Lorraine M Curran's Obituary
Lorraine Marguerite Long Curran will have a church memorial service on Friday December 1st at 1:30 pm at St. Cecelia Catholic Church 820 Jasmine Way, Clearwater Fl 33756. A life celebration will follow at Patricia McDaniel's house.
Our Heart’s loss is Heaven’s gain.
Lorraine Marguerite Long Curran, born August 18, 1926 in Ferndale, Michigan, departed this earthly realm for the arms of God on the morning of November 10, 2017, in Clearwater, Florida.
Lorraine was 91 years old and left quite a legacy of love, laughter and joy.
Lorraine led a full, rich life. She was a life-long fisherwoman and taught all of her children and many of her grandchildren to fish. A masterful bridge player, avid ballroom dancer, golfer and one-time Southeast Regional Women’s Skeet Shooting Champion, Lorraine loved competition and mental and physical challenge.
Lorraine worked for almost three decades at Morton Plant Hospital. She began as a Ward Clerk with no experience or training during a personnel shortage on the well-heeled Wit-7. A kind soul, Dr. Tench, took a few moments to acquaint Lorraine with the life and death paperwork process, took her for a cup of coffee at break and as Lorraine recalls it, “Was an absolute Angel sent by God!”
After a decade of learning the ropes, Lorraine was offered and took the position of Head Educator/Trainer for Morton Plants Ward Clerk Program. Lorraine was always proud of her career at the hospital and spoke of fondness for and the stellar care available at Morton Plant Hospital.
Her Life...
Lorraine Curran was French and English and she was a beautiful woman. Her most recognizable attributes were a stellar work ethic and a surety that Life is good and God loves us beyond comprehension.
She led an interesting life and could make even the most mundane of chores a game. She was an optimistic person and a devout Catholic with an absolute unwavering faith in God. Those were good attributes as she was married to a devilishly handsome Irishman with a gleam in his eye, a funny story or song at the ready and an incurable sense of wanderlust.
She always lived with a grateful heart, a smile on her face and a joy-filled Soul. She knew who God was and made sure that her kids did too; she lived a life of goodness - an exemplary life - teaching all of her children that kindness and compassion costs us nothing, that when things are tough you just place your eyes upon Christ and “offer it up” and that St. Anthony - can help you find anything.
A comedian once said “Nobody gets outta here alive!” At 91, although Lorraine’s departure from this Earthy plane was not completely unexpected, for the people who love her and intimately knew the frustrating health challenges of her last several years - it was all at once unthinkably too soon and unbearably, not soon enough.
For although Lorraine was not ever one to complain, she physically struggled her last few years as it became clear her little dynamo body was just wearing out.
Those of us who love her, know that from a young age, she simply took God’s directive to go forth and multiply, to love His children wherever she found them on this Earth and to live with Joy as if it was her last day on the planet, quite literally.
Lorraine always made the time for people. If you were troubled, she had a pot of coffee on the stove and a listening ear at the ready - and usually could pair that cup of coffee with a great piece of homemade Lemon Merangue pie, homemade oatmeal cookies or homemade cinnamon rolls!
She was one of those people who’d just let you talk about your troubles at your own pace, while she kept refilling your coffee cup and doling out pie until things started to look a little brighter.
One of nine children and born a few short years before the onset of the Great Depression, Lorraine grew up knowing just how much a buck would or wouldn’t buy. Fleeing the poverty of the ghost-town Detroit, she traveled from Michigan to California as a toddler with the rest of her family jam-packed around her in their Model-T, sparking her lifelong sense of adventure and love of travel.
She loved what at the time was truly a “Golden State”, growing up in Northern California less than an hour from Santa Cruz and the great Pacific Ocean, and the famous Cannery Row of Monterrey on the Pacific Ocean.
Her family chose Los Gatos, California as their home town and all nine siblings worked hard during the summers of the Great Depression in the never-ending plum and apricot orchards in “The Valley of Heart’s Delight”; now paved and called SiliconValley.
