Revised
The
Family of The first child of Lew and Henrietta Boyer, Floyd Elwood Boyer, known as "Elwood," was born on April 16, 1894, in Easton, Pennsylvania. Other sections discuss Elwood's parents, Lewis and Henrietta Boyer, and other Boyer ancestors. Parallel to this section are parts dealing with Elwood's five brothers and one sister. The full listing of the family is in the section on the Boyers of Easton. See also a Photo Gallery of the Boyers of Easton. This section contains the following parts: Children and Grandchildren of Elwood Daughter of Floyd First Wife: June Edith
Young Children of Walter:
Walter
Ralph Boyer, Jr. Children of Shirley:
Marjorie
Ann Kovacs Children of Barbara:
Timothy
Paul Duhamel Elwood's Family Genealogical Chart LINKS: The Boyers of Easton
Considering that April 16, 1894, marked the birth of Lew Boyer's first child, it might be thought that his diary entry for this day would contain some detail and hint of emotion. It does not. Lews diary at the time, however, was primarily a record of his daily expenditures and doctor visits, and it was in this section that the first reference to Elwood was entered. Even so, the entry about the birth of his first child seems somewhat nonchalant and matter-of-fact: April 16 (Monday). Car
fare .10, plates .10, at l0 a.m. was born a son, Lew was incapacitated at the time, and one of the most common of his diary entries was a note of what happened to Elwood in the course of each day. Usually what happened was that someone took Elwood "up home," which meant to the home of Elwood's grandparents, Samuel and Sabina Waltman, at 741 Grant Street (later changed to 834 Grant), and that someone brought Elwood back later in the day. Among those conveying Elwood back and forth were Het, Mame, Mother Waltman, Father Waltman, Sallie Boyer Apgar, Edith Apgar and many others. Keeping a record of this seemed to be one of Lew's preoccupations. Lew also recorded with pride certain major achievements in the early childhood of his first born: January 31, 1897. Sallie took Elwood to Sunday School and was put in the infant class for the first time (he was not quite 3). Sunday, April 18, 1897 (two days after Elwood's third birthday). In the morning Elwood had croup and George (Apgar) went for doctor and dr. came and I went down for medacin. Sallie and Mr. Apgar was here in the morning. Father and Mother were here in the afternoon. Friday, January 21, 1898 (Elwood was almost 4). In the afternoon Mildred Cameron took Elwood to School and he spoke a piece. Almost a man. There was also occasional trouble.On August 7, 1897, "Mother brought Elwood home at 10:30 at night as he would not stay overnight." And Elwood had an early introduction to Methodist church affairs. On Wednesday, February 23, 1898, "Mother came down and took Wife and Elwood down to the M.E. entertainment."Marjorie Hendershot. Elwood was married on February 18, 1913, to Marjorie Hendershot, at the Methodist parsonage in Washington, New Jersey, where Marjorie lived, about 10 miles from Easton. He was 18; she was 17. In the 1910 U.S. census, when Elwood was 16, he was listed as "laborer, drill works," possibly at Ingersoll-Rand, where his father was listed as a "machinist." In the Easton City Directory for 1914, Elwood and Marjorie, then age 20, were listed at 739 Pine Street. Then, in 1916, the directory notes, they ran a small grocery store at 629 Walnut Street. By 1918, Elwood (then 24) had picked up his father's skills as a machinist, and he and Marjorie were living at 525 McKeen Street, in a small house at the rear of Lew Boyer's Lincoln Street property. It was during this period that they had three children: Floyd Elwood Boyer, Jr. (who was known as Floyd, or, more often, Junior or June), born in Easton on March 25, 1915, the first grandchild of Lew and Henrietta Boyer; Walter Ralph Boyer, who was born on November 15, 1918, in Easton; and Shirley Anna Boyer, who was born in Easton on October 26, 1921.
