Death of couple 'a horrible twist' after cancer

(Handout Photo)

By Stephanie Ebbert, Globe Staff

Donna Gregory, who was killed in Tuesday's plane crash with her husband en route to his treatment in Boston, lived a demanding but uncomplaining life, caring for her 4-year-old twins and her husband with cancer.

"She never complained. Her husband, her kids were her life," said Joyce Podlas, a friend who graduated with Gregory from Riverhead High School in New York in 1989. "That was it. She's a great, great person. It makes me sick."

Friends and relatives are trying to make sense of the devastating crash that claimed the life of Gregory and her husband, Robert, who was being treated for chronic lymphocytic leukemia in Boston. They were being flown by Joe E. Baker, a pilot from Brookfield, Conn. who volunteered to deliver the couple as part of Angel Flight, a network of private pilots who help families get medical services. Baker was also killed in the crash in Easton.

Robert Kirschner, a neighbor of the Gregory family, said the couple had used Angel Flight repeatedly for their trips to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

"They went through a lot. It's just a horrible twist, a horrible thing, and kind of ironic that it was a volunteer organization and this would happen. They're trying to do a good thing," said Kirschner.

Kirschner described the Gregorys as devoted and active, camping or biking with the children, or playing in the yard and watching them on the trampoline. Robert Gregory, a marine technician, was handy around the house they bought and fixed up about eight years ago, Kirschner said.

"He was very mechanical. He was good at doing his own work around the house," said Kirschner. "They kept everything really immaculate."

Donna Gregory was a stay-at-home mother who earned an associate's degree in veterinary science in 1994 at the State University of New York-Farmingdale before returning for a bachelor's in biology from SUNY Empire State College in 2003, according to her MySpace web page.

Donna Gregory had been planning to participate in a walk to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Poldas, Gregory's high school friend, with whom she shared a limo to the prom, said they reconnected in recent years when they both had twins around the same time. They spoke by e-mail and often tried to get together for activities, but Gregory's duties often got in the way.
"Her life centered around her family, that's it. If he needed to go to the doctor, she was there," said Podlas. "She's always been that type of person. She's just always been taking care of somebody."

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