Dockray & Thomas Funeral Home, Canton, MA 02021
Lorraine D. Doolan
9/7/2020

Lorraine Delia Cousineau Doolan was born in 1931 in Watertown, Massachusetts, the forth and youngest child of her parents, Harriet Ford Cousineau and Edward Cousineau, and baby sister to her beloved siblings, Edward, Harriet, and Frank.
Her love for her mother, our Grandmother, Muna Cousineau was boundless, and you would not know Mom for very long before being aware of the overwhelming pride she took in her Father, Edward, DEE Cousineau, professional baseball player, Boston Braves Catcher of 1929. She would always remain the baby of her family, and the love and respect that she bore her brothers and sister was profound, and she retained cherished and clear memories of the events of her early family life all her life.

As a teenager, she delighted being the “Auntie” to her sister’s children. And certainly, our Gildea cousins were very special to her to the end of her days.

She graduated from Watertown High school, and then went to work at the John Hancock Company in Boston, living at home with her mother, delivering her weekly pay over to her, as one did in those days. In 1956, thought mutual vacationing friends, on Cape Cod, she met Thomas Carey Doolan of Brookline. They were married in 1957, making their first homes in small apartments in Watertown and Brookline, welcoming their first three children, Tommy, Michael, and Kevin. With dad struggling to start his own trucking company, they moved to Norwood in 1962, where they welcomed Billy and alarmingly soon after that, Jacky. They bought their first home in Walpole, moving incomprehensibly, from their families’s point of view, further and further out into the county. Out there in Walpole, they welcomed their final child, and only baby girl, Carey in 1966. By this time, Mom had given birth to 6 children, with the oldest being 7 years old. “I don’t know,” she said years later, observing her children raising their own children, “it seemed easier back then.”

She loved being a mother. Thinking back on the early years of our family life, Mom said that the happy time seemed to go very slowly. Dad planted a tiny willow tree sapling just outside the back kitchen door. It grew quickly to a large umbrella of a shade tree, and I remember Mom and Muna having their coffee in it’s shade, with a kid or two or three up in it’s smooth branches.There were cookouts, neighborhood wide parties, and certainly we all remember Mom enjoying herself regularly and enormously. One saw this all through her life. She was in her element in the midst of a gathering of family and friends.

Our little house soon grew too small. By this time, Dad had joined the small private golf club, Wampatuck Country club, here in Canton. A fellow member alerted him to a house for sale in the neighborhood. And in 1966 we moved to 48 Prospect Street, one mile, from our front door to the club house door at Wampy, which would remain one of the centers of the social life of the Doolan family. “Sacred Ground”, as Carey called it in later years.

Mom’s kitchen known for its eggs and home fries was a late night stop for members and friends on their way home from Wampy’s social events, and we kids in our beds loved to hear the sounds of the feasting around the table downstairs. Mom was, as they say, the party. Each year, towards the end of our annual vacation in Marshfeild, she threw a “back to school” party, which began with the ‘kids’ part of the party, and then morphed into a party for the parents, who were doing the actual celebrating. She would walk around the house singing, “The Party’s Over” the night before school started, which irritated us kids, but made her laugh heartily.

We lost our dear Aunt Kathy quite suddenly in 1980, Kathy had been Mom’s closest friend, vacationing, bowling, and socializing together for years. Being but a toddler at the time of her mother’s passing away, Cousin Trisha came to live with us during the week in order to go to school and be looked after while Uncle Tim was at work, then she’d return to her Dad, brother and sisters for the weekend. Trisha became as another sister to all of us, and as another daughter to Mom, a bond that lasted all Mom’s life.

