 Lydia
Ashmead Strother
February 12, 1932 - October 5,
2003
Are data detailing markers in a person's life clues
to the person? Depends on the markers. Does a supportive
letter to a nephew appear on any curricula vitae?
How about titles? Beloved Aunt Lydia, Dear Mom,
Grandma! Old Friend, Adored Wife, Support Group Poster
Girl, Valiant "Cancer Survivor" hardly do justice in
describing the wonderful gift God gave us in Lydia
Ashmead Strother, who was finally dragged down by cancer
at dawn on the Lord's Day, Sunday, October 5, 2003. She
was 71.
She grew up in Windsor, CT, site of Loomis-Chaffee
School, which then gave all-tuition scholarships to
talented townies. She was one of those. A marker? No,
but Chaffee's "Produce or Perish" standards of
excellence were Lydia's to the core. And to the end.
A Phi Theta Kappa honoree, head of her class at Colby
Junior College ('52), she was hired by President
Eisenhower's Boston cardiologist Paul Dudley White to
work for him and his associates. "Medical Secretary"
then was an honored title for a demanding technical
specialty.
Excellence, integrity (her yes meant yes, and no one
doubted her no), high standards, brains, good looks, a
love for choral singing, for nature and gardening, for
adventure, and for countless others of life's wonders
were some of her attractive attributes. But her greatest
gift, so well described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, was
love.
Most mothers love their children. It's a truism.
Lydia's love came naturally, but a glimpse at the whiz
described above should clue one that hers was active,
purposeful, directed. And Paul's observation in verse 8,
"love never ends," applies not only temporally, but
spatially. At least with Lydia.
Hers expanded beyond her children to her Cubs (she
was a Den Mother for years), to her kids' friends, to
neighborhood children who gravitated to her sun, to
nephews and nieces and cousins and in-laws. She
stalwartly loved her friends and associates. In her last
job, her title "office manager" might better have been
"den mother to grown-ups."
When diagnosed with breast cancer more than twenty
years ago, she mourned the probability that she would
never see or know her grandchildren. She was determined,
though, to do her best to give that probability the lie,
and using the same true grit that made her excel in
anything she tackled, she fought back.
She charted and kept track of her never-ending train
of chemicals that sometimes worked for a while,
sometimes didn't. She partnered with her doctors, made
suggestions, asked questions, and toughed out each of
the accumulating miseries that went with her
"treatments." She tried diets and exercise.
When others might have chosen bed, she led as
"normal" a life as she possibly could. She bicycled in
England, Scotland, Ireland, France, went to church,
served several years as Vestry Clerk, was for three
years Secretary to the Bethel Public Library Board, went
on Elderhostel trips, became a Notary Public and a legal
secretary, was for years, until her death, editor of
Trinity Church's Prayer Fellowship newsletter.
AND. She lived to see, love, and delight in the
development of her three enormously loved grandchildren:
Kaitlyn, Melanie, and Daniel Fay. Those are the markers
that count.
So much has been omitted, but Paul was right: such
love never ends. Her beloved and loving close survivors
were her sister, Mildred Schlesinger, North Haven, CT;
her husband, Gordon Strother, Bethel, CT; her sons
Aengus, Oakland, CA; Nicholas, Bethel, CT; Michael,
Norwalk, CT; and daughter Sarah Fay, New Milford, CT.
How we miss her.
Memorial service 11 a.m. Saturday, October 11,
Trinity Church, Newtown, CT. In lieu of flowers
donations are suggested to Ann's Place, Home of I Can,
103 Newtown Road, Suite 1B, Danbury, CT 06810. |