Lorraine loved her three brothers and five sisters and absolutely adored her French Father, Alva. He taught her to fish – a passion for Lorraine her entire life.
She met and married the love of her life, her husband of 36 years, Dick Curran, when she was just 19 and he a mere 21. Dick was stationed in San Francisco, met Lorraine – a USO volunteer – and shipped out after a six week courtship.
Lorraine’s prayers and the Grace of God, brought Dick safely through the war and back into her arms. They married and “in each other’s arms” is where they stayed until Dick’s untimely death in 1979.
During their lives, Dick and Lorraine were a team, raising five children. Due to Dick’s talent as a professional Salesman, the family moved every several years splitting their time between the Great Rockies in Colorado, the Pacific Ocean in California, the Gulf of Mexico in Florida and the great state of Texas.
Having tired of their Father’s “wanderlust”, Lorraine’s kids, unique and talented individuals, all picked a state and “stuck” as adults. Cheryl Kucera-Kennedy in Illinois, Richard Curran in Southern California, Patricia McDaniel in Florida, Cecilia Field in Northern California and Michael Curran in Colorado.
Lorraine’s five kids remain unshakably close, loving brothers and sisters, who, though grown adults ranging from 57 to 70 years old, formed bonds as the perpetual “new kids on the block” that remain steadfast and true.
They must somehow hold each other up through this difficult life’s milestone, but if ever there were five people up to the challenge of coming to terms with their beloved Mother’s death it is these five – for finding the “Laughter and Joy” in Life comes naturally because of the example and strength of the woman who raised them.
As so aptly put by Patricia McDaniel, Lorraine’s middle child and primary caregiver over Lorraine’s last challenging decade, when asked by Hospice shortly after Lorraine’s passing – the question so hard for all her children to answer – “Where are you from, where is your hometown?”....
Patricia simply stated, “Well, we grew up in a number of cities in a number of states and most of us kids went to at least 10 different schools in twelve years, but our HOME...was wherever Lorraine was.”
She departs this life to join her beloved husband, Richard Clinton Curran, her dear Father, Alva, Mother, Viola, and siblings, Effie, Helen, Yvonne, Bebe, Fred, Jim and Clarence.
She is survived by the youngest of her eight siblings, Mrs. Donald Bean of San Antonio, Texas and the five unique and beautiful individuals she gave to this world - her five children;
Cheryl Kucera Kennedy of Grayslake, Illinois - Retired Educator; Richard D. Curran of Seattle, Washington - Retired Composer & Musician; Patricia Elaine McDaniel of Clearwater, Florida - High School Educator and Guidance Counselor; Cecilia Rose Curran-Field of Dunedin, Florida, - Business woman, Real Estate Professional & Educator and Michael A. Curran of Thornton, Colorado – Electrical Engineer.
In addition, Lorraine was Grandmother to eleven grandchildren; Kerri Curran-Tietz, Christopher Kucera, Benjamin Curran, Sarah Carew, Fermin Curran, Eric Curran, Emily Tyson, Shawna Curran, Nick Field, Sean Field and Tayla Curran. She was Great Grandmother to five; Alexandria Curran, Jazmine Curran, Sheridan Tietz, Theodore Carew and Maxwell Carew.
If you know anything about Lorraine, you will understand that in addition to her human loved ones waiting for her in heaven, she will happily collect the welcome wags and doggie kisses from her beloved snow-white, furry companions, Shahrazad and ZuZu.
Written with love by Cecilia Field
Until the Joyful Day When Our Eyes Meet Once Again...
If guests choose not to bring flowers they may make donations to the neighborly network in care of Lorraine Curran at www.neighborly.org/ or to Bon Secours at https://bonsecours.com/st-petersburg.
What’s your fondest memory of Lorraine?
What’s a lesson you learned from Lorraine?
Share a story where Lorraine's kindness touched your heart.
Describe a day with Lorraine you’ll never forget.
How did Lorraine make you smile?