Kenneth Leroy Larish was known by his family as Jack. Jack was a self-assured man of average height, with a great sense of humor, and loved to smoke cigars. He owned a dry cleaning business in Bloomsburg for many years, where his mother Lula Larish and sister Martha Koons worked as seamstresses, and his nephew Bob Koons worked when he got out of the Navy. Later, Jack sold cars in his own car lot down near Danville. He loved horses, and was always involved in the sulky races at the Bloomsburg Fair and at races in upstate New York. He bought a farm down in Washingtonville, which is near Danville PA, and I believe raised some horses there. Uncle Jack had the Larish sense of humor. One Christmas, while everyone sat around the Koons house in Espy, Uncle Jack sat there with a cigar that had about 4 inches of ashes ready to fall off. His neice Louann Koons ran back in the kitchen, got an ashtray, and held it under Uncle Jacks cigar so the ashes wouldn't fall off on the floor. Uncle Jack had been waiting for someone to come to the rescue, and he reached up and pulled out the fake ashes that he had plugged into his cigar, and put it in the ashtray. Boy, was Louann surprised, and everybody got a good laugh. In Lula Larish's bible, we found a poem printed on a card written by Uncle Jack. It read:
"My Friends"
"At last I know the value of my friends,
As I wait for time to make amends,
Have had the care of nurses fair,
And doctors too, have done their share
Flowers, cards and telephones too,
Have kept me thinking about you,
I hope that the day is very far,
When you need a hospital - fine as they are,
But if you do, may God help me to be
As grand a friend as you have been to me."
"My Friends"
"At last I know the value of my friends,
As I wait for time to make amends,
Have had the care of nurses fair,
And doctors too, have done their share
Flowers, cards and telephones too,
Have kept me thinking about you,
I hope that the day is very far,
When you need a hospital - fine as they are,
But if you do, may God help me to be
As grand a friend as you have been to me."
