Bike run to honor Glouco woman killed in crash

July 09, 2011|By George Anastasia, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
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  • Eric Bolis, Toni and their daughter Mia in a recent photo portrait.
  • Eric Bolis, Toni and their daughter Mia in a recent photo portrait.
  • Charlie Donato and his family, daughters Toni, Annette and Angela and wife Mary, on vacation in Italy in 2006.

Mary Donato talks about "the accident" but can't bring herself to utter the words that her husband, Charlie, offers with grim stoicism.

They are sitting in the kitchen of their Washington Township home talking about "the day our daughter was killed," Charlie Donato says.

Tears well in Mary Donato's eyes. "I still can't say those words," she says.

Toni Donato Bolis, 28, died June 1 after a head-on collision on Pitman-Downer Road less than a half-mile from her South Jersey home and, in the opposite direction, less than a half-mile from the home where her parents and two younger sisters live.

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Bolis, a Web designer who lived with her husband, Eric, and their young daughter, Mia, was driving home from a doctor's appointment.

She was in the ninth month of a pregnancy, and her unborn son (she and her husband had selected the name Ryan Jeffrey) was also killed.

The accident is still under investigation, but police say a 21-year-old Glassboro man swerved into the opposite lane of the two-lane road and struck Bolis' car.

The Donatos say police told them that phone records indicate the man was using his cellphone at the time. Washington Township police could not be reached for comment.

Their daughter and their unborn grandson, they say, were the victims of modern technology, of a youth culture in which multitasking is a virtue and electronic communication a constant.

"I don't go on a computer," says Mary Donato. "I'm still in 1958. I like it there. But these kids . . ."

Sunday at noon, there will be a motorcycle run in memory of "Toni and Baby RJ Bolis." The event was organized by friends of Charlie Donato, a businessman who is a motorcycle enthusiast.

A poster touting the run includes a picture of Bolis holding her daughter, who will turn 3 in August. They are sitting on Charlie Donato's Harley.

"Look at that smile," Mary Donato says, pointing to the picture of her oldest daughter. Then she brings out a collage of photos, dozens affixed to several poster boards, photos of Bolis as a baby, as a child, a teenager, a grown woman.

"The smile never changes," her father says. "She was just a wonderful kid."

The purpose of the bike run is twofold: to raise money for a college fund for Mia, and to raise awareness about safe driving.

None of it will bring Bolis back, Mary Donato says, but maybe it will help another family avoid the unspeakable anguish that she, her husband, and their other daughters, Annette, 24, and Angela, 22, have been dealing with for the last 51/2 weeks.

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