOVEMBER 29, 2012
On behalf of our family, I want to welcome the young men and women of Holy Family-Holy Name School, the future leaders of the Catholic Church.
I am Margaret-Mary McIntyre Sundin and I became the family eulogist by default. We never had a need for one, because no one in this family ever dies. We have been blessed with the gift of years.
Of the few eulogies I’ve been asked to do, this one is the most challenging. It is difficult to develop perspective on someone who was the center of everything, who seems to have always been there. She shaped our lives, directing what, when and how we did and did not do things. Our mother is responsible for the best parts of all of us.
And to be asked to say a few words about her in this holy place, St Lawrence the Martyr Church, where we have celebrated all the sacraments as a family: first Confessions, first Communions, confirmations, weddings, christenings and now, our mother’s funeral, is a privilege.
Our mother worked for many years as the charge nurse in the St. Luke’s Hospital delivery room. Where ever we went with our mother, grateful women would come up and say, “Do you remember me? You were there when I had my baby.” Our mother would always say, “Of course I do. How old is the baby now?”
As a good Catholic, our mother would always baptize a baby who was not doing well, just in case. Many years later when our mother was doing outreach for St. Lawrence parish, she visited families within the parish district to find out if there were any Catholics or other persons who were need of services from the church. The mother of one family explained, “We’re Jewish, but when my son was born, the nurse at the hospital baptized him a Catholic.” My mother never said a word.
Our family lives revolved around this church. We participated in every liturgy, benediction, exposition, march and crowning of the Blessed Mother that went on. Even regular Sunday Mass was a production.
For Holy Family Grammar School students, attendance at eight o’clock Mass was mandatory, and the nuns took attendance. Getting us all up, dressed and sitting at church before Mass seems an impossible task. But we know she did it, because we have many photos of the family dressed up for church in suits, dresses, hats and gloves.
You won’t find our mother in any of those photographs -- she is the shadow, the photographer. In addition to her faith in God, my mother believed in the totemic value of photos. She used the camera to record history and build self-esteem. She always wanted to remember the moment, and as an artist, she looked at things differently. Our mother liked to take photos on the diagonal, like a diamond, saying she could fit more in that way.
Posing for the photographs used to drive us nuts, but it is fun to look back at the pictures now and remember the moments. Now we can appreciate how much work went into making everything our mother did look effortless. We do not know how she managed to make us all look so good. We were not poor by any means, but with seven children, there was never any extra money. Our mother really could make something out of nothing, whether it was a costume, a science project, or supper at the last minute.
Our mother loved music. She taught herself to play the piano. She kept a pad by the radio so she write down song lyrics. When we went out for a “ride”, our Sunday afternoon entertainment, she would sing in the car. We grew up knowing songs from the 1930’s, “April Showers”, “Grandfather’s Clock,” and “Shine On, Harvest Moon” to name a few. During the last year, when we would visit our mother at Emeritus, we would sing those songs with her and she would join in on the choruses. For few moments, it was like the old days.
Holidays were huge at our house. Like many families, our holiday traditions revolved around food. Our mother raised pie-making to the artistic heights of those cathedral builders of the Middle Ages. The crust was a magical mixture that had to be carefully prepared ahead of time, and my father helped with that. The chilled crust has to be handled quickly and lightly, to retain its flakiness. Apple, pumpkin and mince pies cycled through the oven in an assembly line. Rather than learn how she did it, we made cinnamon rolls out of the leftover dough, expecting that our mother would always be there to make the pies.
But not everything our mother made required such careful effort. Another one of her culinary achievements was development of the “peanut butter bam-bam.” That may sound like a candy, but the “peanut butter bam-bam” is an economical, quickly made but long lasting sandwich that needs no refrigeration. It is perfect for taking to the beach.
To make one, and you kids can do this at home, open a hamburger bun, put a big gob of peanut butter on the bottom, and then shut the top down quickly. “Bam-bam”-- just like it sounds. You can turn them out by the half-dozen in a minute. We must have loved them because we ate them all the time.
We would spend all day every day at the beach, leaving early in the morning for swimming lessons. Our mother wanted to make sure that we were all seaworthy. We went swimming regardless of the weather. The term “beach day” meant nothing to us, we went to the beach in foul weather and fair. We swam in rough waters and calm. We grew strong and tall on “peanut butter bam-bams”, cold salt water and fresh air.
Our mother appreciated the simplicity and economy of matching clothes that could be shared. We all had the same sweatshirts in different colors. She cut all of our hair in a simple hygienic style. We all looked alike, so we were quite used to being asked, “Which one are you?” and even, “Are you a boy or a girl?”
We were a team, a collectivist effort, more than the sum of our parts. We were responsible for each other. Once when our mother called out, “Who’s got the baby?”, the baby answered, “The girls do.”
Our mother led by example. She didn’t tell us how to act, she showed us how to act. One of the biggest lessons we learned was to do what needs to be done. We knew, because she told us, that she didn’t want to go out to work at 10:30 p.m. at night. But we would polish her shoes, get her watch and make sure her nurse’s scissors were in her pocketbook, and off she would go to deliver more babies. Our mother often said that nurses did “the Lord’s work.”
I could go on, but there are two important things to understand about our mother.
First she loved our father and he loved her. She would say things that would make him put his head back and laugh. He loved to hear her sing and play the piano.
When he died almost nine years ago, her first words were “How can there be a world without Teddy?” Their talents balanced each other perfectly. She was artistic and imaginative. He was practical and resourceful. Together they could hang wallpaper, stuff the turkey, make campaign signs, and do whatever needed to be done.
We grew up with the security of knowing that no matter what happened, whether it be a hurricane or a nuclear war, our parents would take care of us.
After her love for our father, her love for her family came next. For our mother, family meant all of us -- all of her children and relatives, and all the mothers and babies and everyone else she met along the way. She had the capacity to really truly love you all.
There is no need for my words to eulogize our mother. There are seven living eulogies here today. The best way for us to remember our mother is to be kind and gracious to everyone we meet. We can look at things from a different perspective. We can take a “diamond” photo now and then, and see if we really can fit more in. And we can always do what needs to be done, thinking of it as “the Lord’s work.”
We thank you so much for coming today.