FAY - Catherine M. (Mikorzewski). In West Roxbury, Nov. 10, 2009. Beloved wife of the late retired Capt. Thomas J. Fay, Jr. (Brookline Fire Dept.). Devoted mother of Thomas M. and his wife Deborah J. Fay of Brookline, Kathleen D. and her husband David H. Dalzell of Norfolk, Carol A. Fay of Millis and the late Michael J. and Patricia M. Fay. Also survived by 8 grandchildren: Sean T., Kimberly G. and her husband Phil Boncher, Thomas M., Jr. (deceased), Kelly J., Michael J., Dianne C., Brian C., Elizabeth G. and Michael M. Sister of Helen (TX), Genevieve (PA) and the late Joseph, Anthony, Stanley, Stella and Josephine. A private family graveside service will be held on Friday November 13th at Mt. Benedict Cemetery in West Roxbury, MA. In lieu of flowers, donations in Kitty’s memory may be made to the Polycystic Kidney Disease Foundation, 9221 Ward Parkway, Suite 400, Kansas City, MO. 64114-3367.
Catherine M. Fay
November 10, 2009
“The goodness of a mother’s heart comes back to her in the love of everyone her life has touched!”
These words truly embody the essence of our Mom Kitty’s beautiful spirit and how much she meant to each of us! For 58 years Mom was a loyal and devoted wife to Dad, and she was the most wonderful, loving mother and grandmother anyone could ever hope for! Mom was our best friend, and we were truly blessed to have her in our lives!
Born on January 2, 1928, Kazimira Mikorzewski (Catherine) was the youngest of eight children, whose parents immigrated to the United States from Poland. The family lived in Chelsea, MA. Mom grew up during the Great Depression. Times were tough. Life was not easy for her family. In dire straights and struggling to survive, her parents felt their only option was to send some of their children to live with foster families from church or at the local orphanage, where nuns took care of them. Mom was the baby, and so she stayed home with her mother who kept a constant, vigilant watch over her youngest child. Mom’s father died when she was only eight years old, after which the family moved to Dorchester, MA. Helping take care of their mother and family was a tremendous responsibility on Mom’s oldest brother and sisters.
When Mom was a teenager she dreamed of becoming a professional roller skating star. When that didn’t pan out, and she was old enough to work, Mom’s first job was delivering people’s clothing orders on foot from a nearby laundry matte. She also found a small job at a local factory inspecting chicken eggs by holding them up in front of candlelight. When Mom got older she worked at Filene’s and Jordan Marsh Co. as a telephone operator. Later she moved into the billing department at Jordan’s, followed by a sales associate position. After dating for a few years, Mom and Dad got married on September 16, 1951. (Dad always said how beautiful she was, and what legs!) They lived in Brookline and later moved to West Roxbury, where they resided for their remaining years.
As a young girl Mom learned the true meaning of family values and what it takes to survive - love, loyalty, sacrifice and hard work. She led by example and taught us that there is nothing more important than family. Mom was always caring, nurturing, patient, and understanding. She loved us unconditionally and was devoted to each one of us her whole life. There was nobody more selfless than Mom, always putting everyone else first. Mom’s courage and strength were exemplary during the most challenging times of her life – delivering a baby at home when she came sooner than expected, saving her child’s life when she choked on a slice of orange, and caring for two small, ill children early in her marriage. It nearly broke Mom’s spirit when she lost her baby, our brother Michael, at nine months old and later, our sister Patsy, who was sick for a long time with cancer and died at the age of twelve. With the love, loyalty and support of Dad and both families, Mom survived these very difficult times.
During her life Mom was very ambitious and demonstrated a hard work ethic. Besides being a full-time housewife and mother of small children, she studied and went back to work, passing the Boston Police exam to become a School Crossing Guard and Traffic Supervisor for the city of Boston. Luckily for us, she was the crossing guard in front of our elementary school. In addition, Mom managed to navigate around the streets of Boston as a census taker, and she worked at the local polls during elections. On occasion, Mom even found time to participate in consumer research (otherwise known in our household as “the chewing gum surveys”). Mom really enjoyed working. She was a faithful and dedicated employee for many years. After retiring from the Boston Police Department, Mom continued to work as a cashier at our local grocery store. During summer vacations, Mom also enjoyed working in NH as a Beach Attendant at the town beach.
