thank you

 I just want to thank everyone for their prayers

    My brother Carl passed away this evening.

    While his death was not unexpected, it still hurts.

    He was 8 years older than me.  For you non math majors, that means when he was 18 I was 10.  Not a lot of 18 year olds want to hang around a 10 year old.

    He went to college, first at the U of I at Navy Pier then he went down to Champaign-Urbana, where he and our cousin Bob rented a mobile home.

    So I really didn't spend a lot of time with him as I was growing up.

    When I went to school, he helped move me from home to DeKalb.  He and Ruth provided me with many weekend dinners at their house in Rockford.

    We got our first dog, Snooty, from a litter their dog had.  

    As we got older, we did become closer.  He would do our taxes, we would visit, there would be occasional family gatherings but it wasn't until he and Ruth got a home in Florida for the winter that we became closer.

    Carl would listen to the weather for Rockford in mid January and then call me, usually before 8 a.m., to tell me it was -6 in Rochelle but it was 85 in Florida.  Then he would give his Carl laugh, followed by "Geezus!  -6!!"

    He hated the cold weather, for sure.

    They sold the Florida place and I don't think he was happy about  spending a winter in Illinois.  

    He was the family historian.  It was from him I found out my Aunt Kay was the first, or one of the first, female traders on the Board of Trade in Chicago.  He also told me I was actually the fourth child, that my mother had lost a baby at some point.

    I have a box of phots in the basement I was going to have him look at with me to identify the people , places, and occasions.

    I will miss him, his weird jokes and sense of humor's the calls about the weather.....and the times we should have spent together but didn't.

    Please pray for Ruth, Jason, Laurie and their families. 

    Peace be with you, my brother.

Peace and Love