My First Sister For twenty five years I did not have a sister. I got one free when I married the greatest girl in the world. A sister is different. She is not a wife, she is not a mother, she is not even a best friend - she is special and has to be treated special. She is a maid of honor, a teacher, and the keeper of your mother-in-law. She comes to see you frequently and talks about her classes and politics and TV shows. She listens a lot. She cares about you and her sister and her nephews and nieces. She comes to all the holidays and brings presents for the children. She loans you books and tapes and borrows yours. She cares about what you care about. She finds a fine friend and marries into a life of teaching and antiquing that fills her life with pleasure and knowledge of our country. She spreads this knowledge to family and students. I love my first sister and am awfully proud to have known her.

This is a message to my family, Pat's husband and Pat's friends. Frank, she loved you like the brother we never had and respected your love for history and your belief in the goodness of man. My dear Bill, Tim and Nancy you were to her the sons and daughter she never had. Your sons and daughters, Chris, Julie, Patricia, Kenny and Danny, were as close as grandchildren could be and not be her own. She loved you well; yet she never took from me a share of my love for all of you. It was all her own. She had so much to give. Mac, with you she shared a truly happy marriage just 5 days short of forty-seven years. She took to your family and loved them as well as you did. She took a great deal of joy in keeping in touch with them though they lived so far away and as everything else she did, she did it well. She loved you with all her heart and took delight in your love for her and appreciated beyond words all your loving care. She was the loving example of the saying that hangs on our living room wall- "To have a friend you must be a friend." She was a friend for many years to so many wonderful people. Her friendship reached back as far as those she loved in grade school and she nurtured those friendships her whole life long. She made new friends wherever she went and developed close friendships with more wonderful people. So many people with whom she taught were so much more than co-workers. They became an important part of her life. She touched the lives of literally over a thousand students in a meaningful way. She was a favorite teacher to all the favorite students to whom she never failed to make known her concern and cares. Although she was honored and praised so much throughout her career she always felt there was so much more she could do, and she did it. She had time for everyone. She was pleasant and smiling and amusing (always so entertaining) to all of us. You always left her presence feeling uplifted and I think that was her goal. She will be missed by the many whose lives she graced with her presence. She rests, peacefully now in the arms of our Lord.