Family of missing woman fear the worst
Maura was a redhead in her youth and she kept true to her natural hue, colouring her crown meticulously well into her 70s. When she went into the nursing home, she stopped and the red gradually grew out to reveal a brilliant white.
"She would have put her make-up on before she left though, I'm sure of that. No matter how badly the lipstick went on, it went on," said Maura's daughter- in-law Priscilla Reynolds.
Priscilla recounted yesterday the details, as far as they were known, of Maura's last movements before she left Tara Nursing Home in Bray, Co Wicklow some time in the early hours of St Stephen's morning.
"She put on her purple suit. It's a trouser suit. She'd worn it on Christmas Day. We think she took a fleece too. But that's all. It wouldn't have been enough for the cold."
Maura made up her bed, slipped out into the hall and left the house, it now seems certain, by the kitchen door. When the staff who last peeked in at her at half past midnight checked in again at 6.30am, she was gone.
Maura, a widowed mother of three sons, lived an independent life in Dundrum in south Dublin up to a few years ago when the first symptoms of Alzheimer's began to appear.
Priscilla and her husband, George, who is one of Maura's sons, and their four children had just returned to Ireland after spending 15 years in the United States and were sorry that their youngest children never knew their grandmother without the fog of confusion that hung over her.
"It happened very rapidly. Some days she would know everything. Other days she didn't recognise the house she had lived in for 50 years. That's why, eventually, she had to go into the nursing home," said Priscilla.
Tara Nursing Home is a private, 50-bed facility, approved by the Health Service Executive and located in two adjacent Victorian houses on Putland Road in Bray. It had been used as a nursing home since the 1960s but was completely renovated when it was taken over by the Costelloes 10 years ago.
Paul Costelloe is a former chief executive and now chairman of the Irish Nursing Homes' Organisation which has been lobbying for improved standards of care in nursing homes.
The organisation has also called for tighter regulation of nursing homes and backs the Government's long overdue plan for an independent inspectorate for the sector.
Anne Costelloe said nothing like this had happened at Tara before.
"I've been here 10 years and nothing like this has happened. There's been no change in the amount of staff we have or our procedures nothing that would make you think this could happen."
Maura had enjoyed her Christmas Day out with another of her sons and his family.
"She was in very good spirits. We spoke to her on the phone at about 9.30pm and she was in happy form," Priscilla said.
"My brother-in-law took her back to the nursing home and they had some tea and she was a bit agitated then but that was normal enough. She kept saying she needed to go to the doctor's and wanted an appointment made, so my guess is that that's where she thought she was going when she left."
Maura is being treated for cancer and has very poor mobility. "After a certain amount of time, she would have been exhausted. I can't see that she would have got more than 200 yards.
"The family are facing the bleak likelihood that Maura had simply sat down somewhere and died during the night.
The family, who live in Monkstown in south Co Dublin, and relatives and friends, spent all St Stephen's Day and yesterday looking for any sign of her.
The grounds of nearby Presentation College have also been scoured and the search has extended as far as the seafront in Bray, which is about a mile's walk from the nursing home, but the Reynolds family believe Maura is closer than that.
"She's out there and she isn't far away. She's a small woman in a purple suit with snow white hair. We just want to find her," said Priscilla. "If anyone can help, we'd be very grateful."
Anyone with information can contact Bray gardaí on 01-6665300.
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