Sidney Townsley's bedroom is full of photographs: his wedding half a century ago, daughters, sons, grandchildren. His wife, Mary, smiling, gray hair soft around her face, so different from what she became at the end.

"This is my family," he says quietly, "and they're here with me."

There is a quilt above his bed — it's his favorite of the dozen or more he's made. Named "Black Hole" for its mysterious point of origin, there are patches of darkness with splashes of brilliant yellows, pinks and oranges. It could be a metaphorical illustration of his life.

At 83, Townsley's years as a scientist — including research at Coconut Island in coral, and his time developing science programs at the University of Hawai'i — are past. But his more recent passions — sewing and quilting — fulfilled a need to create, and became a tool that softened the pain of his wife's Alzheimer's.

On his lap is his latest quilt, and a book with photos of the others he's made. One, in the shape of a Christmas tree, was made for Mary, a labor of love for a woman slowly lost to him as she sank into the dementia of Alzheimer's disease.

"She sat all Christmas with that over her lap, running her hands over it," he remembers. "It was good. ... I had to find things to make her happy."

A shadow passes Townsley's face as he speaks of his wife and how each day in her last years called for utmost patience, something he's not known for, he says.

There were times he wept, sitting at the dining room table. And times of brief peace when her restlessness and intermittent rages washed into moments of calm.

At the end, the quilting and sewing he had come to love became something that bound them together.

It was something he could do for her. Some small thing that seemed to give her pleasure.

As Mary Townsley's dementia worsened, Sidney sewed clothes easy for her to slip on and off. Mu'umu'u that opened up in front. Shirts with ties.

And he found help through Project Dana at the Buddhist Temple and the Alzheimer's Association, which sent volunteers to sit with her for periods so he could escape to work or to attend a support group.

"As she got worse, I needed something to occupy her mind," he says. "I was having a terrible time working and trying to take care of her. She got so she didn't like me. She liked the children."

A NEW BEHAVIOR

For Alzheimer's patients, disoriented, angry or uncooperative behavior is common, say Alzheimer's experts and those who have watched loved ones changed by the disease of aging.

The effects can vary, said Janet Eli, president and CEO of Hawai'i's Aloha Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association.

"Some people become these wonderful little angels, compliant and passive," said Eli, "and others develop personality traits that are extremely difficult for loved ones. The person is going back in time, losing their most recent memory. She may not remember who he is. Who is this old person telling them what to do? The man she remembers marrying was in his 20s."

Eli said the personality change may either be part of the disease process, or perhaps reaction to physical pain the person can no longer describe.

"In some instances there needs to be medical intervention," says Eli. "If they have a new behavior, there needs to be medical assessment."

However there are also times, said Eli, when the behavior becomes the person's way of communicating.

"That's what they have left."

For Townsley, managing Mary's deteriorating condition became a challenge of will, compassion, and ingenuity. Music would soothe her. So would strudel — a food she remembered from her German childhood.

And when she died 10 years ago, he was left with a mixture of memories, and the quilts she left behind.

EMOTION AND COLOR

Townsley is a man of science, a marine biologist and zoologist, who spent eight years in research at Coconut Island early in his Hawai'i career, who ran the biology department at the University of Hawai'i, who was an ecologist before it was popular. Mary Fuss Townsley was also brilliant, a chemist.

They met at UH when he was a graduate student in the late 1940s. After his Ph.D. work at Yale, they returned to Hawai'i, where he taught and continued his research. Much of his work involved the study of fish metabolism, and he examined sea cucumber aquaculture as providing a secure protein source for the world.

Mary taught too. Chemistry at Kalani. Chemistry and math at Punahou.

But Townsley is also a man of emotion, drawn to color and texture, with a closet full of shirts he made himself, and fabric waiting to be sewn.

Thirty years ago his children gave him a Father's Day gift — a certificate to take a class in tailoring at Kuni Dry Goods, after he had enjoyed struggling with needlepoint to keep himself active while recuperating from back surgery. The needlepoint was abysmal, he remembers, but he loved tailoring.

The only man in the class, he wasn't deterred, quickly whipping up clothes for Mary and his daughters. Pants and shirts. Shorts and dresses. Only his sons declined, he remembers, preferring designer shirts to Dad's.

Last year, sewing became a challenge. While training for what was going to be his last marathon, he cracked a shoulder doing push-ups. Strangely enough, it saved his life. The MRI revealed a pulmonary embolism. But complications from treatment damaged blood vessels in his right leg, making walking difficult.

The quilting continues, however. And his recovery in the Hi'olani Care Center at Kahala Nui, the senior living community where he moved after Mary's death, meant having time to plan for more.

Townsley is scheduled to have surgery to replace his collarbone, but he's already pondering designs for new quilts. He rises painfully from his easy chair and walks slowly to a shelf next to the dining room table, rustling through a stack of fabrics.

"I wish I were a painter," he muses, and his gaze escapes out the living room windows to the rich tropical foliage beyond, inspiration for one of what he plans next — maybe a garden scene through a stained glass window. "I love the greens," he says. "It will be like a Monet."

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com.