Family Details: 1999-11-12
Hi [Lynn].
Going back in time a bit, and responding to some of your older letters, which as of yet, I have not gotten to. Since you’ve mentioned a bit about your family, I’ll send you this bit on mine.
Well, there are five of us, me being the oldest with 4 younger sisters. Christine and Diane are twins that occupy the next younger spot from me. Christine has two boys. Garrett is 11 years old and Grant is 6. She is happily married and lives in a small 2-story home in rural Pennsylvania, in a town called Sinking Valley. Diane, Christine’s twin, rents a home from Christine just 2 doors away. The twins are 38 years old. Christine teaches elementary students in the Bellwood, PA school system, our home town, and loves the Internet also. Diane used to work in the home nursing industry in Tyrone, PA. But recently, she switched careers, and now works for a medical software company. She is unmarried, but has been dating a very nice man, Roger, for close to a decade now.
Mary Ann is 13 months younger than the twins, and works as a hospital administrator. She and her husband Tom live in State College, PA, They and their two daughters (Jessica and Allison) go to just about all the Penn State home games. Mary Ann is very much into keeping all the immediate family close and in touch with and about one another. She just learned how to use email and for Christmas, she and Tom bought a computer for the family. Needless to say, she emails me often. Tom was a chemical engineer until about two years ago. Now, I believe he manages a large department in a chemical manufacturing firm.
Finally, there’s Joann who is 14 months younger than Mary Ann, the baby of the siblings. She and her furniture salesman husband live in a 4-bedroom 2-story home in Bellwood, just one block from the house where we all grew up. She’s very maternal with two happy boys and a girl. Trey is 8 years old, and Tyler is 4. Katie, the youngest, is 2 (I think). Joann is the most outwardly loving of us all, and she is my best friend. Her profession is dental hygiene but she also dabbles in painting, artistic flower arrangements, and other activities that result in pretty, warm looking decorations that really turn a bland house into a cozy happy home. She’s a great homemaker.
Oh yes, and I don’t want to leave out Mom and Dad. Although Dad passed away in 1997, Mom still lives in the house they shared, and the one she grew up in, on the outskirts of Bellwood. Once us kids left, Donna (Mom) and Tom (Dad) sold the big house in Bellwood and moved closer to the mountains, and bought their last house together, from her Mom and Dad’s estate. This, my Dad loved since he enjoyed hunting and fishing. It has a little river at the bottom of the back yard, with the base of Brush Mountain just on the other side of that river. Their property is situated on about 2 acres of lush green meadowland with lots of tall spruce trees for shade. And Dad spent lots of time in the yard making flowerbeds, tiling his garden, and hiking up the mountain. He was also a skilled carpenter and in his all-to-short 3-year retirement, built many decks for family and friends, and assisted me with my house when I owned one in Dayton, OH a few years ago. He died at 61 years old, but had nary a gray hair. He was a very quiet man, never chattering at all. Outwardly he was somewhat unemotional. But we kids knew that he was a very feeling person, just a bit shy about speaking it. He spoke with actions. In fact, I used to call him “The Man of Action”. He and I were never really that close. But I was fortunate enough to spend some of his last days of lucidity with him, discussing the past, his ideas on life, and resolving any outstanding issues, although we had none. His death surprised me a great deal. I would have thought, that given our emotional distance from each other, that I would not miss him as much as I have. But I still miss him, and it has been over two years since is passing. But more on that sometime later . . . 
Mom is also a very feeling and emotional person. Unlike Dad, she is far less reserved about showing it, offering hearty hugs to both her friends, and even strangers that come home with us kids to visit. At 58 years old, she baby-sits for Christine and Joann, does lots of baking and cooking around the holidays, and especially enjoys entertaining and hosting various sized get-togethers at her house.
She lives with a MUCH younger man now (he is ten years younger than myself). We kids were a bit taken aback when we learned of it. But I am comforted by how happy he makes her. After Dad died, she was devastated for over a year, until she met Curt. Then, her health improved, she began going out dancing a few times a week, and became more involved with the here-and-now, and was able to put Dad’s death behind her. She began to glow again. Now I am still adjusting to this younger man in her life. But I’ve talked with him and he seems compassionate and he genuinely cares about her. And while he is not one I would have picked for her, I am gratified to see the joy he brings to her life, and so I encourage their involvement.
Is that enough detail for you?
