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Michael Gassmann
Unfortunately, I must report that our dear friend and classmate Paul Peters passed away earlier this week.
There will be a visitation for Paul's family and friends at 1 p.m. this Friday, November 12, at Phelps Funeral Home, 311 Hope Drive, Winchester, VA 22601. A memorial service will follow at 2 p.m., also at Phelps Funeral Home. The memorial service will be broadcast on Zoom; the Zoom link will appear on Paul's obituary on the funeral home's website (www.phelpsfunerals.com). When I checked just a moment ago, Paul's obituary had not yet been posted on the funeral home's website, but it should be up shortly. After the memorial service, Paul will be interred at Lebanon Church Cemetery in Strasburg, VA, just outside of Winchester.
As many of you know, Paul had suffered from a number of health problems over the years, and his wife Jill had been diagnosed with cancer a year or so ago (please see my previous post for more information about Jill). The last few weeks have been particularly hard. Jill's condition worsened over the spring and summer; her cancer did not respond to treatment and, in mid-October, Paul and his family concluded that it was appropriate to initiate in-home hospice care for Jill. As this was happening, Paul developed a serious and persistent infection that required hospitalization and multiple surgeries. Even though he was far from well, Paul persuaded his doctors to allow him to go home and be with Jill on Wednesday, October 27, the day before Jill died. A couple of days later, Paul was back in the hospital for more surgery. While he was hospitalized, even though he and Jill had both been vaccinated, Paul tested positive for COVID and was required to quarantine for 10 days. This meant he could not attend Jill's memorial service and interment last Saturday. Paul was allowed to come home Saturday morning (still under quarantine, however), and he had been scheduled for additional medical evaluation on Monday. On Monday night I received an email from Paul and Jill's daughter with the sad news that Paul had died.
My wife and I attended the memorial services for Jill on Saturday. Because Paul was still in quarantine, he could not be there in person, but his children arranged to stream Jill's memorial service and procession to the cemetery to Paul for his benefit. Unfortunately, there was no opportunity to communicate directly with Paul. At the reception after Jill's burial, I had several long conversations with members of Paul's family, We were all concerned about Paul's health and how he would cope without Jill, and we committed to help and support him however we could. I don't think any of us suspected, however, that this was imminent.
There are so many good things to remember about Paul, and to celebrate. This website is one of them. Paul was tireless in his devotion to his friends and, in particular, to our class. He built and maintained this website, and was the prime mover in organizing our reunions and class gatherings. It gave Paul much joy to help maintain old relationships among classmates and foster new ones. You can look at other AHS classes and classes from other high schools, and it's unlikely you'll find many others with the amount of cohesion and the number of ongoing friendships that we enjoy. As much as anything, that's Paul's gift to us. I was honored to call him my friend, and all of us who knew him were blessed to have him in our lives.
The planning for our 50th reunion will continue. We had planned to surprise Paul at the reunion with a mint copy of our 1971 Antenna class yearbook (which Paul Rowson and Betty Petersilia somehow found on eBay) that we were going to circulate among the reunion attendees to be signed. While cicumstances have changed the plan, they have not altered our intention. At our upcoming reunion, the yearbook wil be available at the Friday night gathering, the Saturday afternoon picnic and the Saturday evening reunion so people can sign it with personal tributes to Paul; we will then present the signed yearbook to Paul's family as a tribute. .jpeg)
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