We Have Many Special Gifts

And many special days.

Updated December 2024

This page is dedicated to our free-spirit children, one especially that we desire never to be tamed . . . allowed to stay fresh and filled with the love of life, our Hopie, sprinkled now and then with a teaspoon of common sense from her loving parents. And there are John, Mark, and Matthew, our being proud of the achievements of these young men along with our Bill, a Trophy Winner in the 2007 National Truck Safety Rodeo.

Below you can see Hope (Hopie), who visited North Carolina in November of 2005. This section represents a few moments of time that she spent here in the state's beautiful western mountain chain.

And there are many other pictures below of other visits of more of our crew, along with a dedication to someone who was very special to all of them, Matt D.

 

October 22, 2005. Sunset seen from the Lodge on Wolf Ridge, Wolf Laurel, western North Carolina.

2015 Thanksgiving of the kids and guests at Mark's home in New Jersey. Mom and dad are in North Carolina, seen on the smartphone screen Mark is holding up.

A Potter's Night: Father and daughter night at Browncroft Church in Rochester, NY, January 2016

Dedicated to Matt Delorenzo, Youth Pastor, Pompton Plains, New Jersey

Web site dedicated to his service

Matt was taken from us on August 25, 2008, after a nine-mouth struggle against Leukemia, his last breath in the presence of his loving family.

Matt's reaching out to our own four children, when they were struggling in their teenage years in the mid to late 1990's in New Jersey, was immeasurable. His guiding hand had assisted those young minds to become the adults we are proud of today.

And we give tribute to Matt's very special wife that shared her husband night after night with so many lost young souls, allowing them to become aware that there could be a more fulfilling and responsible journey for their lives. Many of those efforts by Matt changed untold minds forever. Hearing the deep sadness of his death in the voices of our own proved he had made a difference.

They say the ultimate truth in life is that you leave the world better than how you found it. And that is exactly what Matt achieved to the very end.

"We will all miss you dearly, Matt, as will hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other families whose children you never gave up on. God speed, my friend."

Photo of my Swedish grandmother, while visiting my parents in Florida in the early 1950's. I remember visiting her in what they called the servant's quarters at an estate in Mt. Kisco, New York, in 1944 where my grandfather worked. At that time she had already lost two of three sons that had come with her to the United States through Ellis Island, Evald and Stig, one to food poisoning in a middle school and the other to polio while in high school.

Although I was only about three years old at the time, I remember her saying nothing as tears ran down her face while I was sitting with her at a small, white metal kitchen table, her cigarette smoke twisting its way along her sad face. I later discovered they had gotten word that their third son was missing off of Okinawa in WWII.

He was eventually found, having to go across the island with the Marines after the shore boat he was driving died on the beach.

Ray Lowrey's dance band that played in Peach Lake, New York, 1948.

Dad played the sax while Allen See played drums (aka Gavin McLeod) to later become Captain of the Love Boat.

During their gigs they would put mops on their heads and imitate the Andrew Sisters.

Liberace

Victor Borge