Edna Mary Lanigan

Edna was born on March 21,1933, in Brooklyn, New York to Olga Tutone, and graduated from Eastern District High School. She met and married fellow Brooklyn-ite, Donald Edward Lanigan, who was the love of her life. Both were 17 when they married on December 27, 1950 while he was on a short leave from the US Navy. They remained together for 60 years, until his death in 2010.

“Donnie’s” Navy career moved them from Brooklyn to Pensacola, Florida. During his deployments, they wrote volumes of letters back and forth. Edna kept them all for 70 years. Those letters, along with almost every card Donald ever sent, will be sent along with her. A beautiful record of a six-decade-long love story.

Their first daughter, Linda Jane, was born in 1953. This also marked the end of Don’s Navy career and they headed back to their hometown of Brooklyn.

Letter writing and cards are such a lost art these days, but Edna found cards, letters, and keeping in touch a very important life skill, and she was great at it. At the time of her death, she was still in touch with people she went to high school with, people from the Navy days, people from “the old neighborhood” and folks from all facets of their lives through their retirement in Florida. Cards were required for all occasions and family members always tried to out-do each other to find the best card for her. Donald always won that competition.

They bought their first home in Greenlawn, New York. Interestingly, as this is being written, that home at 7 Northgate Drive is up for sale. Her granddaughter took her great-grandsons to the open house last week. A lot has changed since the 1960’s, but the core architecture is still the same and the boys were able to see where the family put down roots over 50 years ago.

Greenlawn is where they welcomed their second daughter, Kerrie Jean, as well as their only grandchild, Christine Marie. They stayed in New York until Don’s career moved them again to Baltimore, Maryland in 1990.

They retired to Florida in the late 1990s and enjoyed casino-hopping and socializing with all the other New Yorkers that inevitably moved to Florida.

Most recently, Nicholas John and Lucas Jackson, her great-grandchildren, or her “sunshine boys” as she called them, were her greatest joys. She looked forward to each and every Sunday when she got to FaceTime with them. “Gigi” always wanted to know what they were up to and she would laugh and smile and beam with pride as they told her about their recent accomplishments and talents. Not surprisingly, she loved getting their handmade cards and drawings and hung every one of them up.

Edna was preceded in death by her husband, Donald, her daughter Linda, and her mother Olga. She is survived by her daughter, Kerrie Lanigan Daly (Brian), granddaughter Christine Spagnoli Magalhaes, and two great-grandsons, Nicholas and Lucas, as well as family, friends, and Godchildren, all of whom will miss her and her cards for every occasion.

Private cremation and burial at sea will follow. In lieu of flowers or donations, the family requests that she be remembered in prayer, and that a mass be said in remembrance of her at any Catholic church in your neighborhood. Notifications of masses can be sent to the family at [email protected].