An Angel on Earth

Alice Fay was the third daughter and tenth child of Bill and Bridget Colgan Fay. She was born on April 17, 1937 and died at the age of six in the summer of 1943.

Alice was closest in age to her brother Michael, who was older by barely a year and to her sister Peggy, who was younger by less than three years. Michael remembers those times he spent with Alice with great fondness; “she was surely an angel on earth and my dearest friend “ he says. Her older sisters, Mary and Teresa concur saying she was a wonderful child, loved by her siblings, parents neighbors, and friends alike.

As the summer of 1943 began to wind down, Alice was enthusiastic about starting the first grade that September at Saint Gabriel’s school in her home town of Hazleton, PA. Her sister Teresa recalls how excited Alice was when she and her mother walked downtown to purchase a new book bag and how she was not shy about showing it off to everyone when she returned. She was also preparing for her First Holy Communion and Bridget had her communion dress hanging up, pressed and prepared for that upcoming event.

However, tragedy struck suddenly as Alice quickly feel ill and, within 24 hours, she passed away. Alice had contracted spinal meningitis, which was believed in those days to be highly contagious. For this reason, the family home, then on North Pine Street in Hazleton, was temporarily quarantined and the family had to forgo traditional funeral arrangements. Bill and his teenage sons immediately set off to personally dig her grave.

Joe Fay, Alice’s then 15-year-old brother said they got on a bus to Jeansville (Bill’s original home town) to the cemetery with shovels and picks. He was completely heartbroken as he remembered Alice as a happy little girl who would sing and dance around the house. Peggy, who was three years old at the time, says she did not fully comprehend what had happened that day until she headed to bed in their shared bedroom and, for the first time in her young life, saw Alice’s bed empty. It was at that moment that she realized that her favorite playmate and role model was gone.

In her final hours, a priest did arrive at the house to simultaneously give Alice her First Holy Communion and Last Rites. The most approximate date of her death was July 28, 1943. By any objective standard, this entire episode was the most dire tragedy imaginable. But amazingly, this is not completely how her surviving siblings view the death of their sister as they agree that there was another dimension to the otherwise tragic day – something magical, something blessed.

Mary, the oldest sister who was 18 at the time, remembered the entire family being summoned to Alice’s bedside and the little girl repeatedly calling out the name “Mary”. Naturally, she assumed that Alice was calling for herself, but she was not. Alice described seeing a beautiful woman that she was immediately drawn towards. In the moments immediately before her passing she cried out, “I see her!” “Who?”, her mother asked. “The Blessed Mother,” Alice replied. Alice also had other visions of the holy family and died not in pain or fear, but with a smile on her face. Everyone present that day who later spoke of these final moments of Alice’s life has concurred that there was truly something special that occurred on that day.

So today we do not lament the absence of a grandmother that has never come to be, but instead celebrate this wonderful 6-year-old to whom perhaps was revealed more truth than any of us could acquire in the multiple decades of our lifetimes. In any case, there is no doubt that she has left an indelible impression on the hearts of everyone fortunate enough to have known her.