Mom was extremely proud of her children and grandchildren’s accomplishments.
She valued education and felt it was the pathway to a better life. Mom always encouraged her children and grandchildren to work hard in school in order to pursue their dreams. She wanted all of us to have happy and successful lives, and she felt education was the beginning of that pathway. She set high standards for us and spent countless hours helping us with our homework, assisting us with research at the library, drilling us over and over again in Latin and French (without a clue as to what the words meant or how to pronounce them), and helping us with school projects. One time her creativity and cake decorating talent really came in handy when she helped create a 3-dimentional, mid-evil castle, complete with moat and draw bridge, decorated completely in cake frosting. (Thanks to Mom it was an easy A+). Mom taught us all to read before we even entered kindergarten.
When we were older Mom attended adult education night school classes to pursue some of her various interests, such as drawing, oil painting, ceramics, sewing, upholstering and cake decorating. She made us beautiful birthday cakes every year that were always very special, and festive cakes for holidays and special family occasions. Her cakes were on display at the local adult education art school show. Her beautiful oil paintings decorated the walls of our home. Mom enjoyed cooking, baking, and entertaining and made it look easy when she hosted delicious holiday dinners for the family. She put much time, effort and love into making every holiday special, including her lovely homemade cards. She made sure that Santa brought great toys from our wish lists and stayed up all night basting the turkey and getting ready for Christmas morning. She wanted to make sure that we all had a wonderful holiday. Mom also made us beautiful homemade Easter baskets and new pant suits to wear to church.
Mom enjoyed spending time with her children and grandchildren, babysitting frequently, giving haircuts, teaching them how to draw, coloring with crayons and markers, painting with water colors, making homemade play dough and doing other craft projects. “Mom Mom”, as she was affectionately called, loved to tell stories to her grandchildren and sit on the couch with them to talk and giggle. She always enjoyed playing lots of games, including “Go Fish”, “Concentration”, tic-tac-toe and checkers. The kids loved it when she drew imaginary pictures on their backs, or played “Bore a Hole, Bore a Hole, Right Through The Sugar Bowl” on their tummies. It wasn’t unusual to find Mom Mom keeping right up with the kids, as she hoola-hooped, rode bikes and scooters with them outside, blew bubbles, drew with driveway chalk, read story books and watched videos over and over again for the thousandth time (“Barney”, “The Little Mermaid”, “Lady and the Tramp”, just to name a few). The refrigerator at home was always Mom Mom and Grandpa’s backdrop for proudly displaying the kids’ artwork or photos. Mom Mom enjoyed reading the grandkids’ school papers every week. She also liked to cook their favorite foods when they came to visit (ie: Mom Mom’s delicious scrambled eggs). And who can forget when weeks before Halloween, Mom Mom secretly planned her special costumes, later surprising (or scaring) all of us at the front door on Halloween night. (We wondered who is this colorful, crazy character? “Mom Mom, is that you?”) Then she’d join right in and greet the neighborhood trick-or-treaters with us. Needless to say, her creative costumes were always a big hit!
Mom had amazing sewing talent and enjoyed making professional quality curtains, drapes and slipcovers for us and other family members. In addition to braiding rugs and footstool covers, she made many outfits for us to wear when we were growing up, not to mention the great costumes for school plays and Halloween night and dolls’ clothes for Barbie. Mom crocheted lace doilies, afghans, vests, shawls to wear with prom dresses, and who can forget those matching ponchos? Mom knitted us mittens, slippers, scarves and even sweaters and jackets for our Barbie Dolls! She enjoyed embroidery, cruel needlework and making macramé plant hangers for our houses. Mom could often be found sitting at her sewing machine or meticulously sewing by hand with a needle and thread, spending countless hours voluntarily doing the never ending pile of repair work for us and her grandchildren’s clothes. She saved tins full of buttons and scrap material for repair work. Mom also recycled whatever she thought she might need in the future. She could wallpaper a room like nobody’s business. Mom would always make goodies for the bake sales at school and unique crafts for our seasonal craft fairs at work. Honestly, while growing up, it seemed like there was nothing that Mom could not do! She really was a very thoughtful, caring, smart, creative, artistic and talented woman!
