Edith Oakley Death, Obituary – Edith Oakley was a devoted volunteer who sadly passed away at the age of 103. Today, we would like to take a moment to celebrate her memory and pay our respects. Edith’s son John died of leukemia in 1959, and throughout the course of her lifetime, she was able to earn almost exactly two hundred fifty thousand dollars for Blood Cancer UK. In 1959, John passed away as a result of the sickness. Edith stated that she did not want any other parents or fathers to go through the misery that she had, and because of this, she had made the decision to devote the remainder of her life to the cause of raising money for research into therapies for blood cancer.
Edith reflected on the time she had spent assisting others and told the story of how she had initially attempted to sell handmade aprons in order to create money when she was honored with a Times Sternberg award at the age of 100. Edith had reached the age of 100 at the time of the award. The venue for the ceremony was Number 10 Downing Street. Volunteer work has always been a great source of entertainment for me, and during my time doing it, I’ve developed a large number of new friendships. But there have been moments when it has been a lot of effort, especially with all of the knitting and sewing that we have done.
This is especially true because of all of the time we have spent on these activities. To begin, I was so short on funds that I was unable to ride the bus to the market to get the fabric that I required for the aprons since I did not have enough money for the fare. I was unable to bring the materials back with me, so I had to ask a friend to do it for me because I couldn’t do it myself. When I made my very first apron, Laurie offered to help me sell it by bringing it to the place of business where she was employed. Then, with that money, we were able to buy the supplies to make three aprons since we had enough. This was made possible because we had enough.
That was our initial approach to carrying out the tasks.” Edith’s pioneering courage and altruistic efforts have, beyond a reasonable doubt, helped ensure that other families won’t have to go through the same horrific loss that she did. She endured. We are keeping Edith’s family in our thoughts as we navigate this challenging time.