Remembering My Dad

Growing up with my dad was full of adventure.  He loved to travel.  Most weekends we were taking a ride "somewhere".  He always drove a convertible and back then kerchiefs were in style to contain our hair.  He also was a "rock hound".  He took us to places like Franklin, NJ and Herkimer, NY to hunt for fluorescent rocks or herkimer diamonds.  He started out trading at rock club meet ups.  Then that led to selling.  When I was about five and in school full time, we started doing gem and mineral shows.  This meant packing a station wagon full of tables,  and displays of rocks, minerals, fossils and jewelry.  Sometimes we would pick my dad up on the parkway to save time.  He would walk there from Fort Monmouth where he worked.  Most of the shows were in New England, upstate New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.  The most important was the International Gem and Mineral Show in Washington DC, where he would compete in setting up exhibits.  

We would arrive home late Sunday night to start back at a full

week of school and my dad would go right back to work.  We did this for many years and looking back, it was a very rigorous schedule.  But, my dad was very driven, and I didn't know life any different.  My dad retired from Fort Monmouth in Eatontown, NJ  when he was fifty five.  He continued to do shows, but was able to settle down a bit when my mom and he rented a showroom in Miami, Florida.  My mom's parents were in Florida and they stayed with them, as my grandparents could use the help.

After my grandparents passed away my dad would just do local flea markets in Manasquan and Allaire State Park.  He said after all the traveling, it was best to just support the local markets.  My dad passed away in 2003 living until the age of 80.  He was diagnosed with Alzhiemers about ten years before.

He never really offered up too much information of his history.  He had a sister in Metuchen and we would visit together about once a year.  For some reason I never asked my dad much.  He was a very private person.  But, a very smart person, who taught me a lot.  I know he served in the army during World War 2 and married my mom when he was thirty.   I was the youngest of three.  My brother Randolph passed away at the age of sixty in 2016 and my sister Cheryl lives in Tennesee.

My mom was diagnosed with alzhiemers in 2012 and passed away this February.  For some reason I started on the internet searching my dad's name and seeing if there was anything to read about my family.  

I came across this place pictured.  I was able to match the names up with a family tree I have.  I went up there last week.  It was a beautiful amount of land in suburban Basking Ridge, NJ.  The best is next to it was another farm and then Sunrise an adult community.  My dad had spent the last two years of his life at the Sunrise in Wall Township.  On father's day I wrote to the Art's Farmstead and told them about the painting of my dad's.

This painting hung in the living room of our house until the house was sold in 2003.  I know it is more then 60 years old.  My mom had it hanging on her wall at Seabrook village.  I knew I wanted the painting.  But, when I read about the Arts Farmstead with the connection to the Stelle's, I know it is meant to be there.  

I never knew my dad as a painter.  I knew he loved to design necklaces, bolo ties and little sculptures of Mexican onyx figure on slabs of rock or in geodes.  He also loved to collect soapstone and ivory figurines.  There were some magnificent asian figures made out of rose quartz and tiger's eye that meant a lot to him.  

He was full of information of everything he owned and would share with customers  lots of information of where something was from.  He was very knowledgable about fossils and had a huge collection of arrow heads, shark's teeth and amber. 

I wish I knew the painter side of my dad.  I just knew he graduated from University of West Virginia.  His first job

was with Standard Oil and then as an electrical engineer with Fort Monmouth.  I knew he was good at what he did, because he had a lot of awards

on the wall in our family room.  My dad died right before computers became popular.  He would have loved to have had all that information at his fingertips.  He had a huge vinyl record and National Geographic magazine collection.  He also would have loved to been able to make stickers to identify all of his inventory of his collection called Stelle's Stones.

When I received my degree in Art at Georgian Court College, he divulged to me he would have liked to have pursued a career in Graphic Arts.  He was an excellent provider for our family and he was also able to pursue his hobbies.  In the end this made me  happy for him, because he may have sacraficed for his family, but he was able to do what he loved in his spare time.  He was a great father and a good example of how to share your talents with the public.  

He did like to grow plants and care for them, also.  When he retired  I admired that he would buy geraniums and bring them in for the winter.  He would nurture them and keep them in the windows of the dining room and put them out again in the summer.  One of my favorite funny memories of him while he lived in Sunrise was I bought him some fake geraniums to brighten his room.  One day, he went and filled up a glass of water and watered them in front of me.  He looked at me and said, "these are doing quite well!" Alzhiemer's is a cruel disease.  I don't think my parents suffered from the disease, I think they were lucky to spend their final years in a child like way.  My dad would often thank my mom and I for getting him such a beautiful hotel room in Hawaii.  It's just hard on the family, because you lose one of the most important parts of a person, way before they die.  And, never knowing what to expect each time when you visit, or trying not to be hurt if they say something unkind.

Quote of the Day:  “Life is like the river, sometimes it sweeps you gently along and sometimes the rapids come out of nowhere.” ― Emma Smith

Song of the Day:  Take Me to the River  The Talking Heads