Tag Archives: family

Skelly Family Reunion

The week prior to the 4th of July weekend we worked to empty our house of furniture such that all the hardwood floors could be refinished while we were gone.  Saturday morning Billie Jo came to our house and we drove 2 cars to Syracuse to meet with Ed & family and proceeded to Rochester for the Skelly Family reunion.  There were 120-130 attendees.  Each family unit was organized by Tribe.  The tribe of John Francis Skelly is shown below.

Back row: Tom, Debby, Tim, Sarah, Chris, John, Billie Jo, Reid, Danielle, Pat and Janice
Middle row: Jim, Kathryn, Ed, Kellee
Front row: Dakota, Izzabella, Eric

Easter Weekend

Eric had vacation on Good Friday and spent the day at Trevor’s, riding his bike and crashing into wood and brush.  Saturday Kathryn went grocery shopping and Eric went out for lunch with Molly Skelly and her boyfriend.  We largely spent the day picking up the house, moving furniture, sweeping, mopping and recovering from the construction.  Even though the walls were exposed sheet rock it was nice to get our living room back. Late in the afternoon I drained the hot tub and hooked up the warm water to Eric’s Slip & Slide.  He held Slip & Slide competitions (Speed, Distance, Stunt and Freestyle) versus imaginary competitors.  I sat in the lawn chair with a cold beverage and announced the events.

Sunday we were joined by the Barb/Joe, and the tribes of Ed and Billie Jo for Easter.  First, up was an Easter Egg hunt to recover the 74 eggs stuffed and hidden by Kathryn.  Next we enjoyed a feast of salmon, orange roasted pork loin, scalloped potatoes, salad, broccoli, and blue berry muffins followed by dessert of pies and jellyroll.  It was yummy.

We managed to get everything picked up after our guests left and crashed for the night.

April Fools Dinner

For the past 28 years we have done an April Fools Dinner.  The format is crazy attire, sloppy food, eating dessert first, and using kitchen utensils.  Below you can see our table setting; no plates or normal bowls.  Eric and Jim are properly dressed for the occasion.

First on the menu is pudding; scooped and eaten from coffee travel mugs by Eric and Kathryn .

Next is spaghetti – whatever way you can get it in your mouth.

Now why doesn’t this catch on as a National Holiday?

Alice Muller February 18, 1920 – March 25, 2010

Facts

Born: February 18, 1920
Place of Birth: Albany, NY
Death: March 25, 2010
Place of Death: Baptist Health & Rehabilitation Center
Occupation: Homemaker
Organizations: Colonial Heritage Association, Schoharie County Historical Society, Home Bureau, Schoharie Valley Eastern Star, 4-H, Schoharie 50-Plus Club, Cobleskill Regional Hospital Auxiliary, Scho-Wright Ambulance Service, Bethany Evangelical Lutheran Church

Biography

Cobleskill (Schoharie County): Alice Muller 90, of Early Woodlands Apartments died Thursday, March 25th after being stricken.Alice was born February 18, 1920 in Albany a daughter of Alva and Edith (Bellinger) Tryon and graduated from Schoharie High School in 1938. She was a homemaker and had also worked at the former Elm Store in Schoharie, Wohl’s Department Store in Schoharie and Cobleskill, the Schoharie County Jail as Matron and Cook and also assisted on the family dairy farm in Howes Cave and Warner Hill Road in Schoharie.

Mrs. Muller was a member of the Colonial Heritage Association, the Schoharie County Historical Society, Home Bureau at Cooperative Extension, Schoharie Valley Eastern Star, 4-H leader, Schoharie 50-Plus Club where she also served as President, volunteer at the Cobleskill Regional Hospital Auxiliary and Scho-Wright Ambulance Service, a longtime member of Bethany Evangelical Lutheran Church where she also served on the Council and was a Sunday School Teacher at the former Community Church in Schoharie.

She was married to William Clifford Muller on May 18, 1941 until his death October 18, 2006. Survivors include her children Jeanne (Lester) Hay of Carlisle, Barbara (C. Joseph) Waring of Delanson, James Richard (Kathryn) Muller of Holland Patent and Robert William (Linda) Muller of Delanson, one sister Marie Muller of Schoharie and several grandchildren, great-grandchildren and several nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by one brother William Tryon in January of 2004.

