Elaine (Dolly) P. Falvey

Elaine Patricia Therese Padilla Falvey (Dolly) passed away on September 28, 2024. Born in the Bronx on October 8, 1927, she was educated at Mt. St. Ursula Academy and Hunter College. She married Jack (John F. Falvey) in 1950 and raised their four children in Queens and North Merrick, NY. After her husband’s death in 1983, she and her beloved daughter-in-law Diane turned their love of fabric, sewing, and crafting into a long-running business that became her livelihood and creative art. She loved spending time with children, for years caring for many of the neighborhood kids in an informal home daycare center, as well as helping to raise her own five grandchildren. She joyed in the simple pleasures of her daily life: solving NYTimes crossword puzzles, gardening and in later life, sitting in the sun listening to her backyard birds and watching the peonies and hydrangeas bloom. She collected dolls, walked everywhere since she never learned to drive, cooked meals she remembered her own mother making, baked breads and sweets, and created a plethora of DIY projects and handicrafts. Meticulous and capable, with an artist’s eye for color and design, she stretched a lean budget by sewing clothes and curtains, piecing quilts, knitting afghans, and painting and decorating rooms in her home. Always intellectually and creatively curious, she was an avid reader, losing herself in stories real and fictional every night, sometimes re-reading favorite mystery, history, and historical fiction series, and discovering new books each month, circling titles she wanted to try in the library’s monthly BookPage magazine. Her deepest joy was in seeing her children and grandchildren grow to become kind, decent people. She lived by the maxim, “accept and adapt,” and was a source of light, love, inspiration, and wisdom for her family, friends, and neighbors. She is survived by her children, Ellen Kate (Michael), John (Diane), Tim (Dana), and Laurie, her grandchildren, Kaitlin (Shaun), Sean (Cortney), Jessie, Annie, and Danny, and her great grandson, Logan Jack.

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