My Parents

I didn’t really know whether I wanted this post under “M” or “P” but here it is.

My mother, Rita Marie, was born to missionary parents, Carol and Lee, on August 18, 1934, in Porte au Prince, Haiti. She had an older brother, Robert. During her early childhood years, they lived in Cuba and Costa Rica. In 1943 they moved from San Jose, Costa Rica, to Green Bay, Wisconsin. She attended a small Seventh-day Adventist church school, then went to the SDA academy for high school. She worked in the laundry.

My father, Ronald Ramon, was born to Henrietta and Rex, on March 16, 1935, on a dairy farm in Hayward, Wisconsin. He was the youngest of 6: Rocky, Esther, John, Violet, and Harold. He attended a small, country public school. He walked or rode his bicycle, even in the winter. When he was ready for high school, he attended the SDA academy. While he was there, he worked in the dairy.

The girls in the laundry weren’t too thrilled to have to wash the clothes of the dairy boys!

After Mom graduated from academy, her family moved to Berrien Springs, Michigan, so she could attend Emmanuel Missionary College (now called Andrews University). The following year, Dad also was at EMC. Soon they began courting, and eventually married. They were married on August 19, 1956, at the Seventh-day Adventist church in Buchanan, Michigan.

My older brother, Gary, was born October 7, 1957, in Michigan. I was born January 5, 1962, in Indiana. Then my brother, Norbert, was born February 22, 1963, back in Michigan. Mom taught a while. Dad was a salesman. Mom finished her Master’s Degree at Andrews University.

The summer of 1970, Mom and Dad accepted a call to North Carolina, to teach in a small two-teacher school. During the summers, Dad finished his Bachelor’s degree at Southern Missionary College (now Southern Adventist University), near Chattanooga, Tennessee. Thus launched their years of teaching in Seventh-day Adventist church schools, and Mom continued for the next thirty-some years. They taught in Clarkton, North Carolina; Amarillo, Texas; Mobile, Alabama; Baton Rouge, Louisiana, together. Then Dad went back into sales, while Mom continued teaching.

From Louisiana, they went to Topeka, Kansas; the Kansas City area; Tyler, Texas; Waukegan, Illinois; Lafayette, Indiana; Wellsboro, Pennsylvania; Independence, Kansas; then back to the Kansas City area. (I think I have everything correct; everything is a little “fuzzy” for me after their first time in the KC area, because I got married and moved to Montana at that time).

After Mom retired from teaching, they moved to Florida, into the house that my maternal grandparents had built back in the 1960s. Dad spent 19 or 20 years teaching; Mom spent 30-35 years teaching.

They were always involved in the local SDA church. They always supported SDA church schools, even after they’d retired.

In their final years, they each had many health ailments. They both died while on hospice care: Dad on October 17, 2022, and Mom at home under my care (with help from my youngest son, and my daughter), on March 21, 2023. They were preceded in death by their parents, and all their siblings.

But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope… For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, NKJV.