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People we remember
Biographies are where we share about family & friends to connect with others who remember them.
Stephen Sardi:
"I'd like to give credit where credit is due. Thank you -- AncientFaces team!!
I had dropped by AncientFaces for many years prior to writing about my brother. I wasn't ready -- but clearly AncientFaces was -- at any time. For a long time, I just couldn't find the internal will to remember my love for my brother in detail.
I used to think that what I knew about my brother would be handed down to family members. As time has gone by, though, the family has remained apart. I don't have access to those who might benefit from hearing these stories about their relative who died way too young. I want them to feel pride and perhaps an 'aha!' moment when they think about what they might have inherited from him.
Maybe, also -- there is just no interest. That's why AncientFaces is such a critical way for people like me to preserve history. The person I write about had a great, interesting life and his effect on me lingers to this day. He deserves to be remembered.
Someday, someone out there will stumble on my musings and learn something about their distant relative. He was a young man with hopes, dreams, and a bright future. He was and would have been a valuable member of society, contributing in many positive ways. His death made the world a poorer and less happy place.
Thank you, AncientFaces team -- without you, the memories would die and there would only be a simple stone in a cemetery informing the world of absolutely nothing. Thank you for the chance to give my brother a little hope for immortality in the digital age."
Nancy Lewis:
Jennie Kenline was my dad’s great aunt. Our family was the only family she had, as far as I knew. I don’t remember how old I was when I first met her. Fairly young I’d say. As long as I knew her, until she moved in with my parents the last year of her life, she lived in Paradise, California. A lovely small town, then, in the mountains where the air smelled fresh and of pine trees. She owned a small house that was divided into two living areas. The smaller part was rented to another elderly woman named Katherine. They would communicate through a ‘window’ with a sliding hatch. I loved visiting Aunt Jennie. It was so peaceful and calm. She had no neighbors that could be seen because of all the tall trees. She had a screened in little summer house (really just a long rectangular building with half walls and half screening on all sides-some old furniture covered in bedspreads and sheets) where I would spend endless days enjoying cool breezes and reading endless stacks of very old Readers Digest issues. I slept out there, too. Since we only visited in the summer, the nights were cool, but not cold. Things smelled a bit dusty, but it was a friendly sort of smell. No one else ever spent time there, so it was my special place. Every evening about 5:00 Aunt Jennie would step out to her graveled driveway, set back in the trees away from the road, and call her cats. She had a special call for them and they listened. They were feral cats that she felt sorry for and would set out food every night. She was the only one they would come near. When she called them it would take a few minutes before you would see them cautiously peeking out of the woods. Looking for danger. Making sure no one else was around. I would be watching out the screen of the summer house as she called, so entranced to watch each cat come to eat. There were a couple of dozen. All colors and sizes. I felt such love for this small, hunched old lady who didn’t have much, but she was happy to care for animals without a home.
Her stove had a jar into which went every bit of grease left over from cooking. This was then added to whatever kind of gravy she was adding to the meal. I didn’t like gravy at the time, but everyone else absolutely loved her gravy. Though I’m willing to bet that they were a bit anxious about how old the contents of that jar were.
Aunt Jennie was sweet, kind and cheerful. Whenever something tickled, annoyed, or made her anxious, she would a “a ditty’s sake, a ditty’s sake” a number of times.
Things changed rapidly in Paradise during the ‘70s. A lot of development, vacation homes and increasing population began to change the entire feel of the town. A town that used to completely shut down at 6 pm each night. I got married and moved away, only seeing her once more before she passed away. My parents had her move in with them, she was 98 after all; but I think she was ashamed of being dependent on someone else. Having to leave her trees, cats and home to live in the city (suburb of Los Angeles) stole her will to live.
I wish now that I’d spent more time with her. Listened to stories of her youth. Let her know more often that she was loved.
It would be wonderful to know if anyone out there also has memories of her.
Tyrus Zavotsky:
He and his late wife Virginia have twin grandsons through their second daughter Carol named Andrew and Timothy. Their son-in-law,John Cowley,who happens to be the father of his twin grandsons,had them just 3 days before his 49th birthday,which does seem a little bit older at the time. Their second daughter and son-in-law also happen to have a 16-year age difference between one another in other words,which is probably not much of a big deal at the time. She was in her late 20s and he was in his mid 40s at the time when they got married to one another. They have no grandchildren through their first daughter,Mary,since she never got married and also has no children of her own.
