

Dolores and Cecil Maxwell always had a garden. Cecil was mostly vegetables, Dolores was mostly flowers. The garden was used to help feed their large family, and the flowers were always a source of joy for Dolores. She continued to grow and give away flowers during her last summer, when she was 80 years old.

It is because of the pleasure that flowers gave her that this website uses the different flower images at the top of each page, taken by one of her grandchildren. They serve as a ready reminder on these often dark and painful pages that there were also things of beauty and happiness in Dolores' life.

Flowers were found everywhere around Dolores; her garden, her house, her paintings, her needlework.
Indeed, remembering Dolores produces flowers in our thoughts, and seeing a flower often leads to pleasant memories of Dolores.

When Dolores and Cecil moved to Rosslare in 2005, it was no surprise that they treated themselves to a glass greenhouse that was set up in their small back garden.

[Editor's note: Also notice the clothesline. Those are not Dolores' pants and shirts. Ethan required Dolores to do his laundry and iron his clothes. Even when he finally moved from the family home at the age of 31 (Dolores and Cecil were forced to purchase Ethan a house in Finglas), he would have Dolores come from Rosslare to his house and perform laundry service. More on all this to come...]

The greenhouse where Dolores used to work is replaced by empty ground. This image was taken about a month after it was removed.

By the winter of the following year, the ground was being reclaimed by nature. Some of Dolores' flowers are evident behind the clothesline pole.
While Dolores was still in Wexford hospital, Ethan cut the phones, water, electricity, heat and alarm to Dolores' house. Ethan eventually handed the front door key over to Dolores' solicitor.
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