{"id":1006,"date":"2021-02-03T23:30:57","date_gmt":"2021-02-04T03:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aerendel.ca\/aarchives\/?page_id=1006"},"modified":"2021-02-03T23:34:46","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T03:34:46","slug":"fambly-news","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/aerendel.ca\/aarchives\/fambly-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Fambly News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2021 – I think it’s Melanie Safka’s Birthday – dark and damp @ +1\u02daC \/ +34\u02daF @ 11:26 pm in Atlantic Canada –<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

{{{ Copied & pasted from a page in the “Latest News From Aerendel Blog —> Photos will be replaced manually and links deleted later <— }}}<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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Fambly News<\/h1>\n<\/header>\n
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Celebration of Mom\u2019s Life<\/h2>\n

In Stratford, Connecticut on May 21st, 2016<\/h2>\n

Nancy put together a celebration of Mom\u2019s life\u00a0 \u2013 reserved a room at the Blue Goose on Ferry Blvd in Stratford \u2013 A lot of people came \u2013 and \u2013 far from being a somber occasion \u2013 it actually felt like a celebration of a warm, intelligent, Loving and Understanding woman \u2013 Dorothy Eleanor Borden Wellington \u2013<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s see how many of these photos I can load in here without blowing up WordPress<\/p>\n

\"Charles,
Sharon (center) and Charles (left) came from North Pole, Alaska \u2013 Sharon\u2019s step son Aaron (right) didn\u2019t quite have to travel that far to get here.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

( I had the camera set on the \u2018sports\u2019 setting so it should have taken sharp photos, but too many of them came out blurry. Some because people moved and others \u2013 I don\u2019t know. when one person is sharp and clear and another isn\u2019t \u2013 maybe some of us are just plain blurry? )<\/p>\n

\"Ellen,
Ellen Majewski, Bob, & Diane P. Torres with me behind them. I forget who offered to take this photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Claudi,
I\u2019m wondering if some people would rather not be identified \u2013 If that\u2019s the case, I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll hear about it and I\u2019ll remove their names from these captions \u2013 Here is my aunt Claudia and Cousin Kathy & Kathy\u2019s Husband, \u2018Chip\u2019.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Kathy
Kathy and Chip \u2013<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Joe
Joe and Lori Hildreth \u2013 Joe wasn\u2019t happy with the reflection from his glasses, but after he removed them, the next photo I took was one of those unexplainably unfocused shots I hinted at above.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Cody
Nancy\u2019s sons, Cody & Westley Aylward \u2013<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Jenny,
Diane\u2019s daughter Dawn (center) with Cody (right) and Cody\u2019s sister Jenny smiling to the left. Nancy and Ellen Majewski are looking at photos in the background.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Daisy\"
Dawn\u2019s daughter (and I think she was Mom\u2019s first Great-Gradchild) Daisy \u2013 alone for a second while Dawn was busy \u2013 Her father Sean was just out of the photo to our right.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Chrystal
Chrystal (left) and her mother, Val, (My second cousin, My father\u2019s first cousin \u2013 Maybe I should avoid confusing anybody and not try to explain relationships here?)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Cousins
Slightly out of focus Mike Toronto and \u2018Santa Rick\u2019 George \u2013 Mike\u2019s our first cousin, Rick\u2019s our second cousin, Val\u2019s brother.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Deb
Cousin Debra ( nee Austin ) and Deb\u2019s daughter Jaimie \u2013 and Jaimie\u2019s son \u2013 ( Up here in Canada it is not cool to name \u2018identifiable\u2019 minors \u2013 If Deb or Jaimie come back to me and tell me it\u2019s okay, I\u2019ll include his name here.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"George
One time Neighbors and long time friends, George and Beverly Newell.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Ray
Mom\u2019s sister Carol (right) and her husband, Ray. Her daughter, Lesley and her husband were there too, but my beautiful cousin Lesley was one of those whose photos inexplicably came out terribly blurred.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Sharon
My sister Sharon and my brother\u2019s son, Tyler \u2013 another slightly blurred photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Sharon,
Sharon with our ex next door neighbors, Ellen and Elaine Majewski. (I forgot what Elaine\u2019s married last name might be.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Pat
Mary Ellen Skawinski (right) and her \u2018significant other\u2019 \u2013 Pat. Mary Ellen\u2019s mother, Lisa, was there and either managaged to stay behind me when I was looking for people to photograph or had very pure Leprechaun blood and never showed up in any photos. Which is a shame \u2013 Lisa is a beautiful person inside and out. (and so is Mary Ellen) Lisa\u2019s other children sadly couldn\u2019t make it. The whole family became very close to us after they moved to Connecticut from Oklahoma in the late 1980\u2019s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mike
After the Dinner and Celebration, we went to the graveyard where Nancy\u2019s husband, Mike and our brother, Bob, set the beautiful stone that Nancy and Mike chose and had engraved \u2013 in place with some of Mom\u2019s ashes. Sharon and Nancy also planned to put more of Mom\u2019s ashes in Shelton at her parents \u2013 our grandparents \u2013 graves. Here Mike and Bob were sweeping the dirt from the stone and levelling the earth around the new stone.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Markers\"
Here are the Markers for our father and mother, and above them our Aunt Phyllis and Cousin Glenn.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Family
Most of us in Union Cemetary \u2013 where I once hoped my father wouldn\u2019t be upset about listening to daily announcements and role call at the Fire House where he worked for may years \u2013 about 50 yards away from the graves.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Nob,
My brother, Bob, and sisters nancy and Sharon, and Cousin Deb taking photos of the group above (plus me) \u2013<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2014 I think it may be a testimonial to what a wonderful person our mother was (and probably still is) that almost no tears were shed at the celebration and even at the grave yard.<\/p>\n

