A life well-lived. How often did we hear news anchors utter those words in 2020 as the death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic mounted? They spoke of older folks, usually, who had lived ordinary lives except for a distinguishing trait or gesture that set them apart.
I have thought of a life well-lived in recent days and weeks while reading obituaries in the Providence Journal and other publications. When you reach the eighth inning of life, you read the obituaries. Several caught my attention because they involved athletes who wrote sports history in Rhode Island and elsewhere.
If you followed golf in the 1960s and ‘70s, you will remember Stan Abrams, the Rhode Island State Amateur runner-up in 1964, champion in 1972 and 1975, and Rhode Island Golf Hall of Fame inductee in 2011 He died April 28 at home in Pittsboro, N.C., about 15 miles from Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina.
Stan was born in 1942, grew up in Pawtucket, and learned to swim and play miniature golf at Narragansett Pier. As he got older he took his game from miniature windmills and castles to real fairways and greens. He won the Jaycee Junior Championship in 1958, earned a trip to Arizona and finished second in a long drive contest at 303 yards.
At Pawtucket West High School, now Shea, Stan was an All-State quarterback and captain of the football, basketball and golf teams. He was the Providence Journal-Bulletin Honor Roll Boy in 1960 as the top student athlete in Rhode Island. He was also the Rhode Island Jewish Athlete of the Year.
Stan played football at Harvard, but knee and shoulder injuries ended his career after two years. He became captain of the Crimson golf team in 1963, graduated cum laude in 1964, and went to law school at the University of Pennsylvania. He worked in real estate development, helped launch the Senior Tour and developed golf properties in Florida, Nevada and Massachusetts.
Survivors include his wife Kathy, two sons and a daughter, and two grandchildren. A celebration of his life is scheduled for Thursday at 5 p.m. at the Granite Links Golf Course in Quincy, Mass.
Two accounts of a life well-lived were in the Sunday Journal. Dr. William F. Garrahan, a well-known orthopedic surgeon who practiced in Warwick for 55 years, died April 11 in his sleep. He was 91. Dr. Garrahan grew up in Woonsocket, went to La Salle Academy in Providence, St. Anselm’s College in Manchester, N.H., and Georgetown Medical School in Washington, D.C.
As passionate as he was about his studies and his patients, he was just as passionate about sports. He was a track athlete, a thrower, and competed well into his 70s. At the 2006 USA Masters Indoors Championships at Boston, he won the gold medal in the Men’s 75 weight throw with a heave of 43 feet, 5 inches. He was 76.
Dr. Garrahan was more than a competitor. He served as president of the Rhode Island Senior Olympics, and for years was the team physician for athletes at the Community College of Rhode Island. He was also generous with his time when sports writers called. As a rookie ski writer for the Providence Journal in 1977, I called him for a piece on pre-season conditioning. It was important to me because I did not know how to ski at the time. Dr. Garrahan was a friend of my wife’s family and remembered that I had written for the Woonsocket Call right out of college. He patiently answered all my questions.
Eight days after his death, Dr. Garrahan’s wife of 66 years, Geraldine, died. They are survived by five children, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild. A Mass of Christian Burial for the Garrahans is scheduled Saturday morning at 11 at St. Mary’s Star of the Sea in Narragansett.
Ray Dwyer of Warwick was Mr. Track in Rhode Island forever, it seemed. He ran cross-country and indoor and outdoor track at La Salle, won the North Africa low hurdles and long jump while serving with the Navy Seabees during World War II, and after the war ran cross-country and track at URI. He left with an accounting degree in 1950 and for the next 52 years was a teacher and track coach at La Salle and several other schools and colleges in Rhode Island.
Ray also served as secretary-treasurer of the Rhode Island Interscholastic Injury Fund and was a long-time race director and respected track official. He devoted time to the Special Olympics, New England Wheelchair Athletic Association and the National Cerebral Palsy Athletic Association as well. He was inducted into numerous Halls of Fame.
Ray died on April 28 at 98. Survivors include his wife of 69 years, Rose, and two daughters and two sons. His funeral will be private.
Finally, there is the story of Clara Lamore Walker and her remarkable life well-lived. Born is Providence in 1926, the daughter of a mailman and a stay-at-home mom, she joined the Olneyville Boys Club swim team when she was 10 because there was no girls team in the neighborhood. Before long she was winning races. She graduated from Central High School, was the Rhode Island Athlete of the Year, New England Athlete of the year twice, an AAU national champion, and a five-time All-America. She swam for the U.S. at the 1948 Olympics at London, lasting only one preliminary heat in the breaststroke.
Only 22, Clara retired after the Olympics, but that was hardly the end of her story. She worked as an operator for the New England Telephone Company; became a cloistered nun; left the Order of the Cenacle after seven years for, as she joked, “lack of decorum” for hiding candy bars her brother smuggled to her; in 1964 earned a degree from Providence College School of Adult Education; married a U.S. Navy officer and traveled the world; returned to Rhode Island after her husband’s death in 1970, and began another career as an English teacher and guidance counselor in Cranston. She earned master’s degrees in counseling and school administration from PC.
In 1980, at 54, Clara returned to the pool to ease chronic back pain. She entered a 50-yard breaststroke, won in record time and began re-writing the record books. By the time she retired for good, she had set 484 national and 184 world records in Masters Swimming. She was the first Masters swimmer inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in 1995 and was also inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage, Rhode Island Aquatics and Italo-American Halls of Fame. She inspired many young swimmers, including Olympic silver and bronze medalist Elizabeth Beisel of North Kingstown.
Still, she was not finished. She became a resident hall director at Providence College, volunteered for the Red Cross and Catholics for Life, was a Eucharistic Minister at Rhode Island Hospital, and taught religious education and was a lector at Immaculate Conception Church in Cranston.
Clara Lamore Walker died on April 2 at an assisted-living facility in North Smithfield. She was 94. Survived by two nephews and a niece, she is buried in St. Ann’s Cemetery in Cranston.