Mom played the role of Brownie Troup Leader, always offering the girls cool craft projects to do. She took us sledding and ice skating, drove us to church, CCD classes, Boy Scouts, sports practices and games, and piano lessons. And yes, it was Mom who got up at the crack of dawn to drive the “paperboy” in bad weather. She helped us memorize and rehearse lines for school plays and was always in the front row for any show to cheer us on. Mom could also be found sitting in the stands at the hockey rink or baseball field watching our games. She watched us swim at the beach, taught us to do the “doggie paddle” and hold our breath under water. She spent many hours riding around and around and around the roads in Camelot Acres teaching us how to drive. She could be found with Auntie Jo cruising down dirt roads in N.H. searching for perfect rocks to load into the back of the old white station wagon in order to build a stone wall at the cottage, or digging up the brown eyed Susan plants that grew wild by the side of the road, or clipping seed pods wherever she went in order to replant them in her garden later on.
Mom taught us the value of money. She insisted on home permanents, getting a good bargain, rummaging through the mark-down racks, clipping coupons for the grocery store, going to yard sales, thrift shops and church fairs. Mom saved all store sales receipts and scrutinized them for any errors (Dad taught her well!). She sacrificed and tried to save money wherever and whenever she could. Mom helped us find summer jobs and taught us to save all of our money for college and for the future. She researched and came up with craft projects and other ideas for our summer jobs as camp counselors and Playground Director, and helped us collect and acquire the needed supplies (like for one project when we needed about 60 deep cylindrical empty cardboard ice cream containers from Friendly’s that would be used to make decoupage trash cans, but they all needed to be scrubbed and cleaned out with the garden hose first). She stayed up late most nights making sample projects for us, tracing and cutting out big stacks of construction paper pieces and preparing all of the craft supplies we would need for the following day, especially when we were too busy to do it ourselves because we had to work at our second waitressing or cashier job at night. Mom made sure she was always home from doing her errands in time to make us a sandwich whenever we stopped by during a lunch break from work.
Mom was always there when we needed someone to talk to, providing sound advice and emotional support. Thoughtful and willing to help regardless of the circumstance, Mom could easily be found babysitting our children or feeding our pets, helping us move into a college dorm room, planting flowers around our houses, watching for kids’ clothing sales (and finding their favorite Batman and Spiderman pj’s), or arriving for a visit with bags of groceries for us when times were tough between jobs and money was tight.
Mom loved spending family time together and taking day trips with us (like riding up through the White Mountains, leaf-peeping trips to see the foliage, going apple and blueberry picking so she could make her own homemade pies). For 40+ years Mom loved being with all of us at the cottage in NH. She loved riding around the lake, playing bingo games, attending family barbeques, taking very slow boat rides, going out to dinner, watching summer theater shows and listening to band concerts with us. Every summer she and Auntie Jo would splurge and share a banana split at Millstream. Baking a pie for and attending the annual lobster supper at the Community Center was a highlight of each summer.
Mom enjoyed friendships with neighbors and co-workers. She especially loved her regular get-togethers with the “card party” group of neighborhood ladies, who enjoyed socializing, playing card games and eating snacks at each other’s homes. We will always remember Mom watching her favorite t.v. programs, like “Antiques Road Show,” “Two and a Half Men,” “Everybody Loves Raymond,” “Murder She Wrote,” nature programs about bears and other ferocious wild animals, cooking shows, British comedies, and singers on “the Lawrence Welk Show.” Mom also loved to watch “Dallas,” “Knots Landing,” “Dynasty,” “The Love Boat,” and “Fantasy Island.” It was really fun to view old movies with her on t.v. or watch her favorite singers perform, like Ethal Merman, Tom Jones, Engleburt Humperdink, and Andrea Bocelli. We would make popcorn and then be enthralled watching mini series like “Roots,” “Pride and Predjudice,” and “The Thorn Birds.”