\u2014 There were other notable friends and relatives at the celebration whose photos came out too blurry ro include here \u2013 or maybe some of them had more purely leprechaun blood that the rest of us and don\u2019t show up in photographs. (?)<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2013 Jim (added to this page on May 25th, 2016)<\/em><\/p>\n

=====<\/p>\n

Heaven Has A New Angel \u2014 Dorothy Eleanor Borden Wellington \u2014 October 20, 1923 \u2013 April 8, 2016<\/h2>\n
\"tall
Photo of me (Jim) and Mom (Gramma Dot) taken by Cathi Harris -probably in the summer of 2004 \u2013 at or very near the old Fergus Market, in Fergus, Ontario.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

{{ April 8, 2016 \u2014 \/\/ +4\u02daC \/ 38\u02daF Dark, Damp and mostly cloudy in Atlantic Canada @ 11:59 pm \u2014 \/\/ Vicki (n\u00e9e Joyce)\u2019s Birthday \u2013 55th anniversary of the day Mom told me our baby sister, Nancy, was on her way \u2013 and 55th anniversary of our house catching on fire from a short-circuit upstairs on Huntington Road in Stratford, Connecticut. \u2014 }}<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 She wrote her class song \u2013 was either the salutorian or runner-up to the salutorian at her high school graduation in 1941 \u2013 She told me when I was in high school that she was amazed that any of the \u2018popular kids\u2019 in her school would remember her being there, but that some had actually claimed to have been her friend in high school.<\/p>\n

