Victoria (Hyder) Downey, age 80, a resident of Nevins Nursing and Rehabilitation Center for the past two years, passed away on July 31, 2014
Born in the Pleasant Valley section of Methuen, “Vicky” was a 1952 graduate of Searles High School. She lived in the house built by her grandfather until she and her husband David (Dave) began their family. The couple moved with their four young children to “the big white house on the hill” on Pleasant Valley Street where they would live for more than three decades. When the home was razed to create a mega apartment complex, Vicky and Dave moved to Lawrence, just outside the boundaries of “the Valley.”
Vicky loved to laugh, cook, and feed people. When her children were teenagers, every Sunday afternoon Vicky transformed her kitchen into a pizza parlor where her kids and their friends would gather to eat Vicky’s home-made pizza. She was renowned for her baklava—made with orange blossom water, not honey. Besides the trays of baklava she would bake and give away, she would take a week’s vacation in December each year so that she could bake 30 different kinds of cookies that she would serve at her family’s Christmas open house, when again she would get to feed people. On these occasions she would sometimes dress up as Mrs. Claus, in an outfit she fashioned herself, to the delight of her grandchildren and guests.
Recalls her granddaughter Pamela, “I am so grateful to have had her as a Grammy growing up; I loved being at her house and all of the busyness and chaos.”
Vicky sewed her children’s Halloween costumes, created from Singer patterns. Years later she dressed in costume and went Trick or Treating with her eldest grandchildren, Pamela and Russell. But Vicky didn’t need grandchildren to dress up for Halloween. Each year she dressed in a costume that she created and wore it to work. Her husband, who worked with Vicky at the IRS, would walk a few steps ahead of her feigning embarrassment as they crossed the parking lot together.
She taught Pamela and Russell the art of tumbling. Curling herself into a ball, Vicky would roll down a grassy knoll in the family’s backyard. Pamela and Russell would follow, laughing and tumbling after their Grammy, picking out blades of grass from their hair.
Vicky was a devoted baseball fan of her younger grandchildren, Jacob and Dylan, and would attend all their games with her husband. As Jacob and Dylan grew and towered over her, she would hug their waist and let them know she loved them.
She had also loved her dog, Pepper, a Spitz mix who lived long enough for her children to know. But when Pepper bit Laurie, Vicky’s middle child, Vicky felt compelled to crawl beneath the kitchen table and administer a retaliatory bite to Pepper’s paw, even though Laurie had probably deserved Pepper’s rebuke. Many years later, Vicky would help her daughter Laurie foster homeless cats and kittens for Animal Rescue Merrimack Valley. Vicky adored her children . . . and animals.
As a girl, Vicky had a mad crush on former Red Sox player Ted Williams, whose penchant for the soft drink, Moxie, Vicky shared.
But Vicky most loved her husband Dave, whom she was married to for nearly 58 years. When Dave pitched for several local softball leagues, Vicky would accompany him to each game and to the social get-togethers that followed at the Concordia Club, the British Club (where Vicky and Dave had hosted their wedding reception), and Herman’s Hall. She also took great pleasure in accompanying her husband to his annual bowling banquet.
When her family hosted a birthday party for her at Nevins when she turned 79, Vicky sat on a sofa beside her husband and tenderly leaned her head upon his shoulder and watched, along with everyone gathered, a video montage of her life created nine years earlier in honor of Vicky’s 70th birthday, prior to Alzheimer’s Disease having laid its claim upon her.
Before she moved into Nevins, Vicky would sit on the sofa at home in the evening and work on crossword puzzles while Dave joined her or watched TV.
While at Nevins, Vicky made new friends with residents and staff. When she first arrived, she loved to demonstrate her strength and independence, oftentimes wielding her walker over her head while race-walking down the corridor. Vicky’s family is grateful for the care and compassion shown to her by Nevins’ staff and volunteers and by Merrimack Valley Hospice.
As her cognition became more impaired, her words more jumbled, and her intellect perforated, Vicky’s world became more sensory. A gentle squeeze to her hand, a hug, or a light kiss on her cheek resonated with a core that remained untouched by Alzheimer’s.
Vicky will be greatly missed by her husband Dave; her son David and his wife Minako of Haverhill; daughter Kathy and her partner Christopher Paglia of Byfield; daughter Laurie of Lawrence; daughter Tina Lambert and her husband Kevin of Salem, NH; grandchildren Pamela and Russell Downey of Pensacola, FL; grandchildren Jacob and Dylan Lambert of Salem, NH; her cousin Bev Winn who still lives in the house that Vicky’s grandfather built, relatives, friends of the family, and Herman the cat.
Calling hours will be held at the Kenneth H. Pollard Funeral Home, 233 Lawrence Street, Methuen, on Monday, August 4, 2014 at 4:00 PM until 7:00 PM. A funeral service will be held at the Kenneth H. Pollard Funeral Home on Tuesday, August 5, 2014 at 11:00 AM. In lieu of flowers, donations to Animal Rescue Merrimack Valley, PO Box 8006, Bradford, MA 01835-8006 (www.armv.org) will be gratefully accepted. For directions or to send an online condolence, please visit www.pollardfuneralhome.com. The Kenneth H. Pollard is honored to serve the Downey Family.