Karen Naomi Connolly-Lawless

Age 61: Westminster resident helped run Connolly's Seafood

One Halloween, Mrs. Connolly-Lawson disguised herself as a bag lady. She persuaded Mr. Schaefer's security detail to allow her to surprise the mayor in his City Hall office. When Mr. Schaefer arrived, she pretended to be a homeless woman, lamenting to the mayor that his administration needed to help her.

"He didn't know how to react," Mrs. Smith said. "But when she pulled off her hat, he said, 'I should have known.' She was always pulling things like that; always making people laugh."

Mrs. Connolly-Lawless remained loyal to the staff of Connolly's after the business closed in 1991. She continued her father's tradition of offering a free Good Friday dinner of flounder to friends and family, taking the gathering from the restaurant to her home in Westminster.

"When the restaurant closed, she was sad, because she knew she was going to miss the people," her daughter said. "It was the kind of place where everybody knew everybody. But all that was changing with new businesses coming in. Our little steel and corrugated tin building wasn't standing up very well next to those new million-dollar restaurants."

Services will be held at 11:30 a.m. Monday at the Pritts Funeral Home & Chapel, 412 Washington Road, Westminster.

In addition to her husband and her daughter, she is survived by two grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

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