Mom liked to sit at the kitchen table and read recipes in magazines, biographies, romance novels, “Murder She Wrote” mysteries, the Boston Herald and the Weirs Times. Her favorite snacks included caramel coated popcorn w/ peanuts, peanut brittle, chocolate covered peanut clusters, peanut butter and jelly on crackers, Bit O Honey, Cadbury bars, Huleva, and soups. Hot dogs and beans were a must on Saturday nights, and spaghetti and meatballs were served every Wednesday evening. Mom loved tuna fish and sardine sandwiches, all you can eat salad bars with Italian dressing, fresh bread and butter, pastries, donuts, blueberry muffins, coffee, tea, and especially orange tonic!
Mom was afraid to fly, take a train, or a cruise (mostly because she couldn’t swim), so her main travels were limited to within driving distance of home. She enjoyed hearing all the details from our trips, though, and looking at our pictures when we came home.
Some of our fondest memories of Mom include her funny and unique expressions, like when she was “sweatin’ bullets” or complaining about her “earplugs” (otherwise known as hearing aides) or talking about her “pockabook” (which most people know as a purse). We would sit at the kitchen table talking and giggling, when suddenly Mom would burst into hysterical laughter with a shared joke or funny story. Her Edith Bunker mannerisms were famous, as well as her poor sense of direction. (How can we forget Mom’s panic-stricken drive to the South Shore Plaza years ago when she accidentally ended up in downtown Boston and got completely lost in Chinatown!) We will never forget Mom’s frequent visits with Auntie Jo, sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea together and reminiscing about their childhood memories and family roots. Or the times Mom tried to teach Auntie Jo how to ride a bike, and better yet, drive a car. Now, that was interesting!
We will never forget Mom standing at the ironing board in the kitchen ironing Dad’s uniforms for work, or using the glass chopper blade jar to mince onions and peppers to put in her meatloaf. We will fondly remember ice skating with Mom at Lars Anderson Park and stopping for cocoa and a slice of pizza afterwards. Then there were the winter trips to NH when we trudged through waist-deep snow to climb up Mt. Celo Road or we sledded so fast down the giant hill at Camelot Acres onto frozen Newfound Lake during February school vacation week. We also enjoyed family trips together and scary “rollercoaster rides” in the car with Mom and Dad riding around the lake on the hilly road. Other fond memories include ordering Tony’s pizza on Friday nights, shopping at the Dedham Mall, and stopping at the halfway point in Concord, NH during our annual drive up to the cottage to get a hamburger and fries at Howdy’s, followed by Mom’s favorite – buying a dozen Dunkin Donuts to take up North with us!
Mom was our biggest and most loyal fan, no matter what the event. There was no greater feeling as a child on stage in the school play than looking out into the audience and seeing Mom smiling back up at us! She also attended mass every week and listened to many rehearsals of us playing the guitar and singing in the church folk group, or doing solo performances. (Mom’s favorite songs were “How Great Thou Art,” “Just a Closer Walk With Thee,” and “Amazing Grace.”) Mom reinforced our religious faith and helped us say our prayers at night before going to bed. She taught us right from wrong, good morals, and instilled in us a strong set of family values.
Mom listened to us practice the clarinet, guitar, or play “Chop Sticks” and “Yellow Bird” for the thousandth time on the old piano. She also heard us sing at the top of our lungs to the Julie Andrews, Barbra Streisand, or Debbie Boone albums playing on the white record player. Mom laughed and cried with us, and we could always confide in her. She was the keeper of our secrets (as in a panicked plea of, “Don’t tell Dad!” when we accidentally used the metal shovel to scrape snow off his car and left a huge scratch mark across the hood).
Mom used to go outside walking every day for exercise until the arthritis in her back kicked in. Then she switched over to riding a stationery bike in the den (acquired for $5.00 at a yard sale, which of course, she tried to buy for fifty cents) every afternoon while watching double episodes of her favorite daytime t.v. show - “Judge Judy.”
