Cynthia Lorraine (Costanzo) Turner

Cynthia Lorraine (Costanzo) Turner, 54, died Sunday, June 18, 2017 at Washington Regional Medical Center. She was born May 20, 1963, the daughter of Lewis Frank Costanzo and Evelyn Lorraine (Shephard) Costanzo, later Farley. She attended public schools in Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia. She relocated to Arkansas in 1978 with her mother to join family. Cynthia liked restaurants. She loved kitchens and bars, so she learned to manage and troubleshoot those, and did that throughout her career. She married Ricky Gene Turner, and they had a son, Marshall Colin Turner, in 1987. Cynthia earned a standing ovation when, big and pregnant and wearing an orange flowered dress, she walked across the stage to take her GED diploma. She and Ricky raised the boy, a few dogs, and they had a pretty good time for about ten years. They separated and then Ricky died during surgery in 1996. CT, as she was then known, cared for her ailing mother after that, and started college. She got close, she really did, to earning her bachelor in elementary education, when her own health started deteriorating. This was in the days when you could be denied health insurance for pre-existing conditions. There had been a little money, but it didn't last long paying for specialists and surgery. The first back surgery led to a second, then a third, and then... It took a while for Medicaid to come through, and her health deteriorated even more. She ended up in a wheelchair in the home her mother had bought almost forty years before. Then she entered a nursing home, where she suffered an intracranial hemorrhage caused by cardiovascular disease. She died a few hours later in the hospital. She was predeceased by her husband, her mother and her father. She is survived by her son, by a sister, Kim Irene Martin, Prairie Grove, and an aunt, Rebecca Kathleen Shephard, Garrett Park, Md. Memorials can be made to the Fayetteville Animal Shelter. Cynthia's friends and relatives will hold a memorial wake in her honor at her sister's home Aug. 5. RSVP by text (479) 530-8032.