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Elizabeth M. Feeney of Madison was born Oct. 20, 1936, in the Bronx, New York. The second of four daughters born to Bernard T. McCabe and Elizabeth Cox McCabe, Betty, as she was known then, grew up in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, where she attended Saint Gabriel School. Following graduation from Marymount School in Manhattan, Betty enrolled at Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1958.

She then sailed to Spain to begin a career in education, teaching and studying in Barcelona for one year before traveling throughout Europe in the summer of 1959. At just 22, she and life-long friend Linda Reynolds (Carroll) rented a car and drove from Spain to the French coast, ferried to Ireland, and then resumed the drive (on the other side of the road) to the heart of rural Ireland to meet and visit family not seen in decades. Betty’s trip to Ireland sparked new connections between the Magees in Ireland and the McCabes in New York, connections that have grown ever stronger among succeeding generations over the ensuing 62 years.

Returning to New York in 1959, Betty began teaching elementary school children in the New York City public school system. She soon met Bernard “Bud” A. Feeney, a 1955 graduate of Fordham University. Betty and Bud were married June 16, 1962, at Saint Ignatius Loyola Church on Park Avenue in New York. Bud’s brother Gene, a Jesuit priest, performed the ceremony. The couple’s wedding reception was at the Waldorf-Astoria on Park Avenue. Their marriage would last more than 59 years.

Elizabeth (as she became known outside of family following her marriage) moved to different cities around the country as Bud’s career in the Federal Bureau of Investigation progressed: Mobile, Alabama in 1962; Virginia Beach, Virginia in 1963; Pacific Grove, California in 1967; Dublin, California in 1968; and Rockville, Maryland in 1973. By the end of 1973, Elizabeth had made five cross-county trips and had visited each of the continental 48 states. Along the way, Elizabeth and Bud welcomed five children: Brian, born in New York in 1963; Paul, born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1964; Brendan, born in Carmel, California in 1967; Elizabeth, born in Walnut Creek, California in 1972; and Claire, born in Silver Spring, Maryland in 1973. A sixth child, a girl Elizabeth and Bud named Mary, was lost at childbirth in 1970.

The family moved to Madison in 1978 after Bud accepted a leadership position in the FBI’s office in New Haven. Elizabeth and Bud would go on to live in Madison for the next 43 years. Elizabeth was a long-time parishioner at Saint Margaret’s Church in Madison and had a deep and abiding faith.

Elizabeth returned to the classroom in 1981, when she began teaching 3rd grade at Our Lady of Mercy Country Day School in Madison. Over the next 31 years until her retirement in 2012, Elizabeth taught 3rd and 6th grades as well as 7th- and 8th-grade math. “Mrs. Feeney” became a larger-than-life figure at OLM, helping to shape the lives of hundreds of children, many of whom moved into careers and adulthood with distinct and fond memories of learning in her classroom.

Family and friends were central to Elizabeth. When her family moved to Rockville in 1973, they settled in a home not far from where Bud’s brother Tom lived with his wife Joan and their 10 children. Joan became ill with cancer in the mid-1970s and had to undergo extensive treatments and long hospitalizations, so “Aunt Betty” became a second mother to her 10 nieces and nephews, preparing meals, taking them to practices and games and to shop for prom dresses and tuxedos, and helping them cope with Joan’s passing in 1977. Aunt Betty’s bond with Joan’s children only strengthened as they grew and had families of their own.

She had an uncanny gift for making and sustaining friendships. The miles and decades were no match for the depth and strength of the friendships she formed during her short stints in different places around the country. She enjoyed enduring friendships with people like Alice and Rip Riopelle from Virginia Beach, Mary and Sandy Sandri from Dublin, and Marge and John Finamore from Rockville. She leaves behind a legion of devoted friends across generations in Madison.

Elizabeth was a wonderful, dedicated grandmother to her five granddaughters and four grandsons. “Grandma” traveled many miles to be present for birthday parties, graduations, soccer and baseball games, gymnastics meets, and school plays. She was a fierce advocate and champion for her grandchildren, just as she was for her five children.

Elizabeth’s Thanksgiving celebrations became the stuff of legend. She hosted the first of 47 consecutive Thanksgiving Day feasts in 1973. Over the years as families grew and word spread, more and more people made the November trek to Madison; several times the Thanksgiving week guest list exceeded 50 friends and family. Friends from college came. Cousins from Ireland came. Husbands of sisters of sons of nieces came. Two couples were engaged on Thanksgiving Day at the house in Madison.

Elizabeth was a voracious reader who seemed always to be working through a novel; she read hundreds of books in her life. She also loved music and musical theater. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, she often rode the subway from Riverdale to Broadway, where she saw countless shows. She knew and could sing practically every line of every song from musicals like The Pajama Game, Guys and Dolls, and Singin’ in the Rain. Over the years she was a regular at symphony and opera performances in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., and after moving to Connecticut, Elizabeth and Bud became longtime patrons of the Metropolitan Opera. They spent untold Saturday afternoons seated in the Grand Tier of the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center. Elizabeth’s favorites included Der Rosenkavalier, Un Ballo in Maschera, and La Traviata.

She delighted in TV comedies like The Carol Burnett Show, M*A*S*H, I Love Lucy, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and she had a fantastic sense of humor herself. She loved nothing better than soaking in the late afternoon summer sun at the Madison Beach Club, sharing a “popsie” and trading funny stories with her friends, and howling with laughter.

As the end approached, Elizabeth fought incredibly hard to get out of the hospital and back home. She passed away peacefully at her home in Madison on July 29, at the age of 84. She is survived by her husband of 59 years; her five children; her sons-in-law Brian Fortune and Andrew Conde; her sisters, Geraldine (Gerry) Pratt (James Pratt), Mary Jane Belt (John Belt), and Kathleen (Kazzy) Nugent (John Nugent); and her grandchildren, Julia Feeney, Liam Feeney, Aidan Feeney, Luke Feeney, Isabella Conde, Elizabeth Fortune, Grace Fortune, Finn Fortune, and Lucia Conde.

Friends are invited to Mass of Christian burial to be celebrated at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 4, in St. Margaret R.C. Church, 24 Academy Street, Madison. Burial will follow in St. George Cemetery, Hubbard Road, Guilford. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Mercy by the Sea, 167 Neck Road, Madison, CT 06443-0191; https://www.mercybythesea.org/donations.

Arrangements are in the care of the Guilford Funeral Home, 115 Church Street, Guilford. To share a memory or leave condolences, visit www.guilfordfuneralhome.com.