Mr. Lawrence Leroy Hurley 1895 – 1969
Mrs. Grace Louise (Thomson) Hurley 1893 - 1988
I have always been grateful that I had the parents I did. My Maternal Grandmother died while my Mother was a teenager, and Mom had, not only to take over the household duties, but to take care of her father and her younger sister, who had never been well. They both were part of our family until they died.
My Mother and father were trained musicians, and taught all of us to appreciate and love music. They were always active in Church and Sunday School, as well as community affairs. The Methodist Church in Beltsville had a balcony along the side of the sanctuary where the organ and choir was located. My earliest memories of that church were lying on the floor, with my Sunday school papers from the pre-school class I attended, spread in front of me. My hands were full of the wonderful colored pens that Daddy used in his work and let me use, only on Sunday, if I would be quiet and very careful with them. Since Daddy played the organ and Mother directed the choir, and I had all the choir members watching me, I knew I had to be really quiet.
When we moved to Hyattsville during the year I was 12, they continued with all their outside activities. Mother was the teacher for the teenage girls’ Sunday School class and Dad was the substitute organist. He played at the Sunday evening services. One Sunday evening as he was standing on the back steps of the church office wing, a young man came up and introduced himself to Dad. He was the younger brother of a church member who we all knew and loved. Dad came down to the basement, motioned for me to come out of the Epworth League meeting, and introduced him to me. Dad told me to introduce him to the rest of the teenagers after the meeting. I did this, not knowing this was the young man I would marry in a couple of years.
Many years later the folks decided to buy a lot on the South River near Annapolis and build a home. This took several years, as most of the work was done by family members in their spare time. The three of us, my sister, brother, and me, had all married and started our families. We didn’t live close to our parents, but we had many wonderful “family fun times” during the building of this house. One of the “fourth of July” weekends during this time, we all planned to get together there when the basement was the only part of it that was completely finished. As you would expect, it was quite crowded. Later, my sister, Grace and I were deciding where our children would sleep, but we were short one place. My sister said, “Butch has a date, and will be very late getting in, and he asked me to leave him a note in the middle of the table, telling him where he was to sleep.” So she did, the note said “right here!”
By the time Dad retired our family was even more scattered, with my brother and his family living in Northwest Florida, my sister and her family still in Baltimore, Maryland, and my family in Atlanta, Georgia. Dad started talking about wanting to move to Florida. However, it took him several years to convince Mother she wanted to head south; she had too many good friends in the Baltimore-Washington area. It took several more years of traveling, and deciding in which area of Florida they wanted to live. Meanwhile, they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary at the home the family had so lovingly built on the South River. The whole family had a chance to find out just how many good friends Mom and Dad had in that area. It was estimated there were at least 350 people who had come from miles around to help them celebrate. Even a dear friend of many years, who was my first grade school teacher, made the trip. My children were amazed that someone old enough to have been my first grade teacher could come all that way for a party.
It wasn’t long before the folks were headed south. They had decided to settle in Cape Coral. Dad said it would have to be -- “below the frost line” -- wherever that was. It wasn’t long before they were just as active in the First United Methodist Church, and busy with other activities in the community, and found they had many good friends there too. They even discovered several of the friends they had enjoyed back home had also moved to that area.
Our youngest daughter, Rebecca and her boyfriend, decided they would be married on December 27, 1969. Mom and Dad drove from Cape Coral to Atlanta on the 22nd. He planned to be there a few days early so he could practice on the church organ, since he was expected to play for the wedding, as he had done for all the other grandchildren who had married by this time. He came back very upset, and told us he just couldn’t get his fingers to do what he wanted them to do. We called and made an appointment for him to see the doctor the next day. The doctor said that he had had a small heart attack and he wanted to put him into the hospital, but they didn’t have an available room. So we could take him home, but he would have to forget about playing the organ, and stay in bed. The doctor then made an appointment to meet him in the hospital emergency room the day after Christmas. At that time he would decide if he would even be able to go to the wedding. The next day my husband took him to the emergency room and while he was there, with the doctor in attendance, Dad had a massive heart attack and died.
As church Families do, our church family was there for us. The only thing that was cancelled was the Bridesmaid’s Luncheon, which was scheduled for noon that day. We all insisted that Rebecca and John go on with the wedding and honeymoon, while the rest of us packed up and headed to Maryland for the funeral. This was all accomplished with much help from our friends and neighbors. After we returned from Maryland, my husband took the next week off and drove Mother back to Florida and took care of all the paperwork that was required. Mother said she wanted to remain in her home in Cape Coral by herself, so we all went down to see her as often as we could during the 13 years she lived there alone.
On June 26, 1982, I retired from my position with the Center for Disease Control, and we moved Mother to Atlanta so I could take care of her. Then on July 10, 1988, the Lord called her and she passed away in her sleep just 10 days before her 95th birthday.
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