Elizabeth Anne Warner Coffey, 94, of Craford Place, Swimming Point, Portsmouth, passed away October 2, 2015 at Harbor's Edge Retirement Community in Norfolk, Virginia.
She was born on May 2, 1921 in Washington, D.C., making her debut in Portsmouth, Virginia in 1941. She attended Miss Turnbull's Private School for Girls in Norfolk, Virginia and the Stevens College in St. Louis, Missouri. On June 15, 1943 she married Pearl Harbor survivor Lt. Col. John Fellows Coffey, USMC, of Portland, Oregon, in the home built on Carney Farm by her great-grandfather, Wright Bruce Carney.
After retiring to Swimming Point in 1974, Mrs. Coffey and her husband spent their years visiting the cultural centers of Europe and Great Britain, enjoying the arts and architecture of each region. At home, she enjoyed knitting, listening to opera and attending the theatre. She swam several miles a day at the Naval Hospital pool nearby and often walked along the banks of the Elizabeth River. As a member of the Students Club of Portsmouth, she took great pleasure in presenting her writings to the group. Much of her private writing illuminated family life growing up in China and the Philippines as the child of a US Naval officer and in later years, as the wife of a Marine Corps officer raising two sons in Taiwan and Panama. She was a true lady of her generation, a loyal and loving mother and wife, putting up with the stress and demand of being a military officer's wife.
Mrs. Coffey was preceded in death by her father, Captain Thomas D. Warner, USN; her mother, Lucy Carney Warner; her brother, Thomas D. Warner, Jr. and his wife, Marty; her husband of 57 years, John F. Coffey; and a son, Thomas D. Coffey and his wife, Phyllis.
Survivors include her son, John F. Coffey, Jr. and his wife, Elizabeth of Dexter, Michigan; granddaughter, Julie Coffey Taitano and her husband, Andrew of St. Petersburg, Florida; niece, Elizabeth Warner Respess and her husband John of Portsmouth; nephew, Thomas D. Warner, III and his wife, Cara of Magnolia, Texas; and her cousin, Fleet Carney Morgan of Portsmouth.
A memorial service will be held in Churchland Baptist Church Cemetery at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, November 11, 2015 officiated by The Reverend Julia Dorsey Reed Loomis. It is requested that memorial donations go to The Wounded Warrior Project or The Salvation Army. Foster Funeral Home, Portsmouth, is handling arrangements.