{"id":2880,"date":"2015-10-25T19:35:04","date_gmt":"2015-10-25T19:35:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/annetarsia.com\/?p=2880"},"modified":"2015-10-25T19:35:19","modified_gmt":"2015-10-25T19:35:19","slug":"celebrating-a-life-well-lived-and-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/2015\/10\/celebrating-a-life-well-lived-and-family\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating a life well lived, and family"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I married Bill Berk, I joined a wonderful family.\u00a0 Grace and Bill Berk, Sr. treated me like a daughter and I have enjoyed their warmth, wisdom, and unconditional support in the 30 years I have known them.\u00a0 We lost Dad a few weeks ago.\u00a0 He had been very ill for a long time, and we saw it coming.\u00a0 But the loss is still very difficult. Bill Sr was a remarkable man, who served in the Marines in both WWII and the Korean wars, worked multiple jobs to support his growing family, and contributed endless hours of service to his community in the Masonic organization.\u00a0 He was orphaned as a child, and when he came to Las Vegas to live with extended family there were two paved roads.\u00a0 After he left military service he returned to the area with his wife, Grace.\u00a0 They bought the family home in 1953, and still live there – having added on a bit over the years as the kids came along.\u00a0 Bill and Grace were married for 66 years, and lived in that house for 62 of them.\u00a0 Mom is still there, and the family worries about her, as she has never lived alone.\u00a0 But she refuses to move (so far).<\/p>\n

My husband is Bill Jr, and our son William was named after his father.\u00a0 I didn’t want a “Third”, so William has a different middle name.\u00a0 But, Bill was right to name him after his grandfather, who proved the best role model imaginable.\u00a0 William’s middle name is Thomas, after my Grampa Gray, who was also an amazing man – although he died when William was a baby so he never had the chance to know him.\u00a0 I am grateful that both of my kids have good, strong memories of Grampa Berk.<\/p>\n

The family is strong, and most of them still live in the Las Vegas area.\u00a0 We are all rallying around Mom, and we will be fine.\u00a0 But everyone is very sad right now, and that is OK.\u00a0 Dad was 92, and lived a good, long life.\u00a0 There are no regrets.\u00a0 Boy, we all miss him, though.\u00a0 I remember that when my mother died, William (then 13 years old) said, “We all have to grow up a little, now”.\u00a0 I feel a bit the same way about having Dad gone.\u00a0 He was the head of the family, and there is no replacing him.<\/p>\n

I gave Mom some of the cotton towels I wove last week.\u00a0 They will look good in her kitchen, and I hope they remind her of me, and how much I love her.<\/p>\n

\"1948<\/a>
1948 – Bill and Grace Berk<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"1994,<\/a>
1994, three generations of William Berks. This is one of my favorite photos.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"At<\/a>
At the memorial service<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Grace<\/a>
Grace Homan Berk, in her living room<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"FullSizeRender(37)\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Mom<\/a>
Mom with the cotton handtowels I wove last week.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Hanging<\/a>
Hanging in the Berk house, a needlepoint sampler I made for Mom, with all of the grandkids and their birthdays.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I married Bill Berk, I joined a wonderful family.\u00a0 Grace and Bill Berk, Sr. treated me like a daughter and I have enjoyed their warmth, wisdom, and unconditional support in the 30 years I have known them.\u00a0 We lost Dad a few weeks ago.\u00a0 He had been very ill for a long time, and […]\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2871,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2880"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2882,"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2880\/revisions\/2882"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartonriveryarn.com\/annetarsia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}