Former state Rep. Gaynor Cawley of Scranton dies of cancer at 79

Mar. 14—Former longtime state Rep. Gaynor Cawley, 79, of Scranton has died after a two-year battle with cancer.

Cawley and his wife of 55 years, Kathy, lived since February 2020 at Allied Terrace, Scranton, an assisted living facility.

In recent weeks, Cawley received hospice care at the Scranton home of one his daughters, Jennifer Cawley. He died Friday surrounded by family members, said Tara Cawley Russo, another of his daughters.

Born Joseph Gaynor Cawley in Scranton on June 19, 1941, he served for 25 years in the state House of Representatives, in the 113th Legislative District, which included part of Scranton and surrounding communities.

Elected in 1980, Cawley served through 2006, when he did not seek reelection and retired.

Cawley is survived by his wife, five daughters and eight grandchildren.

The couple had been childhood sweethearts who met while attending St. Patrick's schools. Before marriage, Cawley was a pitcher for a few years for the Thomasville Tigers, the Detroit Tigers' minor league baseball team then based in Georgia.

He returned to Scranton and proposed, and the couple married at St. Ann's Maronite Church, Scranton, on Oct. 2, 1965.

After a stint working in retail and a move to Seneca Falls, New York, Cawley and his growing family moved back to West Scranton in 1970.

Cawley then transitioned into government, working in City Hall in the administration of his wife's uncle, Mayor Eugene Peters, for eight years.

In a phone interview, Peters recalled Cawley as a devoted husband, father and grandfather. A hard worker and serious-minded about his jobs, whether in City Hall or in the state House of Representatives, Cawley also was very likeable and a teller of jokes and funny stories.

"He was very much a deep part of the community and West Scranton," Peters said. "I don't think he had an enemy in the world. Gaynor was preoccupied with his family and preoccupied with helping other people."

In an article in The Times-Tribune this past Valentine's Day, Cawley said he considered his greatest achievements to have been working for the underprivileged, disenfranchised and forgotten.

Cawley was a Democrat who could work across the aisle with Republicans to get things done, said Peters and one of Cawley's old friends from high school, Paul Catalano, owner of Catalano's Importing Co. delicatessen and market in West Scranton, and who are both prominent Republicans.

Catalano recalled a story of how Cawley once broke bread, or actually meatballs, with the opposition party to break down political walls.

Catalano used to fry meatballs at home from an old recipe from his mother. Cawley would visit and loved them and got the recipe. Catalano later heard from a Republican in Harrisburg about how both sides one day were at loggerheads over something, and Cawley stepped out and emerged with a plate of meatballs he somehow fried up there. Cawley plunked them down on the table for everyone to dig in, and the two sides went from being at each other's throats to embracing and reaching an agreement, Catalano said.

Another time, Catalano and Cawley were driving on Jackson Street and some cars were stopped ahead with something amiss. Dressed in a suit and tie, Cawley got out to see what was the problem. A woman said a cat ran under her car and she didn't want to drive on and run over it. Cawley crawled under the car to save the cat.

"The cat scratched the hell out of him," but he managed to scoop up and swaddle the cat in his suit coat to bring it to safety, Catalano recalled. It turned out the cat was blind.

In the Legislature, Cawley was known for voting his conscience and not being a self-promoter, and for responsiveness to constituents.

In 2004, he introduced a bill to designate the oatmeal chocolate chip as Pennsylvania's official cookie, after a 9-year-old Scranton boy wrote him and asked him to try. Cawley knew he would take flak over the bill as frivolous, but introduced it anyway, though it did not pass.

"This took a total of about five minutes," Cawley had said of his 11-line oatmeal chocolate chip cookie bill, according to a 2005 article in the archives of The Times-Tribune. "In this instance, I wasn't going to let his efforts go unrecognized. I have to respond to that little boy. It's sincere."

Funeral arrangements are pending with the Kevin K. Kearney Funeral Home, 125 N. Main Ave, Scranton. A full obituary will run in Monday's edition of The Times-Tribune.

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