1940
2015
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2 Entries
Cassandra Schneider Niemczyk
August 11, 2017
I was a student in Tom Andrews' advanced biology class when he was a first-year teacher at Bristol Eastern High School in 1962, only a few years older than myself. I also knew his wife-to-be, Pat Mackie, from our days together as Mariner Girl Scouts. After I graduated and went away to college, I lost contact with many old friends, and I did not know until today that Tom and Pat got married. It was a very long time ago, more than half a century.
Today I was thinking about something I learned in Tom's class. It was something very basic and also very broad. He taught us how to take notes, and he encouraged us to review our notes every night at home. He guaranteed that if we followed his advice, we would succeed in his class. I gave it a try, and I discovered that I had been given a powerful learning tool which carried me through my college years and two subsequent post-graduate degrees.
A few years ago, at the tender age of 70 I decided to learn to play the violin, which is a formidable instrument at any age. Today at my lesson I covered my scores with copious notes, and afterward I began the arduous task of transcribing the notes onto freshly printed scores to guide my practice for the coming week. And suddenly I remembered Tom and all he had taught me, and where all that note-taking came from. I wanted to thank him, so I put on my genealogy hat and searched, only to find outsadlythat he had passed away a couple of years ago. He was a Master Teacher as well as a Master Gardener. Those two vocations are not unrelated. He wanted his students to learn and to succeed in his class. And even more than that, he wanted us to grow and to become better human beings.
Pat, if you are reading this tribute, I want to extend my heartfelt sympathy and sorrow for what must be a wrenching loss. Tom was a rock, a magnificent, beautiful, inspiring piece of granite. His departure no doubt left a hole that is just as large. Truth be told, our lives, even when they are very good, are fragile. My husband, who, like Tom, is a college professor, had his own brush with death about a year ago when he suffered a stroke. He survived and has made a good recovery. Even so, I have become much more aware that someday, perhaps sooner than we imagine, one of us will leave the other. But then I also realized that when two people live in a loving relationship for half a century, a remarkable inter-mingling of personalities occurs, the wife in her husband, and the husband in his wife. A large part of who I am today is a product of all the previous days I spent with the man I love. I hope this realization will bring comfort to you. As we did so many decades ago in those little boats on Nantucket Sound, it is time for you to reel in the halyard, raise the sail, and ride the wind of your memories. Look for Tom, not in his grave, but deep within yourself.
Funk Funeral Home
June 2, 2015
Our heartfelt sympathies in this, your time of grief.
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