Loma Kay Macafee

Loma Kay (née Powell) MacAfee, 79, passed away peacefully and gracefully on May 20, 2022 in Hampstead, NC under the loving care of her daughter, Linda and son, Shane.

Named Loma after her paternal grandmother, but known by her middle name, Kay shaped her life around two credos: love and faith. She made love and faith in God a priority. Her deep and abiding love for her family was intertwined with a constant desire to help them strengthen their own faith. And she cared deeply for others, instinctively altruistic, she was a dear friend to many.

Kay was born on July 15, 1942 in Grafton, WV to Dellos and Juanita Powell and raised in Akron, OH by her beloved adoptive mother, Pluma Powell, whom she helped run a roadside flower stand in front of their home on Wadsworth Rd. She attended St. Xavier's Academy, a Catholic school for girls near Latrobe, PA, where she converted to Catholicism. After graduation, she moved back to Akron. She married Doug Coots in 1961 and had her firstborn, Chad in 1962, followed by James "Jamie" in 1964 and then Linda in 1966. She married Giacomino "John" Porzio in 1969 and gave birth to Shane in 1970. John had two children from a previous marriage, Sandy and John Jr.

Her focus in early adult life was on raising her four children in whom she instilled the same virtues by which she herself lived: love and faith. She sacrificed to send them all to private Catholic schools and spent her time selflessly helping her mother, her husband and her children with work, school and extracurriculars. She and John owned and operated a convenience store and drive-thru in Copley, OH known as "Johnny's Drive-thru". In her free time, she enjoyed visiting her sister, her nieces and extended family, as well as her close friends. She welcomed any opportunity to be at the water's edge or to satisfy her lifelong love for flowers - Kay was just as happy tending flowers at work, as she was gazing across the Atlantic on a jaunt to the beach.

Following the death of her husband John, she married Don MacAfee and together they made a go at semi-retirement, antiquing in Akron, OH and later in Fairhope, AL, where they moved to be at the coast, which they both treasured. Don had two children, Drew and Marcy, from a previous marriage. On the birth of her first grandchild, Kay left the coast behind and she and Don lovingly moved back to Akron to be near and help raise their granddaughters, Lucy and Ava Choken.

Not long after Don's passing in 2013, Kay moved into Francesca Residence, run by the Daughters of Divine Charity, where her grace increased and her faith deepened. After learning of her pancreatic cancer in July 2021, she decided to move to North Carolina to be near her ocean and to be with her daughter and family, and son and daughter-in-law.

Kay is preceded in death by her parents, stepchildren, Sandy Klein and John Porzio, her sister, Virginia "Jenny" Southard and brother, Ronald Smith.

Kay leaves behind her children, Chad and Jamie Coots, Linda Choken (Vince) and Shane Porzio (Susana), her stepchildren, Drew and Marcy MacAfee, her daughter-in-law, Linda Porzio, her brother-in-law, John Southard, her grandchildren, Lucy and Ava Choken, Gina Shelton and Kim and Mike Klein, her nieces Brenda (née Southard) Larson and Shelly (née Southard) Sandmann, and so many others in her extended family.

Visitation will be held on Thursday, June 9, 2022 from 6-8 p.m. at NEWCOMER FUNERAL HOME, 131 N. Canton Rd., Akron. Funeral Mass will be held on Friday, June 10, 2022 at 11:00 a.m. at St. Sebastian Church, 476 Mull Ave., Akron. Inurnment at Holy Cross Cemetery. Memorial contributions may be made to Daughters of Divine Charity, 39 N. Portage Path, Akron, OH 44303.