Remembering Lucy

Lucy Sumor was one of those people who really stuck out in a small town.  She was a leader and a fearless one at that.

Yankee Peddler used to be HUGE.  The traffic was so heavy that the festival had to hire police to route the cars around downtown Canal Fulton to Clay's Park.  There was a line of huge chartered buses in the dirt parking lot.  It was actually crowded to walk around the wooded and non-wooded areas of the festival, named cute things like Militia Meadow.  All of the community organizations that wanted to had a booth.  The Methodist Church, baseball league, the Scouts, the Rotary, Lions Club, and many others were all represented in the two weekend event and then it went to three weekends in September.

Among the giants at the festival was SS Philip & James and the spearhead of it was certainly Lucy Sumor.  She was the one who got the apple fritter recipe and then tested different kinds of apples to see which one would perform best.  At one point we had three fritter booths at Peddler.  To head up the church's fundraising at this event took someone special and that was Lucy.  Once counted up, the festival required some 720 slots for volunteers at the fritter booths.  We peeled and cored apples at the booths, then dipped the apples into the batter and then put the apples into the wood-fired fryers -- then put them in paper boats and topped them with some powdered sugar.  What a flavor.

Lucy also worried about the moms in the church, many of whom were raising children away from grandparents and other emergency caregivers.  So she founded MECCA (Mothers Emergency Christian Care Association).  Today MECCA still exists but it has morphed into the food pantry effort in town. 

My neighbor told me that Lucy was tireless in working for the PTA.  Her specialty was organizing fundraisers.

Lucy and her husband opened up the Ful-Dres License Bureau in the 1980s.  When Bill died in 1994, Lucy ran it herself and then retired in 1999.  Eventually she moved to Florida where she enjoyed the warmer weather.  When her health started to decline, she moved to Laurel, MD to live with her daughter.  But she must have missed us here in the small town and so she returned and moved into the Laurels in Massillon and that is where she passed away.

Her funeral is this morning and we are singing.  I expect a very large turnout of voices because everyone knew Lucy. 

One other thing -- Lucy was my oldest son's Confirmation sponsor as well.  She sponsored two young people that year and somehow managed to keep it all together.  Lucy was warm, kind, and encouraging.  She was smart, faith-filled, and dedicated.

Well done, Lucy, well done.