In 1987, Billy and Connie made mom a grandmother, when Nick was born. The first Baby often names the Grandparents, and Nick is credited with naming mom, YIAYIA. Her Grandchildren were, not a bit surprisingly one of the supreme joys of her life: Nick, Mike, Sarah, Casey, Samantha, Kelly, Tommy, Jake, Joe, and Jack, as well as her grandnephews Will, Ben, And Nate, and off course her great grandchild, Coda. She never could see enough of any of them. Like her mother before her, she was a great player of board and card games. She disliked bingo, which was ironic, considering how many bingo games she would have to endure in rehab years later. She was a grand master of Tetris. She was never a grand master of Words with Friends.

By the early 1970’s mom had gone to work for one of Dad’s trucking clients, National Starch and Chemical as office manager, dispatcher, secretary, and Girl Friday to everybody who worked there. She loved going back to work, loved being with her new coworkers, and seemed to improve, if not transform any situation she found herself in. Several of my family members have remarked at Mom’s readiness to to drop everything, and show up to help out where help was needed. Your happiness was her happiness.

Mom was adventurous. The trips she took with Dad to Florida were among her happiest of times. Dad was more of a homebody, but that did not stop him, in 1984, from presenting Mom with a plane ticket to Paris to visit me during my studies there, which she did with dear Friend, Margie Agnew. Afraid to death of heights, there was no keeping her from climbing to the very top of the Eiffel Tower; she went to Holy Mass at Notre Dame, receiving communion at the High Altar, afterwards climbing to the top of the bell tower and posing for a picture with a gargoyle.Then at the Arch de Triumph, she bought a cigarettes, and posed for another photo, and looking very mysterious, claiming, “I look like Ingrid Bergman in, “For whom the Bell Tolls.” And she did. She rocked that trench coat all over Paris.

In the early 90’s, Mom and Dad sold 48 Prospect St, and eventually settled into their vacation home at 17 7th Ave in Scituate, which they had bought in 1980. A beautiful house full of sunshine and the smell of the sea air, it was also, as is only too well known, the scene of many fearful winter storms and floods. Mom and Dad left the house on several occasions out the front door by boat. The house, against all odds survived many great floods. That is, until that last big flood, but more on that in a minute. We owe a debt of gratitude to dear aunt Sissy Wall, who repeatedly and happily took Mom and Dad in to her cozy home in East Milton, for as long as they needed a port in the storm. Mom and Sissy were cohorts, a real dynamic duo for many years.

In 2004, Dad was operated on for stomach cancer. The operation, as far as we know went well enough, but as is well known, Dad never fully “awoke” from the procedure. When Dad was released from the hospital, Jack, Laurie, Tommy and Samantha took him and Mom in and cared for both of them, until Dad was a little stronger, and Mom felt ready to try to take him home, hoping that being in his own bed in his own home, he might recuperate better. She never gave up, trying with all her might to give him his best chance. Well into 2005, mom kept dad at home, and cared for him, mostly on her own and with the help of family. At one point, Dad was hospitalized again, and we were able convinced Mom to let him remain in a long term care facility, for his safety. She was simply past the point where she could safely care for him. She adjusted to life in the nursing home, for him and for his sake. Mom was by his side literally everyday, and half lived there, herself, making friends with all the staff.

Dad passed away suddenly, and without any real warning on January 24, 2006. Losing Dad was, without doubt, one of the hardest things Mom ever had to do. Mom squared her shoulders and got on with heavy task of saying good-bye to her husband, while leading the rest of us through the hard days that followed.

Shortly after Dad’s death, Carey and Cliff moved into 17 7th Ave to live with Mom. Jack was born in August of 2007. Mom held her youngest grandson within minutes of his birth. Now a foursome, they settled into the house Scituate, where they would stay for the next three years.

The day after Christmas 2010, the South Shore was awaiting a whopper of a storm. The waves started coming over the sea wall, the street began to flood. We: Mom, Carey, Cliff, Jack and I (who was visiting) left before the waters came too high, But the house burst into flame in the middle of the night, in the middle of the Flood. By Morning, there was nothing left. Mom could call the clothes on her back, and her car with some beach chairs in the trunk, her sole possessions. For the remainder of her life, if something was mentioned that was lost in the fire (which was literally everything), She’d point up, then down with a great flourish. It meant, “that thing you are talking about was up in the house, and went down into the sea, and is no more. She knew the things of this world are fleeting and do not last. It did not bother her much.

