After 50, her life just kept getting richer

NEW PORT RICHEY -- Lilyan "Vee" Dayton did some writing early in her career. She was an editorial assistant while serving in the Air Force from 1949 to 1952; wrote a column for the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base newspaper, the Skywriter; prepared news releases and did publicity, acted and directed for a theater group; and was a stringer for the Dayton Daily News.

She and her husband, Earl, were married when both were in the Air Force. When they moved to Florida in 1979, she was almost 50.

"I thought, "Now is the time for me to do some things I hadn't had a chance to do before,' " Dayton said. "Our older daughter was out of college, and our younger daughter was a senior at the University of South Florida. Earl claimed he was retired.

"I started work at the Pasco County Health Department and decided to fulfill an old dream," she said. "I went back to school to become a registered nurse, something I had discontinued back in 1948. After that, I went to night classes for a bachelor's in psychology and then on to a master's in counseling, all the while working full time. My husband has always been more than supportive, not only with his caring, but he's the house cleaner and occasional cook and baker.

"When our only grandchild, Erin, was born in 1991, that was an awakening for me. I wanted to write children's stories, just for her."

Dayton joined a writers' group. Nursing magazines and Seniority published her work, and she kept trying with fiction.

The Tampa Writers Alliance awarded her first place in fiction for 2001 for her short story The Birthday Cake and third place in nonfiction for Russian Gypsies.

"I was thrilled and knocked out when I learned I had won," she said. "This is something I have been waiting on for years."

Dayton has led support groups for widows and widowers, cancer patients and divorced persons. Most recently, she has been a bereavement counselor with Hospice of Pasco, working with a caregivers group.

"I've had a support group at the Salvation Army for victims of domestic violence and worked as an advocate for those women, going to court with them when needed," she said.

She is on the boards of the West Pasco American Association of University Women and Park Lake Estates Civic Association and works at the health department each Thursday.

Daughter Amy Dayton is a missionary working in Russia, and daughter Laurie Nichols is a schoolteacher in Spring Hill, where granddaughter Erin, 10, attends Deltona Elementary School.

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