Community Corner

Funeral Services Begin Sunday For Mom Who Lost Courageous Battle For Life

Toy touched the hearts of many in the community.

A community will come together this weekend to say their final farewells to a young woman who left a lifelong impression on their hearts.

Services for Elizabeth Toy, 29, who died on Wednesday morning, will be held on Sunday from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Horton-Mathie Funeral Home in Greenport.

A funeral mass is scheduled for Monday morning at 10 a.m. at St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church in Greenport; Toy will be laid to rest at St. Agnes Cemetery immediately after. 

For months, the North Fork community rallied for the young mother, so devoted to her son Matthew, 11. 

Matthew will go to live with his grandmother, a close friend said.

Donations are still being accepted in Elizabeth Toy's Suffolk County National Bank account, friends said, to help give Matthew a secure future.

A pig roast/motorcycle run fundraiser that had been planned will still go on, on October 5 at Four Doors Down in Mattituck, to raise funds for Matthew. The event will begin at 10 a.m., when participants can sign up for a motorcycle run for $20. Next will come the event, which will cost $15 and include a buffet, Chinese auction, a band, The Locals, and a 50/50.

Toy had just signed up as a member of the Cutchogue Fire Department before she got sick. 

"She was the most amazing person I've ever met," one friend said. "If you were having the worst day of your life, she'd come over and be silly and put a smile on your face."

For months, Elizabeth Toy, consumed with worry over finances and how she will be able to support her young son, turned to the internet for help.

In early September, caring friends posted on North Fork Patch's boards about the challenges Toy, 29, faced.

On her Go Fund Me page, where Toy posted an online plea for donations to help as she faced her life-threatening illness, Toy kept friends and loved ones updated. 

Find out what's happening in North Forkwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

On her page, she wrote, "I want to thank you all again, and remind you to not take people for granted. Appreciate them while they are here. Set aside differences, strive to lift people up, not hold them down. But most of all, love and be loved."

In April, Toy, a single mom, shared her story with Patch, and described facing the most terrifying specter a parent can imagine: The fear that she might not live to see her son grow up.

Find out what's happening in North Forkwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Toy, who had Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer that spreads through the lymph nodes, was first diagnosed in 2010. 

Toy was burdened with worry and buried beneath financial woes. Fighting illness, Toy had to continue to work to pay her rent and provide for her son.

Her son, she said, was her biggest support and champion. "I told him, 'We don't know what the outcome is going to be, but I'm going to give it my best shot. No matter what I have to go through, I'm doing it for you."

This week, Toy's mother Ann wrote a message on Patch, filled with love for her daughter and grandson: "Matthew will never be alone. Matthew and Elizabeth have been my whole world. I not only lost a daughter but my best friend and the most amazing person I ever knew. I will love and care for Matthew as I always have until the day I die as I promised Elizabeth. It is my honor to do so."



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