Lucinda Reddington Cawley

Lucinda Reddington Cawley, 67, died Thursday after a long illness at SUNY Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, N.Y. The cause of death was complications of rheumatoid arthritis. Cinda is survived by her husband, John, Fayetteville, N.Y.

Cinda was born on St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 1943, in Scranton. Daughter of the late Dr. J. Frank Reddington and Dorothy Osmond Boland, Cinda graduated from Marywood Seminary in Scranton and from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Washington, D.C. She married John Horan Cawley on July 3, 1965, in Scranton. The couple lived in Washington, D.C., and Denville, N.J., before returning to live in Scranton in 1973. There, the couple raised three children, Frances, John Jr. and Kathleen. John and Cinda lived on the Eastern Shore of Maryland from 2000 to 2009, when they moved to upstate New York to be near their children. Cinda was an avid and expert quilter and frequently created special quilts for friends and family to mark birthdays, weddings and births. She co-authored the book "Saved for the People of Pennsylvania: Quilts from the Collection of the State Museum of Pennsylvania," published in 1997, with her close friends Lorraine Ezbiansky and Denise Nordberg. She was also published in the Research Papers of the American Quilt Study Group and presented her research at the meetings of that organization, for which she served on the board of directors. She built a collection of antique fraktur-inscribed quilts (fraktur is a historic German typeface of calligraphy), using old census records to research the individuals whose names appeared on the quilts. These quilts are now in the Lucinda Cawley Collection at the International Quilt Study Center & Museum at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Cinda read voraciously and had a sharp mind and tongue. For years, she used stationary headed "do not suffer fools gladly…" Cinda was a contestant on the TV game show "Jeopardy!" in the 1960s. She had a special love of history; she extensively toured Civil War battlefields and presidential homes and collected textiles from presidential campaigns.

Cinda is also survived by two daughters, Frances and husband, John Lathrop, Fayetteville, N.Y.; and Kathleen and husband, Jeremy Coughlin, Fayetteville, N.Y.; a son, John Cawley and wife, Rachel Dunifon, Ithaca, N.Y.; six grandchildren; a sister, Frances and husband, Joseph Garvey, Scranton; a brother, John and wife, Silke Reddington, Scranton; and nieces and nephews. She was also preceded in death by a brother, William, who died as an infant in 1945; and a sister, Dorothy Reddington, Ithaca, N.Y., in 2004.

A memorial Mass will be held in St. Peter's Cathedral, Scranton, on March 15 at 10 a.m. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the American Quilt Study Group.