Elisa Wright (Collins) Correia

Elisa Wright (Collins) Correia, who lived a long and loving life of devotion to her family, her faith, her church and her many friends, died peacefully in her sleep in the early morning hours of September 1, 2024. Her loving husband of 63 years, Robert W. Correia, was at her side. She was 86 years old.

Lisa, as she was known to most, was born on April 26, 1938, in Rumford, Rhode Island, a leafy neighborhood on the north-side of East Providence, between the Seekonk River and the Massachusetts border. Her mother, the smart and elegant Elna Marie (Johnson) Collins; her father, the serious but secretly funny Winthrop Bishop Collins; and her older brother, the terrific dancer and bon vivant Winthrop Bishop Collins, Jr., all preceded her in death.

She graduated from high school in Barrington, Rhode Island, where her family moved in the early 1950s. She bravely moved to Portland, Maine, on her own in 1956 to attend Westbrook Junior College, where she studied secretarial science, sang in the glee club, and played intramural sports. Her friends in Melville House, where she lived in college, loved her thoughtfulness, dry humor, and caring attention. You might think she was shy, but Lisa was “not so quiet as she would appear,” wrote her friends in her graduation yearbook.

Lisa returned to Rhode Island in the fall of 1958 to take a position in the secretarial pool of a local bank’s trust department. She met a trust officer named Henry Correia, Jr., who worked in the office on the floor above her. Henry, like most people who met Lisa, was struck by how smart, dryly funny, and pretty she was, and he had the good sense to introduce her to his brother, Robert William Correia of Warren, Rhode Island. Robert asked her out on a date, and she accepted. He took her bowling, which she didn’t do, but luckily it was league night, and there were no lanes available. They spent the evening talking instead and quickly fell in love.

They were married in 1961 and a year later moved to Saranac Lake, New York, where Lisa found a job in the offices of the American Management Association, and a small group of friends. She loved to spend time with them knitting, talking, laughing, and drinking soda. They called themselves the Pepsi Girls.

When Robert graduated with a degree in restaurant management from Paul Smith’s College in 1964, Lisa moved to Villa Park, Illinois, where Bob, as he has always been known, had just been hired by the Walgreens company to work as a manager in its restaurant division. Lisa found a job as a secretary and adopted a schnauzer she called Otto. Lisa loved animals and over the years shared her home with a parade of mostly dogs, but also cats, fish, hamsters, and parakeets.

Walgreens took advantage of Bob’s talent as a restaurant manager and, for the next ten years, moved him from city to city. They moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where Lisa gave birth to her first child, Amy. Then to St. Louis, Missouri, where David was born, and finally back to Illinois, where they found a house in Woodridge, Illinois, and welcomed their third child, Alison.

Other than a brief move to Colorado in the mid-1970s, Lisa spent the rest of her life in Illinois, first in Villa Park and Woodridge, then Naperville in 1979, Lisle in 1996, and finally Quincy, Illinois in 2023.

Lisa joined St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, in the early 1970s. She worked for many years as the church secretary and had a hand in every great thing the church did. She sang in the choir, deepened her faith through her participation in Cursillo, and found fellowship with a large circle of big-hearted parishioners who became her life-long friends.

Lisa was the glue that held her large family together. In addition to her husband, Robert, she is survived by her daughter, Amy Correia [Trish]; son, David Correia [Toni]; youngest child, Alison Myers [Eric]; seven grandchildren, James Wilburn [Kathia], Lexi Wilburn, Spencer Myers [Katy], Willa Correia-Kuehn, Evan Myers [Dacey], Harper Correia-Kuehn, and Warren Myers; and one great-grandchild, Aurora Myers, all of whom gathered in Quincy, Illinois, to mourn her passing and grieve together.

The family will host a Funeral Service at 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, September 25, 2024, at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 209 Congress St., Golden, Illinois, with a reception to follow. In lieu of flowers, adopt a dog from your local shelter or make a donation in Lisa’s name to St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, 22W415 Butterfield Rd., Glen Ellyn, IL, 60137.

The family is being served by Butler Funeral Home – Springfield, 900 S. 6th St., Springfield.