\u2014 She endured too many years of brutal brow beating and constant enraged verbal abuse during her 47 years of marriage to a 6 foot three-inch 250 to 300+ pound bully of a man. She put up with more from my father, her husband, than anybody could reasonably be expected to- and still stuck with him until his end, in 1995 \u2013 from his second heart attack, which came about after twenty years of disability and asthma due to work related hazards and not so bright life style choices. [ Stupid me \u2013 I had been out and happy for years and came back home when he got on the phone and said he needed my help \u2013 and I got sucked in, couldn\u2019t buy a job for a couple years, then developed my own PTSD complications and couldn\u2019t have held a job if I could buy one. So I spent the last two years of my father\u2019s life as one of those unpaid home health workers you hear a lot about these days. After he died I gradually recovered to the point where I began by doing volunteer work at a local Community Based Radio Station \u2013 WPKN 89.5 FM in Bridgeport, Connecticut \u2013 and video production at the local public access video studio in Bridgeport. and then Part time work, painting houses and doing web work and clerk work for a Yoga Center in Hamden, Connecticut. ] \u2014 Mom aged at least fifteen years in from of me in those last couple years \u2013 My father was nothing like an ideal patient. I was afraid she was going to leave us before he did. But when he did go, even though we had twenty years of knowing he could go any time, any day \u2013 it tore us both inside out. I went to sleep the night he died listening to Mom\u2019s breathing through a baby monitor and as I fell between wakefulness and sleep I could swear I heard a voice saying, in time to her breaths \u2013 \u201cDot Lives! Dot lives-\u201d I dreamed that night that I came down stairs from meditating in what looked like a converted store front apartment with more rooms upstairs. My sister Sharon was there, smiling and Mom was half asleep in a wooden rocking chair, aware enough to smile at me and wearing what had to be her favorite blue bathrobe and warm slippers. I thought that meant that Mom would live in some kind of arrangement with Sharon and me being there, maybe I had an apartment upstairs? As it turned out, Mom went to Alaska and lived with Sharon for a couple years after Dad died, came back east when Sharon\u2019s second husband, Gary had a job offer that brought them to Maine. The job turned out to be something that couldn\u2019t actually support the family of the guy who owned the company, and Gary, Sharon and four boys would have starved if they tried to make that go \u2013 They went back to Alaska, And Mom went with them \u2013 Volunteered as a \u2018Foster Grandparent\u2019 at a grammar school where Sharon was a Teacher\u2019s Aide \u2013 She told them she could only do this temporarily and as soon as she could afford to \u2013 she would be going back home to Connecticut. \u2013 The Principal called her into his office on her birthday \u2013 Told her to sit down, he had to go over some issues with her performance \u2013 tried to look stern and scary \u2013 then sighed and smiled and said, \u201cAll I can say is \u2013 you\u2019re perfect for this kind of work \u2013 and we wish we knew what we could say or do to keep you here-\u201d Then said he was going to walk her back to class \u2013 When he led her into the hallway, Every child in the school was there sitting in a half circle and they all called out at once, \u201cHappy Birthday, Gramma Dot!\u201d and all came up and handed her their hand-made birthday cards and got a special hug. Mom went home with Sharon and cried happy tears reading all the cards and the next day at school announced, \u201cWell \u2013 ya got me \u2013 How can I leave after this?\u201d and spent some of the happiest years of her life making a real difference in the lives of young students who needed her help and who loved her, while she loved them back and kept telling me stories about her favorite kids and every one of them was her favorite. She told us then, that she\u2019d always wanted to be a teacher, but when she\u2019d grown up and gotten married, everybody told her she couldn\u2019t do both, she could either be a wife and a mother or a teacher. She opted for the wife and mother path.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Everybody knows this life is too short. Everybody knows it has to end some time. I keep screaming that our pets should be immortal. Our loved ones should be bullet proof and immortal. But we all know the end has to come some time. This universe often seems to have been ingeniously designed to prove to us that we would much rather be in heaven.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Skype \u2013 Mom was delighted by the ability to see and talk to her children and friends on Skype. My baby sister, Nancy, a recently retired Physical Therapist \u2013 let us know on Monday that she\u2019d talked to Sharon and Mom wasn\u2019t doing so well. Nancy jumped on a plane and flew to Alaska to be there. I got on Facebook and tried to tell everybody I knew what was happening with Mom. [ Turns out one message to one cousin never actually got sent, whether I missed when I clicked the \u2018send\u2019 or \u2018post\u2019 button or whatever happened it was sitting there asking me if I really wanted to leave that page when I shut the browser down a couple hours ago so I could write this \u2013 and as it faded into the ozone I realized the reason it tried to warn me that maybe I shouldn\u2019t leave that page, was because it hadn\u2019t been sent, whether I had been absolutely sure it had been or not. ] \u2014 But, anyway \u2013 Nancy got there, and Mom rallied \u2013 They asked me if I wanted to Skype and yes, of course I did. Mom was there, looking tired, but responsive and aware and giving me hugs and sign language \u201cI Love You\u201d-s and she\u2019s had a problem speaking for the last year or so, atrophied tongue or something. She couldn\u2019t swallow all that well either. When she tried to say something and my sisters thought they knew what she was saying I asked if she needed to write something down and she nodded, yes \u2013 she did \u2013 they found her some paper and a pen or pencil and she wrote down, \u201cI don\u2019t feel good.\u201d And I told her to go rest, do what she needs to do, we will be all right \u2013 and she gave me another hug and another sign language \u201cI Love You\u201d. And they ended the Skype session.<\/p>\n

\u2014 The next day, Thursday, Nancy sent me Instant Messages that Mom had a bad night, she couldn\u2019t sleep, couldn\u2019t hardly breathe, kept using a machine to get liquid gunk out of her lungs. And then wouldn\u2019t eat her last two meals.<\/p>\n

