Lucy E. Marencic

Lucy Elizabeth Donze, passed away peacefully at home, with family by her side, April 4, 2022. She was born in Philadelphia on April 5th 1926 to Joseph and Anne Donze. The youngest of three sisters, she was baptized at Holy Child Catholic church at Broad and Duncannon.

Lucy’s childhood during the great depression benefited from a parochial education where she developed a solid base of grammar and exquisite cursive writing skills. During the early 1940’s the Donze family relocated to Harrisburg. Lucy attended Bishop McDevitt Catholic High School. She excelled at stenography and typing and after graduation worked at Employer’s Group Insurance Company and later for the U.S. Federal Government in Mechanicsburg Pennsylvania.

In 1944 Lucy met Richard Marencic at a USO dance. They dated and married in 1949. Lucy, Dick, and Dick’s family helped build their first house in Progress Pennsylvania. Lucy was no stranger to labor. She shoveled dirt to infill foundation walls, ferried Dicks’ father, and brothers to and from the job site, prepared lunches daily, cut drywall to size, painted rooms and installed wood flooring. Lucy impressed Dick, his father, uncle and brother, all skilled masons, with her ability to point brick on the chimney.

Her first son, Rick, was born in 1959. In 1962, the family relocated to Michigan and Lucy and Dick built a second house. With the presence of a new child Lucy spent a great deal of her time watching young Ricky at the job site. Concerned that the lot lacked trees, Lucy visited a local tree nursery and without Dick’s knowledge dug out six small maple trees and transplanted them around the house. Many of these trees have matured and are over 50 years old. This was one small example of Lucy doing a lion’s share of work to make a home that would last the family over thirty years.

Her second son, Joe, was born in 1964, sharing the same birthday as her father. Lucy maintained an active involvement in both son’s school and sports activities. Lucy applied her seamstress skills to the creation of fashion-conscious wardrobes for her family. These included active and leisure wear, leisure suits with Nehru and wide collars, fitted shirts sewn from watercolor landscape printed polyester, and double-knit polyester bell bottom pants.

During the 1970’s at Lucy’s suggestion, the family started to play tennis together. Lucy applied her sewing skills again to create a whole line of tennis shorts and shirts for the family. By the end of the decade Lucy expanded her sewing repertoire to include Afghan throws, she enjoyed knitting with her mother and sisters. Lucy also enjoyed family summer vacations; long road trips across the country to visit national parks, tent camping and hiking. While Lucy liked travel, she did look forward to a hotel room and returning to the comfort of her home.

An avid gardener, Lucy’s green thumb yielded a variety of fresh vegetables in Michigan’s tough and short growing season. Frustrated by the lack of fresh vegetables and farmer’s markets, Lucy led the charge in Howell, by participating in the national rebirth of the home garden movement of the early 1970’s. Lucy’s crops varied and included string beans, peas, tomatoes, corn, carrots, asparagus, broccoli, and cauliflower. During the early autumn months Lucy would enjoy picking fresh strawberries from the local fruit grower. To preserve tomatoes Lucy started canning, every year she supplied her bumper crop of canned tomatoes from her garden to Joe, Rick, and the extended family. They all enjoyed the fruits of her labor well into the late 1990’s.

The graduation of Rick and Joe from college freed up time for Lucy and Dick to actively participate in year-round tennis and summer golf leagues. Over the next twenty years they spent a great deal of time touring Europe, Eastern Europe, Hawaii, Alaska, and South America. They were especially fond of river boat cruises and traversed the Rhine, Danube, and Main rivers. Dick retired in 1992 and they purchased a house in Florida. In 1998, they relocated to West Chester, Pennsylvania where they could live closer to their sons and family.

In 1998, Lucy welcomed the adoption of her first grandchild, Ella, with an open heart. Five years later, she and Dick spent two weeks babysitting Ella while Rick and Sarah adopted her second grandchild Jessica. Lucy, young at heart, always found time to play with her granddaughters and enjoyed life’s experiences from the child’s point of view. She excelled at creating fun at birthday parties and conveyed a child’s sense of humor.

While she never had a pet of her own, she greatly enjoyed Joe and Maggi’s very active Labradors. In her later years, Lucy continued to enjoy the variety of cranes, herons, wild turkeys, bald eagles, alligators, and turtles through the windows of their Florida Lanai. She spent her last days at home viewing the pond and its cornucopia of wildlife. Her sense of humor never left her, she was always keen to laugh at a good joke, even while suffering from the complexities of dementia.

Lucy will always be remembered as a very devoted, giving, kindhearted and loyal mother to her children and grandchildren and a loving wife to Dick. Her family and friends treasured her company and will always think fondly of her many contributions to the good and welfare of all of those around her. She is survived by her husband of 72 years, Dick, her two children, Rick and his wife Sarah, and Joe and his wife Maggi, and two grandchildren, Ella, and Jessica.