Mom was a positive role model. She taught us the essential qualities of being a good parent - unconditional love, kindness, selflessness, sacrifice, caring, compassion, loyalty, laughter, tears, happiness, pride and having fun.
Although Mom had a very tough year health-wise, she was able to celebrate her 58th wedding anniversary with Dad, her “true love”, at the Clark House on September 16th. We were all together at Dad’s bedside, with Mom in a wheelchair, supporting a very uncomfortable big neck brace. She was still recuperating from emergency spinal surgery. What a “trooper” Mom was, making it through major surgery at almost 82 years old. It was more than we could have hoped for. Even after Dad’s death, Mom worked very hard at physical and occupational therapy for several weeks, building up her strength and never really complaining. We were very proud of Mom’s efforts in rehab.
Mom, we were so lucky to have you as our mother and best friend! There aren’t enough words to thank you for everything you’ve done for us, and for always loving us, and showing such care, concern, compassion, guidance and friendship.
Mom, we are eternally grateful for all that you have done for us! You were a wonderful wife, mother, grandmother, and a great teacher. We will strive to live up to your example and continue to teach our own children, as you would expect us to do.
We don’t know why you had to leave us so soon, but maybe Dad was calling you, and it was time for you to go. Our hearts are broken because we will miss you terribly. But, we are comforted by the thought that you are once again with family, and you are finally home!
Mom, Mom Mom, and loyal Wife of 58 years, THANKS for your love, your kindness, your guidance and support, your concern, your advice, your patience, and your loyalty! And THANKS for always encouraging us and for being so proud of us all through the years! We will forever cherish you in our hearts and in our souls! THANKS for all the special MEMORIES, the LAUGHTER and the HAPPY TIMES that we shared with you.
May God bless you, Mom, and until we meet again, rest in peace knowing that “The goodness of a mother’s heart comes back to her in the love of everyone her life has touched!” How very true of you!
From Tommy :
“Mom, life isn’t always easy in our complex world-
But so many times just having you there to talk to makes all the difference.
I guess when I was younger I didn’t realize how much I needed and depended on your advice, your experience, your caring, and most of all, your love.
But now I do realize it, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Thanks for being there in good times and in bad,
For simply being the wonderful person that you are-
My Mother and my true friend!”
From Carol:
“When I look back upon my life, no matter when or where,
At every age and step and stage, Mom, you were always there.
You made me feel so safe, so loved, your kindness meant so much,
I can still hear your words of cheer and feel your gentle touch.
When I’d set out to bring about some special dream or plan,
Your pride in me was plain to see, you were my biggest fan.
You’d hang in there to help me bear the stresses and the stings,
You always knew when to let go so I could try my wings.
And still today I’m glad to say I feel your loving care,
In the deepest part of my loving heart,
Mom, you are always there!”
From Kathy –
“One love that lasts forever
is the very first we know,
The love our mothers give us from the start.
From them comes every comfort
and security we need,
And countless gifts from an unselfish heart.
And through the passing years
no matter where our lives may take us,
Our mother’s love stays with us deep inside.
We hear her voice of wisdom,
we feel her tender touch,
We see her gentle smile of joy and pride,
And even when she tries so hard
to just become a friend,
At heart we’re always little ones to her,
And all our grown-up lives
We still enjoy her love and care
Exactly like the children that we were.
When I think back to childhood and being a mother myself
Some of my most tender
Sentimental memories are of you
And the way you touched my life
With your love and understanding
You gave me something special
That only you could give
You gave me yourself and your time
And you gave me
The heartwarming feeling of being loved
A feeling I’ll keep forever!”
“We each get just one mother to love a lifetime through,
One mother to encourage us in everything we do.
But one mother is so many people blended into one,
A source of inspiration and happiness and fun.
A mother hears our every word,
And listens with her heart.
Her mastery of motherhood is a very special art.
A mother sacrifices, shares and always cares.
She thinks of others first,
And she’ll love us just like always,
Even when we’re at our worst.
A mother brings such happiness with kindness that she gives.
And creates a good example simply with the life she lives.
Yes, we only have one mother to look up to and to praise.
And no one else in all the world can match her loving ways!”