Growing up in York, Pennsylvania, Ron has early memories of his family’s large vegetable garden. When he was 8 or 9, he would put the excess produce in his red wagon and pull it down the streets to sell to his neighbors. “I don’t know how much we charged them - probably a couple pennies, maybe a nickel,” Ron recalls. They appreciated the fresh food during World War II when food was being rationed.
Ron studied as a machinist in high school, went into the Army, and then went to college at the Indiana Institute of Technology in Fort Wayne. This is where he met Eunice, and they got married after he graduated.
Eunice always sang in her church choir in Fort Wayne and after they met, she got Ron to sing in choir, too. Their commitment to church activities went with them as job changes moved them around the country.
One of Eunice’s favorite jobs was working for Power Wheels. “It was like Christmas every day there. People flew in from Australia and all over the world just to get one for their kids … and we didn’t have them!” They would even ride the Jeep Power Wheels from one end of the business campus to the other. Eunice also worked as a florist and in customer service, depending on where Ron’s jobs took them.
A Lasting Impact
Ron and Eunice landed at Lord of Life in 2003 – two years after he had retired from an engineering job in Athens, GA. They put their skills to work quickly in the choir and ringing hand bells. Soon, Eunice had joined the quilters, and she found the familiar Christmas-like joy of creating blankets for children at Haven House, the shelter in Hamilton. She remembers the first year they managed to make 120 quilts – she and Barb Schimming took a bunch of them to Haven House. There was a young mother who had a little boy and a new baby. She picked out quilts for all three of them – she picked green ones for both her and the baby. Eunice and Barb both loved that she was looking ahead to having a home: she chose the green ones so that after the baby outgrew the blanket, she could use them as wall hangings.
During another delivery, there was a 5-year-old boy. He was excited to see them carry all the quilts in and when they told him, “you can pick out one for your own and then it’s your special blanket,” his eyes got as big as an elephant and tears were running down his face. He found the one that had fire trucks on it. Eunice admits he wasn’t the only one with tears in his eyes that day …
Ron didn’t waste much time before he dug up a plot of land to create the community garden at Lord of Life. During the summer months, it can practically be full time work, but he had honed his skills from the time he was a child, always having a garden wherever they moved. While Ron is a man of few words, he is a great record-keeper and we know that he has taken thousands of pounds of food each year to the food bank at Faith United Methodist and to Haven House. Just this month, folks from Stepping Forward and around the community came to harvest from the abundance of vegetables. He feels like he is really helping people who are in need, and they are glad to have it.
We will miss Ron and Eunice as they move closer to family in Georgia. Join us as we celebrate our time with them on August 26 following 8 am worship.