Fay McNulty

Fay McNulty (nee Trimborn), died peacefully in her home in Wyndmoor on December 6, the feast of St. Nicholas, a few weeks shy of her 90th birthday on Christmas Day.  She was the mother of five children who adored her:  Mary Kate, Patrick, Sean, Meg and Claire;  and Nana to seven grandchildren whose motto was “When Mommy says No, Ask Nana.”   Fay’s first great-grandson was born last March.  Her husband of 59 years, Patrick J. McNulty, died in 2014.   Fay was a woman who lived and loved with gusto.  She loved to laugh, loved a good joke, and was enthusiastic about life and people in all their manifestations.  She was born in Fishtown in 1927, the only child of Joseph and Margaret Trimborn (nee Pintozzi), and lived around the corner from her grandparents’ large immigrant Italian family.  In Fishtown she learned that friends and family are life, they are the ones who will carry you through the toughest times.  She adored the Fishtown of her childhood (“the old neighborhood”) and was so proud to see its resurgence in recent years.   A child of the Great Depression, Fay was taught that frugality is a virtue, a discipline she practiced throughout her life.  Yet she was constantly giving to others, privately, and to charitable causes she believed in.   She was awarded freshman attendance at the John W. Hallahan Catholic Girls High School (class of ’45)  as a skilled violinist.  She played violin in Hallahan’s orchestra and was honored with a chair in the all-girls archdiocesan orchestra.   She enjoyed attending Hallahan’s annual reunions and communion breakfasts downtown, and the May 2017 reunion was her last.   After high school Fay worked at Rohm and Haas chemical company as a lab assistant at the Bridesburg plant where she met her future husband, Patrick J. McNulty, who was a research chemist.  They settled in Pat’s hometown of Wyndmoor in lower Montgomery County, Springfield Township, where they raised their five children in Seven Dolors parish.   Fay volunteered for numerous parish and school functions over the years including school librarian, Girl Scout leader, CCD teacher, and Eucharistic minister.   Fay remained a lover of nature throughout her life, and a longtime member and volunteer at the Morris Arboretum and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.  In recent years, trips to Denali National Park in Alaska and the rainforests of Costa Rico were exuberant excursions.   She loved exploring.   On Saturday, December 23rd at 10:00am we celebrate our mother at a Memorial Mass at Our Mother of Consolation R.C. Church in Chestnut Hill.  In lieu of flowers the family requests prayers said to the Blessed Mother on Fay’s birthday, Christmas Day.