A service to celebrate the life of Alice Muller will be held at 2:00 PM on Monday, March 29th at the Bethany Evangelical Lutheran Church, Church Street Central Bridge with burial following in the Old Stone Fort Cemetery, Schoharie. There will be no calling hours.

Memorial contributions may be made in memory of Mrs. Muller to Bethany Evangelical Lutheran Church, PO Box 273, Central Bridge, NY 12035 OR to Scho-Wright Ambulance Service, PO Box 325, Schoharie, NY 12157.

I spent Friday night, 12 March, with Mom.  I called her from Lawyersville and asked her what she wanted me to pickup for dinner.  She told me to choose, so I picked up Arby’s as I knew she had eaten from there before and liked their curly fries.  We had dinner, visited and I showed her a bunch of pictures that were on my computer.  I washed dishes and we looked at the newspaper to see if there was a good basketball game to watch.  We ended up watching Georgetown play Marquette in the Big East Tournament semi-finals. We watched with the sound off and either provided our own commentary or talked about other things; Eric’s activities, the re-modeling on the house, etc.

She especially liked the story I told her about Eric’s school having a kitchen fire and him eating lunch in the middle school where their pizza was so much better because they put more salt and more sugar in their recipe.  It was a story she asked me to repeat when she was in the hospital later on.

We went to sleep after the game and I slept through the night.  About 6:20am I heard a noise in Mom’s bedroom and then some unintelligible speech.  I called out “Mom, are you OK?”  When I didn’t hear a reply I went in to check where I found her trying to use her walker get to the bathroom.  She was slumped over to the left side, her speech was unintelligible, but her intent was clear.  I immediately called 911 and worked to get her lying down in her bed.  Once I got her resting I called Jeanne and told her of the situation and asked her to inform the rest of the family.

On Thursday night I woke up at 3am and was unable to sleep.  After an hour of tossing and turning I snuck out to the hot tub for 45 minutes. It was a clear night and I saw two brief flashes; one to my west and one to the east; that might have been shooting stars.  But there was one long, unmistakable shooting star heading south to north directly overhead.  I felt strongly that was her passing.

I feel fortunate that I was able to feed Mom several meals and quench her thirst with ice chips while she was hospitalized at Ellis.

SCS Reunion Planning

During the Howe Cavern’s Reunion in July 2009 I talked with Martha (Tripp) Garing about a multi-year SCS Reunion.  We held planning meeting in early December and resolved to have a 1970-75 reunion scheduled for 18 September 2010.

We held a 2nd planning meeting on 6 February.  I spent the night prior in Cobleskill with my Mom.  We shared Chinese food and stories.

The following day we met at Howe Cavern’s for our meeting.  Below Katie Benninger, Jeff DeGroff, Rick Herrick, Bob Holt, Barb (Dutton) Haverly, Regina Tator, Marilyn Henry, Deb (Vanderwerken) Schaffer, and Martha (Tripp) Garing hatch great plans.

1st Week of September

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We celebrated Billie Jo’s Birthday by making dinner and a cake for her. There was a little ‘texting’ mix up between Billie and Kathryn on cake preferences with Kathryn misinterpreting Billie’s NEthing but chocolate. It was still a good cake and once the candles were extinguished we tortured Billie Jo with questions and she had to remain mum to ensure her birthday wish would come true.

Eric learned to ride his 2 wheel bike this week and can’t get enough riding. Kathryn took him to the Eric Canal bike trail on Saturday and they rode from Oriskany to the Marcy Locks. On Monday they went on the Black River Feeder Canal Bike trail and saw some bear scat. This teachable moment warranted a picture and some scat was captured in a ziploc bag to be brought home to show me. Eric told me he had a ‘present’ for me – little did I know it was bear poo.0907091142

Tuesday morning Eric was dressed for his 1st day of school. Kathryn had to leave before the bus came in order to make it to teach her 8:30 class, so I put Eric on the bus. While we were waiting Eric asked me “How many more years, Dad?”. I told him he was going to school through 12th grade. He said, “No, until summer vacation again.” I said 179 days at which point he swooned, or at least the 1st grader equivalent. I told him that was less than a full year as there are 365 days in the year which seemed to appease him. He was comfortable going to school this year as he had met his teacher and was looking forward to seeing his bus driver again.

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