HOLYOKE — Traveling across the Atlantic Ocean to Portugal can be pretty expensive. So when Ann Marie Carvalho found cheap tickets in December, she immediately booked them for herself and her sister Nancy, who had always wanted to see the Christmas lights in her native country.
“I said, ‘Nancy it’s now or never,’ not knowing this was going to happen,” Carvalho said Monday, choking back tears as she spoke. “I have never been so happy that she got to go. She got to see her Christmas lights.”
Nancy “Maria” McDaniel died Wednesday after a car hit her the previous day at the intersection of Beech and West Franklin streets, where she was out walking her beloved dog, Henry. Emergency responders rushed her to the hospital, but she ultimately died of her injuries. She was 67 years old.
Holyoke police have referred all questions about the incident to Massachusetts State Police. A spokesperson for the state police did not respond to questions Monday.
A Holyoker born in Portugal, McDaniel moved to the United States when she was around 8 years old, her sister said.
“She was wonderful — the best sister one could ask for,” Carvalho said. “We always did things together. She’s the type of person who would give you the shirt off her back.”
Carvalho said that McDaniel got her dog Henry around three years ago, and that she took him on long walks all around the neighborhood, where people loved to stop and talk to her.
Her walks with Henry took them all over the area, Carvalho said.
“It wasn’t her doing, it was Henry,” Carvalho said with a laugh. “He’d dictate the routes.”
Jessica Rivera and Josue Carrero live on West Franklin Street, and McDaniel would pass their house most days on her walk, they said. When they bought the property several years ago, Carrero said, McDaniel fell in front of the house. After helping her up, he said they told her she could rest on their porch whenever she needed to.
“Every day she talked to us, every day she’d sit there,” Carrero said. “She was a very nice lady.”
Rivera said that even though they did not know McDaniel personally, her death hit them hard when they learned the news.
“It was devastating, honestly,” Rivera said. “Terrible news.”
Carvalho said that her sister’s dog is doing fine physically, though her oldest nephew took him to a veterinarian the night of the crash just in case. Another of her nephews will be taking care of the dog, she said.
McDaniel was 10 years older than Carvalho, but the two were very close; they lived on separate floors in a two-family home on the corner of Linden and Ladd streets.
“She was just the best,” Carvalho said. “She was a wonderful woman.”
When McDaniel turned 60, Carvalho decided to take her back to Portugal for the first time since McDaniel had moved to the U.S. as a child. The two were able to return to Portugal again this past December to do something McDaniel had always wanted to do: see the Christmas lights.
Law enforcement has offered few details regarding what happened to McDaniel. In a statement Saturday, Holyoke police said that they responded March 15 to “the report of a pedestrian being struck by a motor vehicle at the intersection of Beech and West Franklin.” There, they found an elderly woman in the road and initiated first aid, Police Capt. Matthew Moriarty said.
“The woman was unresponsive at this time,” Moriarty said. “EMS services were called for immediately as the scene was secured by other responding units. The Massachusetts State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Section was called for and responded to the scene. The elderly woman did not survive.”
Holyoke police did not respond to a request on Monday for the department’s incident report on the crash.
Asked what more she wanted to say, Carvalho urged people to slow down when driving and give the right-of-way to pedestrians.
“Stop texting, stop playing with the radio. Whatever you’re doing, pay attention,” she said. “It impacts the whole family, burying somebody who has no right being buried yet.”
McDaniel is survived by her two sons, her son’s partner, two grandsons, two sisters, her brother-in-law, three nieces and nephews and “many great-nieces and great-nephews,” according to her obituary.
A Mass will be held at Blessed Sacrament Church in Holyoke on Wednesday at 10 a.m. and the burial will be held in Saint Jerome Cemetery. Calling hours are Tuesday from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Barry J. Farrell Funeral Home.
Dusty Christensen can be reached at dchristensen@gazettenet.com.