\u2014 When Nancy got up to check on her at 2 something am this morning, Alaska Time \u2013 she was gone. Nancy said she\u2019s at peace. One of my cousins can\u2019t stand the phrase, \u201cRest In Peace\u201d but in this case, that just might apply. Of course we face some stupid b.s. as money grabbers try to convince us that we need to give them money in order to comply with b.s. laws they pushed for and then spend extra money because we don\u2019t want to just let them do what they want to do and then send us the astronomical bill for it. Believe me, when these guys want to get to Heaven they will face a huge mob of angry people with spiritual clubs and hammers and slings and arrows that even Shakespeare couldn\u2019t imagine.<\/p>\n

\u2014 But \u2013<\/p>\n

\u2014 Our usually hyper insistent and needy pets have been amazingly quiet and supportive today. Like they know what happened.<\/p>\n

\u2014 And. \u2014 There has been an amazing outpouring of Love and Sympathy in social media and email. Zuckerberg\u2019s spy machine really is good for something positive. It\u2019s amazing how much love and good feelings can come through the stupid freakin internet.<\/p>\n

\u2014 And I should try very hard to end this on a positive note. Yes I am weird and yes I have had dream-contact with relatives who have passed before and I am looking forward to happy conversations with my mother, who will probably look like a twenty year old next time I see her \u2013 Angel wings or not- I\u2019ve already been talking to her \u2013 telling her that if there\u2019s anything I can do to help her adjust to her new level of existence, just ask \u2013<\/p>\n

\u2014 The following photos were uploaded to facebook by our Cousin, Mike Toronto :<\/p>\n

\"Mom
Mom on a swing, in black and white \u2013 from 1943 \u2013 Photo uploaded to facebook by cousin Mike Toronto.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2014 heart \u2013 heart \u2013 heart \u2013 heart \u2013 heart \u2014<\/p>\n

