Monday, October 24, 2016
Uncle Eddie was the youngest of four Donovan children. My father was his older brother
Stephen (Steve). He also had two older sisters Lee and Joan. Sadly, Uncle Eddie is the last of
those four children to pass.
My memories of Uncle Eddie go back to my childhood. My father had moved us to Ohio due
to job constraints and we visited "family" in New Jersey every summer when Dad's plant
did it's summer shutdown. Our visits always included outdoor time with Uncle Eddie and
one of my favorites is of the many hours he spent with us practicing baseball. Playing
catch, fielding flies and ground balls or doing batting practice, Eddie was the soul of
patience. Indeed, even though we called him "Uncle" he seemed more like an older
brother to me. He was, even to our young eyes an extremely talented athlete and it was
never hard for me to pay attention to his instructions and tips!
Back in those days, the Donovan clan would spend a week or so at Lake Hopatkong. Grandpa
Donovan had purchased a speedboat which immediately became a centerpiece of these
getaways. We spent many hours on the Lake with Uncle Eddie taking turns learning how to
waterski. I'm sure that at the end of many of those days we had probably worn Eddie out!
Many times we children would run down to the lake before breakfast to see what was going
on and to check the water conditions. One such morning we went down to the dock where
the speedboat had been left the day before and it wasn't there! Needless to say in our
young minds this was a catastrophe! We ran back up to tell our parents we couldn't find
the boat and they told us to calm down and several of them, including Uncle Eddie went back down to
the dock with us to see what was going on.
We arrived at the dock and it was obvious that the boat wasn't where it had been left
the evening before, but the lines were still tied to the dock and then we noticed a
short aluminum stick with a white light on it sticking out of the water. When we got to
the edge of the pier and looked down we saw the boat completely submerged!
Apparently, the night before when we tied the boat up to the pier, Uncle Eddie (as well
as all of us) had forgotten to replace the drain plugs and overnight the boat had filled
with water and sank. We spent the next couple of hours swimming and walking the boat
over to the ramp where Grandpa Donovan had backed the trailer down into the water so we
could winch the boat up and let it drain!
I remember years later telling this story to a couple of Eddies children. When Eddie
heard what I was telling them he tried to shush me up, but the secret was out!
I know Eddie had that boat for many years after Grandpa Donovan passed away and I'm sure
Eddies family has many fond memories of it as well.
