Joan Margaret Cawrse

GEDCOM Note

According to the "Cleveland Plain Dealer", page B7, Thursday, Feb. 9, 2006, obituary for Joan Margaret Long, Joan had 14 grandchildren.

Eulogy written and given by Joan’s son, Douglas Long:
Joan Margaret Long

When sitting to write this eulogy, we had thoughts that some in attendance knew Mom better than her own family, so we decided to try and fill in the blanks for them, and to shed some light on her life as a wife, mother, grandmother and friend.
Born as Joan Cawrse to the late Harry and Isa Cawrse in Cleveland, Ohio on July 4, 1935, she grew up on the west-side of Cleveland. She attended West Tech High School, where she graduated in (1953). Her first love (sorry, Dad) was Art. She was born an artist, and loved to draw. She had aspirations of attending Art College, and went to work at EC&M as a blueprint tracer, where she met and fell in love with Herb. Dad is Hungarian and lived on Buckeye road on the east-side of Cleveland, but this did not deter them. Herb would drive from 112th & Buckeye to West 117 {remember, this is pre-freeway days, essentially} just to see the love of his life. After a brief courtship, they were engaged, and eventually married on August 25, 1956.
They established the Long family over the course of the next 11 years, having 7 children.
They endured hardships, such as the death of there first-born son, but their love never faltered. When Herb’s company, Square D, moved to South Carolina, and his 25 yr. pension was lost, they merely picked themselves, and us, up by the proverbial boot-straps, and started over.
After a brief flirtation with Florida, We moved to North Ridgeville. Mom never forgot the first love of her life, and she was always drawing, sketching or lettering diplomas in Calligraphy. With Dad being off permanent work for a while (Dad was never "out" of work) Mom took a job as a route carrier for the Chronicle Telegram. She would start her route at about one in the afternoon, deliver her papers and bundles of papers to all the neighborhood kids in Avon Lake, and be home to make dinner by 4 or so. Mom left the CT and eventually worked as a cashier at Convenient Food Mart on Barton Road, where she was proud to know all of her regular customers on the evening shift. She would often exclaim that an "Indians player had come through tonight", and her favorite was when Sandy Alomar Jr. would stop in. Mom was an avid Indians fan, and she scrapbooked the entire 1948 season, even having some of her collection shown on the Jumbotron at the Jake during one of the late 1990’s World Series runs.
What always amazed us was how we were always provided for. We didn’t get everything we asked for, but if there was something we really needed, we always got it. Class rings and letter jackets in high school are some of our fondest memories. If we needed a costume for say, a memorable second grade bi-centennial concert, Mom made a very dapper red white and blue costume, using some of her own clothes as "scraps".
Mom was a traditionalist. She tried to instill in us the need for family traditions, which we still hold dear today. There was the traditional pork dinner on New Years day. The traditional heart shaped Salisbury steak and Cherry chip cake with pink marshmallow frosting on Valentines Day. There was also the occasional traditional slip and fall down the stairs on Valentines morning (when Mom was much younger) and we all remember the time this happened and Scott was in the Bathroom below the stairs…what a shock! Mom was Irish, and of course there was the traditional Irish boiled meal of Corned Beef and Cabbage with all the extras on St. Patty’s day. Mom made the best Irish Soda bread every year as well. There was Ham on Easter as well as huge baskets of home-made chocolate and Easter-egg hunts, a big summer party on July 4th (her Birthday); picnics on Memorial Day and Labor Day. Always homemade costume on Halloween, Turkey on Thanksgiving and than there was Christmas.
Mom loved Christmas. The house was always decorated inside and out. Tree trimmed just so-but not too early-usually around the middle of December, and never down until the Epiphany. We would wait anxiously to see whose ornament would be unwrapped first. See, mom hand painted ornaments with all of our names and birthdates on them when we were born.
Mom was family and tradition, through and through. She loved to cook, and as you can see, was good at it. She also took raising her kids to heart as well. She required that we learn to survive in this world-ON OUR OWN. We had to take home-economics classes in school, as well as a Singles-Survival course offered at the High school. We learned to cook at home, and learned to sew and manage a household. Which I believe drives our spouses crazy!
Growing up, I never understood Mom’s love of her religion. She was active in the Christ renews his parish renewal groups, baptism classes, RCIA and interfaith hospitality, as well as the group that provided food for the funerals. She is an original member of the Wednesday evening Rosary group, also. She hand sewed and cross-stitched baptismal garments that nearly every child baptized in this church has received for many years. But I still didn’t understand. Than I came back as an adult, well supposed adult, member of this parish, I made a renewal and was a member of a renewal team, and I got to meet some of the people and then I understood. It wasn’t so much what she did here, but who she did it with. I have grown to understand that it was her family here at St, Julie Billiart Catholic Church, and especially after seeing the outpouring of love at the wake last evening. A wise man once said that a church is not the building you meet in, but the people, and Mom dearly loved everyone here in her St. Julies Family. I want to thank Fr. Gonser for allowing the wake here at the church, because we feel mom was truly at home yesterday. I think that Mom truly went home when she died, and it was well known that she couldn’t wait to see the Lord, and we feel she sprinted and leaped into the arms of God Wednesday.
We were all raised as Catholics, we attended parochial school and some were Alter servers. Always to church on Sunday, than eventually Saturday evening, where Mom and Dad remain a fixture still, even though Mom won’t be next to Dad in body, you can bet that in Spirit she’ll be in the Third row, second seat, smiling and greeting everyone, just like every Saturday evening.
Thank you all for coming to share this special time with us. It really means so much to see the absolute pouring out of love and faith that we have seen over the past few days.