Ethel Loretta Reilly (nee Powers) was my dad’s paternal grandmother. I received her death certificate in the mail today.

Born on 27 January 1903, she died on 26 September 1955 at 1:50pm. She was only 52 years old at the time. She passed away at Queens General Hospital in Queens, New York, and following her death, an autopsy was performed.

Accordng to the death certificate, she died as a result of cardiac failure, due to rheumatic heart disease.¹ Her health was complicated by the fact that just two and a half months before her death, she suffered a fall in her home resulting in a fracture to her right femur. ² Since femur fractures are quite traumatic and take months to heal, I would assume that she was in the hospital from the time of her fall until her death, but the death certificate doesn’t confirm this.

Here burial was attended to by Queensboro Mortuary and she was buried on 30 September 1955 at St. Charles Cemetery in Farmingdale, New York.

The death certificate also features the following information about Ethel:

1. She was living at 107-25 Liberty Avenue in Ozone Park, Queens at the time of her death.
2. She was married to Lawrence Reilly.
3. Her occupation was that of a housewife.
4. She was born in New York
5. Her father was named John Powers, and her mother was named Mary (with no maiden name noted).

1. Rheumatic heart disease is damage to the heart valve as the result of rheumatic fever. This aligns with what I always heard about my great-grandmother being sickly most of her life. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/rheumatic-heart-disease
2. “Femoral Fracture”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femoral_fracture