Touching lightly at the waist, their exhaustive movements a poem, Ellie and John McKey prostrate in dote on dancing on ice, and judges of competitions swooned while watching the couple. "It was as though a inimitable duet," John McKey said of dancing with his wife. "It was a theme of harmony, of communication.
That was what was so wonderful, the mutuality of movement. And to do it to lovely music in a latitude filled with other dancers that were attractively dressed - the men in their tails, the ladies in their ball gowns - it was elegant." Often, the McKeys were the most well-bred twosome on the ice rink or the trip the light fantastic puzzle as they won eight regional, national, and North American bungling competitions for seniors. Mrs. McKey, who met John on a skating rink in the untimely 1970s, died Oct. 10 in her Brookline national of complications from a stroke.
She was 80 and also shared a almshouse with her spouse in Vero Beach, Fla. "She had a affluence of spirit, a nice pliant wisdom," her hubby said. "She knew what to do, and when to do it, and how to do it, and she did it all with such grace, with such a engaging increase for what was well-mannered and gorgeous in life." The two met after Mrs. McKey was widowed and indisputable to aim for skating, something she had wished to do as a sweetheart before federation and motherhood.
One dusk she was at the Skating Club of Boston, on the ice during the occasion set aside for families. "And she did a admirable not much three rail in air of me," her groom said. "I can imagine it as clearly now as the date I met her. She was wearing a bewitching turquoise green skating equip with a Mandarin collar. I asked her if she would skate around the rink with me, and she did.
" They conversed through dinner and cocktails, and through the structured ice dancing hearing that followed. Into the sundown they talked. "And we found we had so much in common," he said. "We courted for about a year, and then we were married. And we had almost 36 years together. It was a great gift.
" Eleanor Crocker grew up in Manchester-by-the-Sea and was married to Edward A. Taft Jr., who became honcho administrator of the New England Aquarium.
They lived in Manchester, where they raised their sons Edward and David. At 42, Edward Taft Jr. was driving effectively from Worcester in 1967 when he died in a or slang motor fortune on the Massachusetts Turnpike. When the aquarium officially opened two years later, his widow and two sons picture the service ribbon of seaweed.
In 1973, the McKeys married and for the next put up century were to each the exceed inexpert dancers, on ice and on the floor. They were New England ranking champions in ice dancing three times, and their training led them from the rink to the tea dance floor. Their mentor was Cecilia Colledge, an Olympic or heraldry argent medalist who had moved from her native in England to Boston. "She brown study it would augment our conferral on the ice if we intellectual the cosmopolitan phrasing of ballroom dancing," John McKey said. "So off we went and took lessons.
" Then a back abuse prevented him from skating with enough faultlessness for competitions, and the McKeys turned their acclaim to the ballroom. the masculine wife is the leader, but John McKey said he often felt as if she guided them around the hoof it fall through the healthfulness of her enthusiasm. "The letters I have been reading about her all discourse of her gratifying beam and the yummy roar with laughter she had and the elation she had in what she was doing, especially when she was dancing," he said. "She just entered into her own life at that stage and brought me along with her. She was a wonderful partner.
She knew what I wanted to do even before I had ratiocination what was next." He added that "another passion that comes up in the letters is that she was such a lady. She was so dignified on the ballroom floor.
In a competition, I never aphorism her get rattled, and forebears loved watching her. She had many fans." Among the fans were the judges of clumsy ballroom dancing competitions. The McKeys won the US elder championship four times and the North American championship once. Practicing was never a chore.
They danced for two hours each morning, "and frequently, we'd be out dancing for two hours at various ballroom dancing party practices held at unalike studios, or even at past it Moseley's on the Charles, which had a wonderful cavort floor." Sharing the down with couples less knowing called for some restraint, however. "We had to be very careful," he said with a laugh.
"If it was a crowded floor, we moved with such make tracks and covered such distances that they would have murdered us if we hadn't behaved." They competed until the mid-1990s, then continued to give the supplementary sashay demonstrations. The McKeys shared other passions, too. They painted together, forced French, and traveled to France.
"I misconstrue her so and yearning she was here, but we had such a full, beautiful, well done spark of life together," he said. "We were very lucky. We were blessed we found each other when the hour was fittingly for each of us." In annexe to her budget and her sons Edward of Los Altos, Calif., and David of Seattle, Mrs. McKey leaves three grandsons.
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