Lelia Jean Irons-Woehr

Lelia Jean Irons-Woehr, age 83, of Lakewood, New Jersey passed away on Saturday February 1, 2020. Lelia was born in West Palm Beach, FL a life long resident of Lakewood, NJ and retired in Manchester. She was the owner/operator of her own cosmetology business. Mrs. Woehr also worked at her family business Bedrock Stone and Supply Company in Lakewood, NJ. Lelia was a communicant of the Christ United Methodist Church of Lakewood where she was also a member of the choir. Lelia was an avid painter, pianist and singer. She was a loving mother, grandmother, great grandmother and sister and will be greatly missed by all.

Mrs. Woehr is predeceased by her husband, Thomas and son Thomas Jr.

Lelia is survived by her son, Jeffrey Woehr and his wife Beth, grandchildren, Lauren and her husband Garrett, Veronica, Thomas and Michael, brother, Earl "James" and great grandson, Oliver.

Memorial Gathering will be held on Saturday, February 8, 2020 from 11AM-12PM at the D'Elia Funeral Home, 1300 Vermont Avenue, Lakewood, NJ 08701, followed by her memorial service at 12PM in the funeral home. Interment of cremated remains will take place at St. Mary of the Lake Cemetery Lakewood, NJ immediately following.

In lieu of flowers please make donations in Lelia's memory to Vitas Hospice.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.DEliaFuneralHome.com for the Woehr family.

Lelia Jean Irons-Woehr

Eulogy

02/07/1936 – 02/01/2020

Lelia Jean Irons- Woehr was born in Palm Beach Florida on February, 7th 1936, to Helen Ida Johnson- Irons and Earl Eden Irons. The story, as I have heard it, is that Earl’s sister Lelia Pugh was married to a wealthy ex naval officer who had a swanky place in Florida. The Irons’ of Lakewood were not particularly well off, and I suppose the prospect of fleeing the cold and having their first child in a nice warm place must have seemed like a good idea, and so they went. Mom liked to say that she was born in Florida, but she didn’t stay long, and because she thought all airline pilots were drunks, I don’t believe she ever returned. I don’t know a lot about life in the Irons family on Apple Street in Lakewood in the early years. It was during the Great Depression and WWII, so that alone says a lot. I do know that her brother Jimmy was born five years later, and that Lelia was enthralled with him, and that she took on the responsibility of being like a second mother to him with love and joy in her heart. The love she felt for her brother and her parents continued on through out her life, and even when she was in the latter stages of dementia she would, during moments of clarity, still remember them fondly.

During the 1950’s Lelia would grow into a beautiful, stylish and kind young woman. She had friends from grade school that would be her friends for life and they would name themselves “The Broken Record Club”. Lelia would go on to become a fine musician. Besides playing the organ at the First Baptist Church in Lakewood, she was also a very accomplished pianist. I can remember listening to her play as a child. She had a beautiful 1929 Chickering Baby Grand Piano that she saved up for, and she played classical music impeccably. Lelia was also a fine painter, and left a beautiful portfolio of work that she crafted over several decades.

From stories that I have heard as a little boy, I know that my Grandmother Ida loved my Mom fiercely, and that she was not shy about doing what she needed to do to protect a young lady growing up in the fifties from whatever she might need protection from. I was fortunate to be around my Grandmother often. She could be stern but also very funny and engaging. She spent time with me, talked with me, took me places, and let me stay up late watching movies with her.

Leila’s aunts, uncles, and cousins from the Johnson clan were all part of an extended family that was very important to her. This family group held strong into the 1960’s and 70’s, and I feel fortunate to have been able to experience the good times at their family enclave along the Point Pleasant Canal. I know that when my parents married they didn’t have a lot of money, but they were devoted to the families they each came from and to the new family they created with my brother and myself. My father worked as a union carpenter and Lelia worked several part time jobs as a hairdresser, raised a family, and supported my father’s quest to renovate the ram shackled one hundred year old farmhouse in Lakewood that would become our home.

Lelia and Tom both worked hard and were great parents. With us they were present, attentive, sober, and engaging. To me, these are the simple but essential elements of parenting. My father started his own home remodeling business. I remember him taking me on job sites and showing me how to do carpenter work. I remember working on our own house with him as well.

I remember spending a lot of time with my mom. I remember her reading me bible stories late at night and teaching me right from wrong. I remember her helping to teach me how to read, and to do my homework. I remember gardening and cooking with my mom. I remember going to a lot of her friends houses for visits: where she would have long talks with her friends and I would play with their children. I remember her fielding telephone calls from many of her girl friends. Sometimes they would call to laugh and have fun, sometimes they were calling to talk about the troubles they were having in their lives. Often they would keep her on the phone for a long time. She was patient as they did most of the talking. I remember getting into the car with her and going on what she would call “errands”. Lelia loved errands! Sometimes it was just a trip to The People’s National Bank in downtown Lakewood. Sometimes it was to the Brick Plaza shopping center. Sometimes it was to Cookman Ave in Asbury Park and the Steinbachs department store, or to the new giant Sears Roebuck on Rt 66 in Neptune. We drove all over the place and she would talk to me the whole time. When we got where we were going and she was talking to people other than me I was often quiet, but I was always listening and learning from her. Later on, when I got my drivers license, I had no trouble navigating over all of Ocean and Monmouth County.

