Vernabelle S. McCoy

Vernabelle S. McCoy, 81, of New Alexandria, died peacefully Sunday, April 13, 2014, in her home. She was born June 3, 1932, in New Kensington, to Foster Lovell Stephens and Mabel Adell Longdon McCoy. Vernabelle was a housewife and homemaker. She was an avid sailor, and she and her husband built a 41 foot sailboat in their front yard. In 1981, she, her husband and family sailed from Norfolk, Va., across the Atlantic Ocean to Portugal. During the next 17 years, she and her husband, friends and family sailed throughout the Mediterranean as far east as Turkey, the Baltic Sea as far north as Oslo, Norway, as well as many canals and rivers of Europe, taking a break in 1991. Then, homeward bound, the group sailed back across the Atlantic from the Canary Islands to Barbados with her two sons and Pittsburgh sailing friends. For two more years, they cruised the Caribbean, the Bahamas and the Intra Coastal Waterway back to the Magothy River on Chesapeake Bay, where they had begun their journey 21 years earlier. She was preceded in death by her parents and her loving husband, James Allen McCoy. There are four children, Kim McCoy, of Worcester, Mass.; Jan McCoy and wife, Dr. Kimberly Rau, of Fox Chapel, and Sean and Maggie; Jil McCoy, of New Alexandria; Lyn McCoy and husband, Rick Szelinski, of Belleview, Wash., and Annie and Stephen. P. DAVID NEWHOUSE FUNERAL HOME, corner of Church and Washington streets in New Alexandria in charge of arrangements. Interment and services will follow at a later date. www.newhousefuneralhome.com.

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