News

By Steven J. Smith

    BOCA RATON — If ever one could represent the epitome of a mover and a shaker — someone who overcame adversity and prevailed against all odds — it would have to be Joan Daly.
    Mrs. Daly, 94, died at her home in Boca Raton on April 10.
    She was a native of New York City who, with her husband Robert (deceased 1996), moved to Scarsdale, N.Y., in the 1950s to raise their family.
    Adversity soon set in when her daughter Patricia was brain-injured, according to her other daughter, Susan Daly. Susan Daly said her mother was moved immediately to spearhead an initiative to see that Patricia got every opportunity to live a normal life.
    “She began a pilot program in Pelham, N.Y.,” she said. “Pelham Public Schools gave her a basement room, which was staffed by three doctors who had about 10 children that they felt were able to be educated, to function outside of an institution. They named it after our house in Scarsdale, which was called Starpoint.”
    When the family moved to Boca Raton in the early 1970s, Mrs. Daly created an independent real estate firm called Daly Realty, which she ran successfully for over 25 years.
    But her daughter said the business always ran second to the needs of Patricia and those like her.
    “My mother’s major interest was always getting public school education done for children who were brain-injured or handicapped,” her daughter said. “At the time my sister Patricia was born, there was no such thing. So she founded the Habilitation Center for the Handicapped in Boca Raton. She got the land donated from the city, did fundraisers, built the buildings and got it all started so that the kids would have someplace to go and work.”
    The success of the Habilitation Center, incorporated in 1978, led to the formation of other facilities and causes Mrs. Daly inspired or played a significant role in, such as the Nazareth Homes for the Handicapped, Harbour East House and the Shamrock Society. She even found time to serve on Boca Raton city advisory boards, which she used as a platform to further the causes of the handicapped.
    Bill Muir, whose son John has cerebral palsy, autism and quadriplegia, said Mrs. Daly was one of a kind.
    “I have known some very brave people over the course of a lifetime,” Muir said. “My C.O. in the Marines was decorated as a kid on Saipan. Our sergeant got the Silver Star at the Yalu River. In the old neighborhood, the local bartender’s kid died winning the Medal of Honor in Vietnam. But pound for pound, nobody I know has got more guts than sweet and demure Joan Daly.”
    Muir said Mrs. Daly battled for special needs people and programs for well over 50 years.
    “You can sum up her accomplishments in a brief paragraph,” he said. “But it does not do justice to her years and years of advocating, litigating, fundraising, defending and never, ever quitting. Joan was unique. She was a lioness. She fought for people who could not fight their own fights. She was a petite lady, but when she was riled up, you were dealing with a fistful of razorblades.”
    Susan Daly said she would remember her mother as an extraordinary, beautiful and dynamic woman.
    “She was always, always out there trying to do the best for everybody,” she said. “She would not take no for an answer. That’s how she accomplished all she did. I think there are extraordinary people that come to this Earth. They are given struggles, but they do something about it. My mother was one of them. She was able to create solutions to a situation that most people would probably give up on.”
    She is survived by her three children, four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. The Daly family has requested that in lieu of flowers, expres-sions of sympathy be made to the Habilitation Center for the Handicapped, 22313 Boca Rio Road, Boca Raton, FL 33433.