\"Mom
Another photo that Mike Toronto shared with us. This one of Mom as a nineteen and a half year old, is dated April, 1943. The background looks like the big old garage that was behind the Borden Family home (a huge, green-painted Dutch styled house with a gambrel roof, a living room that stretched for about 30 feet? \u2013 the entire front of the house \u2013 And a big wide front porch that I remember my grandfather enclosing with screens when I was around 6 to 8 years old. They also had a huge (deep) back yard with grass that they didn\u2019t bother trying to cut regularly until they got their first power mower.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2014 My grandfather \u2013 my mother\u2019s father, used to say he was happy to have a lot of his children\u2019s friends in their home on a lot of evenings. Mike\u2019s mother was an accomplished pianist and when the young women were in their teens and early twenties, a lot of impromptu gatherings centered around the piano and Aunt Bev playing the hits of the day while her friends sang the lyrics. My grandfather often said he would much rather have them singing in his living room than out on the streets where they might get into trouble. The really sad thing about my grandfather is, during World War II, when he had his own oil burner manufacturing business. He played by the rules and did his patriotic best to help the war effort by not ordering any more parts and equipment than he absolutely needed. His competitors took advantage of this by hoarding everything they could get their hands on and when the war was over, laughingly ran him out of business. He became very sour, and when I knew him, he was an unhappy tyrant, loudly complaining about every little thing that went wrong in his life. My mother grew up with him as a benevolent, happy person. Her youngest sibling, Carol, knew him as a screaming dictator who wanted to control everyone in his family.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Bev
Left to right: Aunt Bev [Beverly Borden Toronto], Aunt Grace? [I thought it looked more like Aunt Carol \u2013 and Mom , posing on the carpet at what has to be their old family home at 1856 Main Street in Stratford. The house was converted into a multi apartment structure after Grandpa and Gramma Borden sold it to buy a Motel and restaurant in Vermont in 1964. I can\u2019t tell what year this was. { Thanks to Cousin Mike Toronto Again }<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Large
This is a shot of the Borden family \u2013 most likely around Christmas Day, 1956.This would be the south side of the living room with the piano just out of sight to our left. Front row, left to right: Aunt Beverly \u2013 my sister Sharon, who, if this was 1956, would have been 5 years old \u2013 Me [Jim] I would have turned 7 years old in September \u2013 And Uncle Bob [ Robert Henry Borden Jr who was born on February 5th, 1934 and was the first sibling in that generation to shuffle off this mortal coil \u2013 I forgot when, but that would have been in the 1980\u2019s, I think ]. Back Row: Left to Right, Aunt Carol, [ sitting on the arm of the couch ] \u2013 now the sole surviving sibling, [ Born December 28, 1939 ] Mom- with Diane Beverly Wellington on her lap [ Diane was born on November 10th, 1956 and died of Cancer in March of 2007 ] Grandma Borden [ Dorothy Brooks Borden \u2013 her birthday was August 25, and her father William Brooks who was born \u201cWillie Brooke\u201d in (Huttersfield?) England, { and accepted the fact that they changed his name as a six year old when he landed at Ellis Island } worked in a factory all day and taught stringed instruments in the evening. He had an orchestra that was all women, who played various venues and altered my grandmother\u2019s year of birth on a couple documents so she could play her mandolin with the orchestra before she was legally old enough to do so. Near the end of her life, my grandmother wasn\u2019t sure exactly how old she was, because she had three birth certificates with differents years listed. ] My Grandfather, Robert Henry Borden [ His birthday was May 18th I\u2019m not sure what year. He died of a heart attack in the early 1970\u2019s I think ] \u2013 & Regina Gregor Borden, Uncle Bob\u2019s wife \u2013 her birthday is February 26th, I\u2019m not sure what year, but she was 19 years old when she became engaged to my uncle and my sister and I were a sensation dancing something like a waltz at their wedding reception. Mike\u2019s father told us we were the cutest couple on the floor. My father came along and told me I hands my hands wrong and was supposed to have her hand in my other hand. ].<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Debi,
Mom holding cousin Debi Borden ( now Debi Borden-Miller ) with Uncle Bob and Aunt Reggie, probably in 1958. But \u2013 Robert C Wellington III \u2013 (our brother) was born on July 20th of 1958, Debi was born in March of 1958. Mom does not look several months pregnant in this photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Me
Left to right: Me, Dad, Sharon, Mom & Cousin Ricky [ Patrick Conroy ] Most likely in the living room at 1856 Main Street again. Best guess might be 1956 or 57?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Dad,
Left to right : Dad, Me [ Jim ], Mom & Sharon at Christmas time [can\u2019t guess the year] in what looks like Aunt Bev & Uncle Larry\u2019s Living room on Laurel Street in the Lordship section of Stratford. Bev and Larry Toronto were Sharon\u2019s & my God Parents and Mike\u2019s parents.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Gramma
Grandma [ Dorothy Brooks Borden ], Aunt Carol [ Carol Borden Davidson ] Mom [ Dorothy Eleanor Borden Wellington ], & Aunt Grace [ Grace Borden Conroy ] on the pier in New York City \u2013 I believe this would be them returning from a cruise to Bermuda \u2013 in the 1980\u2019s? \u2013 Another photo from Mike, { Thank You Mike! }<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mom
Dad [ Robert Carlson Wellington Jr ] Dancing with Mom [ you can only see her back here ] at Bev & Larry Toronto\u2019s 25th Wedding Anniversary party. I can\u2019t remember what year this was.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"4
I\u2019m pretty sure this is the four Borden sisters in Florida \u2013 probably standing near a pool. Left to right, Grace (married Ed Conroy) [ birthday: June 29th ], Carol [ birthday: December 28th \u2013 married Raymond Davidson ] Beverly [ her birthday was October 2nd, she was married to Larry Toronto I remember their wedding, my father kept quietly ordering me to sit still \u2013 ] And Dot [ Mom, October 20, 1923 \u2013 April 8, 2016 ]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2014 I have to thank Cousin Mike Toronto for the above ten photos \u2013 some of which I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen before. ( A couple I might have tried hard to forget? 😉 )<\/p>\n

\u2014 Thank You Mike! \u2014<\/p>\n

{{ 4:44 pm Atlantic Time on Saturday, April 9th, 2016 \u2014 Notably absent \u2013 so far \u2013 are photos with our sisters Diane and Nancy \u2013 and our brother \u2018Nob\u2019 [ Robert Carlson Wellington III ] \u2013 If anybody has some photos of them \u2013 especially with Mom \u2013 please let me have them so I can add them here \u2013 }}<\/p>\n

\"Bob
Bob sent me this one : \u201cThis was from a race in Niantic. I was amazed that she stood outside for 30 minutes waiting for me to finish, and of course didn\u2019t complain about a thing.\u201d
\nSent from his iPhone<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2014 Bob took up running for his health and it looks like Mom went to see him finish a race in Niantic, Connecticut the last time she was \u2018back East\u2019. Bob sent me this photo on Sunday after I sent him an emailed version of this article with the plea for photos from those who hadn\u2019t been represented here yet. Cathi said, \u201cThat\u2019s a wonderful photo!\u201d<\/p>\n

~~~~~ Jim<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n