E. Richard "Dick" Freniere

FUNERAL HOME

Concord Funeral Home & Cremation Service

74 Belknap St.

Concord, Massachusetts

E. Freniere Obituary

Age 87 of Syracuse, NY formerly of Concord. June, 22, 2008. Husband of Helen Freniere of Syracuse. Father of Edward of Lancaster and stepfather of Philip Batten of Manlius, NY and Mark Batten of Cambridge. Also survived by his brother Henry of Franklin and 5 grandchildren. Memorial visitation, Thursday, July 10 from 4:00-7:00 pm in MacRae-Tunnicliffe's Concord Funeral Home, Belknap & Thoreau Sts, CONCORD. Funeral service and interment private. Gifts in his name may be made to Alzheimer's Assoc. 311 Arsenal St., Watertown, MA 02472 or www.alz.org. For online guestbook, obituary & directions visit: www.concordfuneral.com MacRae-Tunnicliffe's Concord Funeral Home Concord, MA 978/369-3388

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Published by Boston Globe on Jul. 6, 2008.

Memories and Condolences
for E. Freniere

1 Entry

Diana with husband Doug Clark. (Beards are nice.)

Diana Reddy Clark

May 19, 2009

When I was a kid, living in Conantum, I considered Dick to be one of the Really Fun Dads ... probably the No. 1 Fun Dad, after my own. He was a friend, not just a friend's dad, and I know this for sure.

I used to play and ride bikes around Oxbow Rd and Conantum with Ed, and remember (with clarity) the first time I was asked to stay for dinner at the Freniere house, when Ed and I were about age 6 or 7 (yes, that young, really). I liked that Ed's dad had a beard -- he looked different than other neighborhood dads. I knew that he was an artist, and this was very, very cool in my view.

I saw that Ed called his father "Dick" (as well as "Dad"), and was surprised and charmed by that unconventional habit -- it was the late 1950s, of course, and a very new thing to me. What was more delightful to me was that when I addressed him as "Mr. Freniere", Dick told me to call him by his first name. He also spoke to me directly during that dinner, telling jokes, laughing, entertaining me and Ed and Ed's mom, and this was a very new thing, also, as only my own father had ever paid any real attention to me at a dinner table. It had never happened before, at the homes of other friends, and made a big impression.

(My life consisted of being No. 2 out of four kids born close together, and at times I used to think of how lucky Ed was to be an only child, to be the one who got the attention.)

I know all this had an impact on my sense of identity, because I never forgot that day, that dinner. As time passed, if, when I visiting with Ed, or when I was biking around and saw Dick outside (wasn't there a garden he worked in?), I was perfectly comfortable stopping to say hello and chat for a minute, because Dick wasn't just a neighborhood Dad, he was my friend. My older sister, with me one time on a bike ride, chided me for calling Ed's dad by his first name, another clear memory, because I was able to announce, "Dick TOLD me I could do that, a long time ago." (it was likely only a few months prior.)

The experience was one of the first in my life where I was able to sense and feel my own ego, my separateness -- something that set me aside from being just one of four siblings. Major mojo for a younger sister over a bossy elder sibling, who was always advising me not to embarrass her. True story! -- I remember the debate took place as we were biking back along the little path that led from Oxbow Rd. to Holden Wood, and that my mother had to settle it (in my favor) when we reached our home on Valley Rd.

Simply because the Freniere house was at the corner of Oxbow, these memories stayed clear to me as the years passed, because I drove by the house so frequently.

Even though there wss no real time to chat back in 2002, as Dick and Ed were busy talking to other, closer friends, the last time I saw Ed and Dick (and met Helen), at a memorial service in Concord, it meant a lot to me simply because Dick was there, just to look at as he spoke to other people. He looked the same to me, though it had been decades since I'd seen him, as I'd lived in California, then Indiana, since 1977. This was the time when I thought again about those early experiences, and realized that here was another case that I call "George Bailey" experiences, a la Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life", the film that displayed how one person can have an effect on others that is not obvious, but meaningful. The way Dick Freniere treated me, as an individual, when I was very young, and even during my teen years, when I occasionally saw him, had an impact that mattered, and was entirely unseen by anyone other than me.

Dick was a capital-P Personality, a talented and very bright man, and I send heartfelt condolences to his family and friends, even at this late date (I only just found out about his death). Although I'd wager others have shared the poem (see below), I'll paste it here as it is, of course, appropriate.

With sincere sympathy,
Diana Reddy Clark (aka Di Reddy)

by Mary Elizabeth Frye:

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die.