A few weeks after writing an article about Nardini’s restaurant closing, I received a letter from Madelene Eyerly.
Not an e-mail. Not an Instant Message. A hand-written letter mailed from Mansfield, where Eyerly lives.
During her high school years, Eyerly, who is now 86, lived with restaurant owners John and Belle Nardini. She earned her keep by watching their daughter, Peggy.
It wasn’t a difficult job, according to Eyerly.
"Peggy was easy to take care of," Eyerly wrote. "She was 10 years old and I was 16. She was not a smarty or a sassy child, and she has not changed."
Eyerly was so taken with Peggy that she named her first child after her.
Peggy Edwards died Wednesday at Hospice of North Central Ohio. She was 80 years old.
She had been battling cancer for some time. A little over a year ago, her illness forced her to close Nardini’s, a downtown gathering place for folks from all walks of life. The restaurant had been in her family for nearly 80 years. She and her husband, John Edwards, had run it since 1950. But it became a struggle after he became incapacitated.
It was the Edwards’ personalities that made Nardini’s what it was. Peggy was as sweet as John was cantankerous. Her upbeat demeanor and doting nature served as a perfect counterpoint to his wry comments and surly persona (which would have made W.C. Fields look like Mister Rogers).
After Nardini’s closed in November 2006, regular Dave Kowalka recalled how Peggy would pour him only a half-cup of coffee at a time. He explained that she did this because he talked so much it would get cold before he could finish it.
"When I last saw her, I told her I was going to get some coffee," Kowalka said Thursday. "She said, ‘Just half a cup.’"
The Edwards’ daughter, Rita Edwards, continues to run a catering business out of the building on Church Street, but the restaurant never reopened.
Many of the regulars hoped it would. They prayed for Peggy’s recovery. But it was not to be.
Eyerly kept in touch with Peggy over the years. Even though she had suffered a stroke three or four months ago and was unable to drive, Eyerly arranged Wednesday for her son to drive her to the hospice house to visit Peggy.
Sadly, while she was there and waiting to go in and visit, Peggy died.
It’s even sadder that I didn’t answer Eyerly’s letter last year. And, in spite of an e-mail from Kowalka last month asking me to give Peggy a call, I never got around to it.
Not to make excuses but, we live in a different world than Eyerly, Peggy and generations before them. Our priorities have become distorted by our demanding schedules and self-absorbed lifestyles. (We don’t have lives anymore, we have lifestyles.) Ultimately, most of us deny ourselves the human contact, the hand-written letters, the phone calls, the visits, things that meant so much to them.
Unfortunately, we don’t realize until it’s too late how much they meant to us.