In the 1970s my parents started to take the part time stone business they had started more seriously. My father saw that it might make sense to give up carpentry and give the stone business his full time effort. Lelia supported him in this effort by continuing to do hair at home to earn extra money and eventually transitioned to being an owner and full time employee at the new family business. Around the same time one of my father’s remodeling customers in Lakewood decided to start a new private school called Lakewood Prep. As I recall, I had been floundering in the Lakewood Public School system, which even back then was pretty bad. Lois Hirshkowitz had a PhD in education, and an unrelenting desire to bring high quality education to the community that she lived in. My parents had high school educations but wanted something better for their children. They sacrificed to enroll me, and later on my younger brother Tom, into the newly created school. In seventh grade we started with a college level curriculum, studied a wide variety of subjects, and learned how to think critically. Mrs. Hirshkowitz was the second most important woman of my formative years, and I am immensely thankful that the most important woman of those same years made sure that I was put in a position to be in that school.

Life in the eighties went on in a similar manner. My parents sacrificed to send both of us to college and to run a growing business. Eventually both my brother and my self transitioned from part time to full time employees of the business. Eventually we became part owners and then full owners. Working in a family business’ is tough. In hindsight, I feel I could write a book on what to do and what not to do. The business weathered some storms but through most of the experience there was a general incline in all our economic fortunes. Despite this it was a tough experience. Everything we learned we learned the hard way. Sometimes we never learned what we needed to, and sometimes we learned it too late. We did a lot of things right but also made a lot of mistakes. We created something wonderful, something to be proud of, but eventually we let it tare us apart. My Father and Brother both lost their way, in the melee that followed. They made mistakes that are clearer to me now, but that I still don’t fully understand. Still, I think it is important to remember them for what they once were about, and not just for where they ended up.

My Mother remained steadier than the rest of us through these trials. She kept herself engaged in life with her friends and her family. She struggled with anxiety and depression but remained true to her self and her beliefs in god. She forged new relationships and kept old friends. She was an excellent grandmother to her grand children Lauren, Veronica, Thomas, and Michael. She spent a lot of time with them. She had learned from Ida, she had learned from being a big sister to Jimmy, she had learned from being a great Mom to Tom and myself. Our oldest daughter Lauren was an enthusiastic big sister to Veronica, who is six years younger. She functioned as a second mother to Veronica, which I think was inspired by the influence Lelia had in her life. Lauren is a young mother now, and I can clearly see a good bit of Mom in how she loves and attends to her son.

Lelia started to slow down a bit. After a few years it became clear that she was in the beginning stages of Dementia or Alzheimer’s. She had been driving for a couple years longer than she should have. It became a chore for her to cook. It was difficult for her to tend to her affairs. When my brother Tom moved in with her I guess I thought it was for the best, since she clearly needed someone to keep an eye on her. For a long while she continued to go out with friends and with relatives and to enjoy life as best she could. She always looked forward to and loved the monthly dates with her “Cousins' Club."

Alzheimer’s takes a physical toll as well. Once she panicked in fear when we tried to get her to take the escalator at the Freehold Mall. Her walking got slower and deliberate and she seemed afraid of falling. It became more difficult to take her out for our weekly dinner trips with the kids. Eventually going out to dinner became impossible: even with assistance she was intensely afraid of stepping down the four inches from the front door to the sidewalk of her home in Leisure Village.

Mom was in bad shape when she went to the first nursing home in Whiting. She bounced back a little physically and mentally as she started eating better and getting her medications in a more consistent manner. But she was never the same again as she struggled with the ending phase of the disease over those two and one half years. She was more easily disoriented, more forgetful, and she began to loose the ability to control her motor skills. She was walking gingerly the week before she went there. She never walked again after that. I tried to visit her as much as possible while she was there and through it all there were some days when she was very tired and unable to engage much, and other days where there were moments of clarity and we could have conversations, listen to the jazz music that she loved since she was a young woman, and maybe go outside and eat a few snacks. Sometimes she knew my name and sometimes she didn’t, but she always knew that she knew me. The people who worked at the nursing home loved her. They always told me how sweet she was. She never complained about her condition or where she was.

It was a struggle to get Mom enrolled in Medicaid but once that happened I was able to move her to the second nursing home in Eatontown. It was a nicer facility and close to our house, and her condition remained about the same, although her motor skills had declined to the point where they didn’t want her eating solid food any longer. The visits with the snacks and the music became more important to me, and I hope to her, because she seemed to enjoy the cookies and bananas I would sneak in. Mom didn’t have a sweet tooth as an adult, but when you are eating pureed chicken and peas for dinner, a nice soft oatmeal raisin cookie becomes a delight. In June 2019 it was suggested to me that she be put under Hospice care for the remainder of her stay. This was a wake up call that her time left was limited, but an opportunity to upgrade the care she was receiving at the end of her life. The Hospice people spent extra time engaging with her, above and beyond what the regular nursing staff could provide. One volunteer in particular, Rhonda visited Mom regularly and talked with her often. Rhonda was able to be there with her in the middle of the day, when she was at her most alert state. She often told me about the fun they had talking and listening to music.

What I learned from visiting with Mom during that time was that she was not gone. She was not in a vegetative state. She was still there. Sometimes she could talk a little, sometimes she could talk more, and sometimes she was asleep and couldn’t talk at all. But she was still there. The same little girl that took care of her little brother was still there. The same beautiful young lady in the purple hat, in the picture from 1961, when she was full of hopes and dreams, was still there. She was still the same young mother that fiercely loved her two young sons. She was still the good friend who would spend hours on the phone listening to and trying to help her friends feel better. She was still the grandmother that loved being with her grandchildren. Sometimes my daughters tell me that I am a girl’s dad. I guess by circumstance I am. Many times I was with my mother in that nursing home and I would tell her that I loved her, and even close to the very end she was still able to tell me she loved me back. And when I saw that despite all her infirmaries she understood what that meant, and knew how to respond to it, I guess I knew what being a girl’s dad really means. And I knew where I learned how to be a girl’s dad. And I knew what I have always known. That Lelia Jean Irons-Woehr was about as close to perfect as anyone I have ever known.