Lucille Ann Robinson

Cumberland Foreside-Lucille Ann Robinson, 93, passed away on April 20, 2016, six hours after the death of her husband, Robert Clifton Robinson, surrounded by her family. Born in New York City on July 19, 1922, Lucille was the eldest daughter of Anthony and Mary Frenza. Growing up in the Italian-American community of Manhattan and Brooklyn with her three sisters, Lucille lived in New York through the Roaring Twenties and the dark days of the Great Depression. She attended school in Brooklyn after which she pursued nursing at the Long Island College Hospital School of Nursing. There, she became a registered nurse and received the Mabel Beers Harkness Memorial Medal. When the United States entered World War II, Lucille joined the Navy, tending to wounded soldiers at Camp Lejuene. When she left the service with the rank of lieutenant, she worked at the Chicago Maternity Center where she spent her days in the citys poorest neighborhoods delivering babies under difficult conditions. In 1948, she enrolled in Boston College Nursing School and earned her B.S. in 1950. Lucille was invited to join the nursing faculty at BC where she stayed for two years. Despite the demands of her new position, she continued to work as a staff nurse at Massachusetts General, Boston City, and Newton-Wellsley Hospitals. She also served as player-manager for the Boston College womens basketball team. At BC, she met Robert C. Robinson, who was pursuing a law degree, and they married in 1952. When they moved to Maine, Lucille became director of Clinical Instruction at Mercy Hospital School of Nursing. She had four children from 1956 to 1966, still managing to find time to volunteer and serve as an organizer for her community and her church. For her service to the church, Pope John Paul II bestowed on her the pontifical honor of Dame of the Order of St. Gregory. Since 2014, Lucille lived at Foreside Harbor Assisted Living Facility where she benefited from the excellent care of the staff and the Visiting Nurses Association as well as her niece, Christine Robinson. In her active years, she made braciole and pasta aglio e olio in the manner of her grandmother, but she also learned to cook the Irish foods of her husbands clan. She adored gritty detective novels and murder mysteries which made her family laugh because they knew her for her gentleness. She loved painting, calligraphy, and hooking rugs. And she loved all manner of living things: African violets, orchids, and even the wild crows who arrived every morning in the back yard, calling and crying out to her for food. Mostly though she loved us, her family, to whom she devoted her life. She is survived by her four children; Robert Jr. and his wife Molly, Maryann and her partner Chris Broadhurst, Mark and his wife Colleen, and Michael and his wife Michele Troy; her sisters Gloria and Lorraine; her grandchildren, Gain, Sarah, Patrick, Margaret, Tess, Isabella, and Theodore; and many nieces and nephews. Visiting hours will be 4:00 - 8:00 PM, Friday, at Conroy-Tully Walker Funeral Home, 172 State Street, Portland. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated 10:00 AM, Saturday, at Holy Martyrs Church, 266 Foreside Rd, Falmouth. Private burial will take place at Calvary Cemetery, South Portland. To view Lucilles memorial page or offer condolences, visit, www.ConroyTullyWalker.com. Donations may be made in Lucilles memory to: St. Vincent de Paul Soup Kitchen, 307 Congress Street, Portland, Maine 04101, online at, www.portlandcatholic.org, or Catholic Charities of Maine Development Office, PO Box 10660, Portland, ME 04104-6060, online at www.ccmaine.org.