Edith P. Daniels

Edith P. Daniels’s children remember her as a mother and homemaker who believed so strongly that “family is everything” that she found deep contentment in simply gathering with them and their kids at the East Hampton house she lived in for the past 65 years. 

But one notable exception in Mrs. Daniels’s routine? Her love for the marathon pinochle games she played with friends during their weekly gatherings that would stretch deep into the night.

“My daughter works for the East Hampton police dispatcher, and they would say, ‘Is that your grandmother driving by at 4 in the morning?’ and my daughter would say, ‘Yes. It probably is,’ ” Mrs. Daniels’s daughter Sandra Daniels said yesterday with a laugh. “They’d play till 4 a.m. all the time.” 

Mrs. Daniels, who was 86, died at home on Saturday of complications of Parkinson’s disease.

She was born on May 27, 1932, in Southampton to Howard Page and Jennie Kacinski Page. After she married Robert F. Daniels they eventually moved to East Hampton. Her husband died in 1994, and one of their sons, Robert Paul Daniels, died in 1969.

In addition to her daughter, who lives in Riverhead, Mrs. Daniels is survived by another daughter, Joyce Daniels of Springs, and by a son, Bruce Daniels of East Hampton. Most of her six grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren took turns at her bedside in her last week. 

Mrs. Daniels continued her habit of wearing a bow in her hair daily — a fashion twist that became her signature.

“Oh! She had a plastic shoebox and it was loaded with all kinds of bows — polka dot bows, solids — and for a while, we had trouble finding her bows, so if you could find one or come across one, you’d buy it for her,” Sandra Daniels said. “It was something she started wearing in the ’60s, and she wore one in her hair every day, even throughout the Parkinson’s, right until the day she died.”

A funeral Mass for Mrs. Daniels was celebrated yesterday at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in East Hampton, and she was buried in the church cemetery. 

The family has suggested that anyone wishing to make donations in Mrs. Daniels’s name consider East End Hospice, P.O. Box 1048, Westhampton Beach 11978, online at eeh.org.