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“I moved to Cleveland; people all around
were out of work.” Don stayed for a time,
but when his father became ill he returned
home to run the family flour mill. “The
mill had been in our family for three
generations and no changes had been made.
It was obsolete. I made a lot of
improvements, so it could be sold. I then
used the money to buy up three farms in the
area and I had several acres of top land.”
Knowing nothing about farming, Don
hired a professional to help manage and run
the farms.
“When times got better, I sold
them, and that’s what gave me the money to
make my start in life. During the early
1950s the stock market was going crazy. If
a person had any money to invest, you could
do very well.”
During WWII, Don worked as a
project manager in Detroit making
instrumentation for aircraft and then was
offered a job in New York State, which he
describes as his “dream job.” “I
moved to Rochester and took up boating;
first sail boats on Lake Ontario and
Canandaigua Lake. I joined the Rochester
Yacht club. “I would stay on my boat on
weekends – I had a great life there.”
Eventually, he bought a cabin cruiser and
all of his free time during good weather was
spent on the water. In 1971, Don retired
and he and his wife moved to Florida. “The
first thing I did was buy a boat, a cruiser,
the largest I could get and still pull it on
a trailer—it was about 20 feet. We traveled
all over Florida on the inland waterways.
People don’t think of that, of seeing
Florida by boat.”
Meanwhile, Kay, a native of
Columbus, Ohio, had retired to Florida with
her husband in 1969. The couples belonged
to the same church, and were widowed at
around the same time.
“For a couple of years, I didn’t
go out, except to church,” Kay explains.
“Don approached me, but I told him we could
just be friends, and we were. Then one day
after church, he grabbed me and said we
should start dating. Soon he asked me to
marry him, but I told him I wasn’t ready.
After about a year, I said to him one day,
‘OK, let’s get married.’ And the next day
he took me to buy my ring!” What Kay hadn’t
let on was that she had been smitten by Don
from the first. But now she readily admits
to it. “Even now, if we’ve been apart, when
I see him walk into a room I still get a
thrill. It’s wonderful to know I love him
so much, and he loves me.”
The happy couple had a big Greek
wedding, and Kay introduced Don to her
large, vivacious family, including her two
children.
“Now he has two children and lots
of grandchildren and nieces and nephews –
they all love him,” Kay says with pride.
And Don introduced Kay to his other love,
boating.
“I had never been on a boat
before,” she admits. “The first time I
asked him how he learned to drive a boat,
and he said with disgust, ‘you don’t drive a
boat, you pilot it!’ That’s how green I
was. But I learned and we’ve had a lot of
good times on large and small boats. We’ve
taken 16 or 17 cruises."
“We’ve been all over,” Don adds,
“Morocco, a lot of exotic places. The last
one was to Greece.”
Kay takes over the conversation:
“We had such a wonderful time, I got to meet
cousins. Don was impressed that I could
speak the language, but I grew up speaking
Greek because my parents were immigrants and
that was the language at home. I had to
learn English when I started school. And
would you believe it, on the way over, we
met a couple on the ship and became friends
and exchanged addresses. When I happened to
mention them to my Greek cousins, I learned
that the woman and I were second cousins!
Can you imagine? I called her the next day
at their hotel and said “Hello Cousin!” and
we’ve visited each other here at home ever
since.”
Don is a quiet, thoughtful man, a
“deep thinker,” as his lively wife describes
him. Kay is gregarious and always
cheerful. “We don’t let things bother us,”
she says, “We enjoy life.” Don adds: “We
have each other; we like where we live and
we’re doing all right.” |