Following the fire, Carey, Cliff, Jack and Mom took refuge in rented houses, then finally, in 2013 settled into their own house and current home on Kane Drive Extension in Scituate. This was to be Mom’s last place of residence. While in one of the rented homes earlier, Mom had what seems now to have been a heart attack, shortly after the fire, in 2011. From this point on, she suffered from Congestive Heart Failure, and developed a whole laundry list of conditions and chronic illnesses with which she would struggle for most of her final decade. Still, she was the always the comeback kid. She worked hard at her working with her conditions, adopted the new diets that came with them, and did the physical therapy. Cliff bought her her signature flaming red RAV 4, which she adored and which she was able to drive for several more years, her unerring sense of direction amazing every one. She was able to take a wonderful trip to Nova Scotia doing most of the driving herself with Sissy, myself, and her great nephew, Sam McGahee. In 2017, there was one more trip out to California, where she had already traveled to with Dad and Sissy, and where she is still fondly remembered by my brother Monks and several of her own acquaintances.

She grew slowly weaker and weaker over the last few years. Still, she became quite the “techy” old lady, texting, playing words with friends with grandchildren, fondly following her old movies and shows, and speaking on the phone daily with all us kids, Never loosing her joy, her sense of fun.

In and out of the hospital and rehab the last few years, She was able to remain at home, and this was most certainly due to the faithful care given to her by “baby girl” herself Carey and also beloved son in law, Cliff. Against all odds, Mom bounced back time and time again, but she could not have done that on her own. Thanks to the Thompsons, she always had the goal and the joy of coming home to her own cheerful room, her dear family, and of course the always ready to help her forget illness and troubles, Bubba the Cat. (We thank you Trisha, because that animal transformed her life.) There were some very difficult days: Some days were hard, some a little bit harder; the last months at home made better by the helpful take charge hands of grandaughter, Samantha. The last period of Rehab in this frightening age of epidemic, saw Laurie and Bill and the other family members tapping at her window, then calling on the phone to visit. Mom growing quieter with each week.

In her final weeks, she showed an increasing awareness that the end of her life was nigh.As Samantha noted yesterday, It was hard for her to be the only one of her siblings left. She missed them. And missed the others, especially Dad.She said that she missed Muna and Cathy, and, as Jack reminded us this morning, she missed Gramma Ford, too. Just before going to the hospital last week, she said to Billy that she had stayed too long, that she was going to be with Dad, that she missed her sister. She grabbed Laurie by the hand and said that she was “at peace” She told many of us, emphatically that she loved us. She said Thank You to many of us in a way that gave us pause. It sounded somehow different. Rather final.

Her last days were very peaceful, as she slowly grew weaker. God was good to her. She did not seem to be much or any pain, which had not been the case weeks earlier. We all got to be with her, we had lots of time to say what we needed to say, and we ourselves, sad as we were, were at peace being with her, comforting her, and being comforted by the simple fact of her presence.

She passed away just after midnight on September 7th.

In the 4th century, St John Chrysostom said, that God has ordained that our lives are divided into two parts, one part is of earth, and one is of heaven. The earth part is short, finite, the heaven part is long, and does not end. Let us hope that this “falling asleep” as the ancient Christians called death, is the beginning of another life for the handmaid of God, Lorraine Delia, and that she will live with her Saviour, in the place where the voice of them that feast is never silent, where there is neither sorrow, nor sighing, but life everlasting. Amen

The Lorraine Doolan Memorial Video can be seen at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXW4xoBAQiM&feature=youtu.be




Lorraine Doolan Memorial Video

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Dockray & Thomas Funeral Home
455 Washington St.
Canton, MA USA 02021
781-828-0811