James Pannozzi:
Walter B. Suesman was a prominent Rhode Islander Chess player, a Master - Walter B. Suesman attained a rating of Master of Chess after participating in several U.S. Open tournaments in the late 1930's and into the 1940's. He was often at the Providence Chess Club in the 2d floor of an old building on Aborn St. in Providence, long since demolished, and he also ran a Chess column with news, games and Chess problems in the Wednesday Providence Journal Evening Bulletin for over 40 years.
He played in club matches and was an inspiration to the younger players like myself in the early 1960's when I was in high school. Later on I would run into him during the lunch hours catching some sun near the Turk's Head building in downtown Providence in the early 1970's where he had a day job doing accounting work and I was working over at the nearby Providence Washington Insurance company as a computer programmer.
He was a friend of Al Martin, another master of chess who had also played in U.S. Open tournaments. It was Martin who payed the rent that allowed the chess club to exist. On a hot summer night in the mid 1960's we would be playing chess with the windows open for air, fans going, and music from the wild Pirate's Den bar across the street would come in. A newsletter written by a Mr. Dwyer, the Providence Chess Club bulletin, produced monthly, has descriptions of the environment, the people and tournaments if you can find a copy. Other top players at the club were Henry Sonnenschein, Herman Rose, G.M. Irwin, William Parberry, Gary L. John, and Warren Chamandy and Robert Barry.
Steve Mcmahel:
Pappaw - My grandfather -Pappaw- was such a good man. He loved the Lord and served in his church regularly. He loved shuffle board and working with tools. He taught me to be a man and showed me how to sharpen knives and work on cars and enjoy life. You are missed and remembered this 25th anniversary of your going to heaven.
See you soon Pappaw. Give my love to Mammaw and Mom and Dad and Jon and so many others in Glory.
Kristielynn Avato:
Lost relatives - Fredrika Scherry McCauley was my great great grandmother, me and my mother were talking about her tonight and she showed me a picture of her on her 105th birthday. She told stories of how she use to watch the NY Yankees from the roof top of her apartment in the Bronx. I am Ethel graces great grand child and have recently learned that there was a family division with the graces and McCauleys. Hoping this finds someone I may not know I’m related to !
Anthony Louis:
Luigi Cresta Is my Grandpa - He was my grandpa and I heard some stories about him from my mom, Also I really want to know more about him I want to know what time that he died, I was born at 4:24 AM and I really want to tell him that I am his grandson I bet he had good life and I’ll will always remember him forever.
Misty Metoyer:
This is my daddy ❤️ - I thank him for loving me. All the stories I've heard and been told... I feel like I know him even if I don't remember. My daddy had me and my brother. My brother use to share stories of how he would get him to go sleep, by tacking a dollar above his bed, lol.
My daddy named me, i was told he would come home and just get to yelling, Where's my Mimi." My moma said I was his favorite girl. He would just sit and hold me, tell me how pretty I was. I was told thats why I was spoiled, it all started with my daddy.
The stories from him being athletic and funny to being a baker, avid bowler, and pool player. From all the stories, I can definitely see our similarities. Im stamped by my father and proud.
I've had strangers walk up to me and ask me directly...am I a Metoyer. Soon as I say yes, its a gasp..they ask...are you Terry Metoyer's daughter. You look just like him and your Auntie Gina.
This is what makes me proud. Its been 40+ years and people still think of him, talk of him, and are reminded of him.
His spirit may have moved on but he's present in everything I do and am. I see it in my kids...what's from my daddy. In me, from head to toe. I see him in my face and I always say, that's my daddy.
With age, I've never felt more love and understanding of all my daddy was. Seeing this restored my faith in knowing he will never be forgotten nor will it ever be questioned on how much he's missed.
This page has touched my heart. I'm happy to see this page created for my daddy. I'll be sure to post the remaining pictures I have. Warning...he was gorgeous!!!!
Thank you for allowing me to share.
Cynthia Salazar:
Bruce was cousin. We were very very close growing up along with Mark Liz and my brother Chris. I don't know how all of this happened so fast it seems like. Just a dream. Last thing I remember we are in Yucca Valley Calif. listening to Frank Zappa and Jeff Beck drinking one Moose head bear both of us and being plastered. We laughed and got sick together along with my Aunt Carol. Best memory in my entire life!!!! I felt like I had brother and a real loving family. Bruce and I belonged in California. Vans shoes, Chucky Cheese, 3 wheelers. Los Angeles. You will always be my brother/Bruce. I miss you terribly. Life hasn't been the same since you left us. Love you little thumb sucking dingo boot wearing boy.
Laura Kaye Biddle:
Philip Biddle is 15 years old in this photo.