The 1920 census showed the family at 523 McKeen Street in South Easton. Living there were: Elwood Boyer, 24, head of family, machinist, born in Pennsylvania, parents born in Pennsylvania Marjorie Boyer, 23, wife, born in New Jersey, parents born in New Jersey Floyd Boyer, 4 ½ Walter Boyer, 1 ½ Laura Lucy, 43, widow, mother of Marjorie, born in Pennsylvania, parents born in New Jersey. Later, the family moved to Philadelphia, where Elwood used his machinist skills. They apparently stayed for several years. Marjorie took ill while they were living in Philadelphia, and the family moved back to Easton. She died in early 1927 (see below), and that year Elwood was listed again in the Easton City Directory as a "die sinker." In 1928, he was employed as a tool maker for American Assembly Machine Co., on William Penn Highway outside Easton. Shortly thereafter, he began a long period of employment at Ingersoll-Rand Company, in Phillipsburg, where his father Lew also was employed. There Elwood worked as a skilled machinist and tool maker, and he retired from there in 1959 at the age of 65.The Hendershot Family. Marjorie Hendershot was born on May 7, 1895, daughter of Laura and Elwood B. Hendershot. The 1900 census said both Laura and Elwood Hendershot had been born in January 1873, and it said they had been married for seven years; if correct, this would mean they were married in 1893, when both were 18. The 1900 census showed Laura and Elwood Hendershot, both aged 27, living in Washington, New Jersey, with a daughter, Marjorie, age 5, and Elwood's sister Violet Hendershot, 19. Elwood Hendershot was only 32 when he died, on January 11, 1906. The obituary said he died of heart failure. He had been employed at the Clifton House in Easton and was there when he died. Marjorie was ten at the time of her father's death. Marjorie had a brother, name unknown, whose death, apparently at a very young age, was reported in the Belvidere Apollo on April 28, 1899. Laura Hendershot apparently moved on quickly. Elwood died in January 1906. The 1910 census said Laura was then married to M. J. Lucey, and they lived in Easton, Ward 4. (The last name was spelled "Lucy" in the 1920 census.) The census said they had been married for five years, which would have meant they married around 1905, about the time that Elwood Hendershot died. In the Lucey household, according to the census, were Laura Lucey, 34, not employed; M. J. Lucey, 28 (six years younger than Laura), an electrician in a plant; and "Margaret Hendershot" (clearly Marjorie), age 15, who was working as a "doubler" in a silk mill. Ten years later, in the 1920 census, "Laura Lucy" lived with her daughter, Marjorie Boyer, and husband "Floyd Boyer," along with their children Floyd, 4, and Walter, 1. They lived on McKeen Street in South Easton., apparently on the property of Elwood's father, Lew Boyer. What happened to Laura's husband is not known. M. J. Lucey could not be found in the 1920 or 1930 census, nor in the Social Security Death Index. Elwood Hendershot, the father of Marjorie, was the son of Oscar Hendershot (1850-1929), who was engaged in the ice business for many years in Washington, New Jersey. Elwood's mother was Violetta Barber Hendershot (1850-1889). After Violetta's death, Oscar married Ella S. Shrope (1844-1920). Information on the Hendershot family can be found on a series of linked webpages posted by Robert Hendershot in 2009. The ancestry of Marjorie Boyer's mother, Laura, is difficult to trace. Her maiden name at the time of her marriage to Elwood Hendershot is not known. Records suggest that after Laura's first husband, Elwood Hendershot, died, in 1906, she married M. J. Lucey, and then, before Marjorie married Elwood Boyer in 1913, Laura had gotten married again, to a Mr. Crane, and before Marjorie died in 1927, to Almus Hill. No information has been developed on M. J. Lucey or a Mr. Crane. The census in 1900, when she was 27, gave her name as "Laura Hendershot." The 1910 census named her as "Laura Lucey," married to M. J. Lucey. Three years later, at the time of Marjorie's marriage to Elwood Boyer, in 1913, the newspaper announcement of the wedding said that the bride, Marjorie Hendershot, was the daughter of Mrs. Laura Crane, of Easton. When Marjorie Boyer died in 1927, the obituary said that she was survived by "her mother, Mrs. Almus Hill, of Philadelphia," thus indicating that Laura had been married a fourth time. In the 1930 census, "Laura Hill," age 53, was living in Washington, New Jersey, with an aunt, Isabelle Hendershot, 66. At some point, Laura's son-in-law Elwood Boyer, drove her to Florida, but how long she stayed is not known. She could not be found in Florida census records. The Federal census for 1940 should be checked when it becomes available in April 2012. No other information is available, except that the Social Security Death Index reported that a "Laura Hill," born on April 21, 1877, died in Baltimore in November 1967. The birth date is now what is known from census records, but If this is the same person, which cannot be verified, she would have been 90 years old. In the Boyer family, it was understood that Almus Hill owned a large open touring car. A story current in the family was that, one day in the late 1920s, Almus was driving after a severe storm and came upon a place in the road where an electric line had fallen. He stopped the car and took a stick to push the fallen line from the road. When he reached the edge of the road, his feet touched the wet grass and he was electrocuted.
Marjorie's Early Death. In the mid-1920s, Marjorie suffered from tuberculosis, and for a time she was confined to a state sanitorium in Hamburg, Pennsylvania. On January 2, 1927, at the age of 31, she died in Philadelphia. It is understood that she lived in Philadelphia with Elwood and her three children; her obituary said that she and Elwood lived in Folcroft, Pennsylvania, in Delaware County, not far from the Philadelphia International Airport. Her obituary in the Easton Express said that she died of "a complication of ailments." Her children were aged 11, 9 and 6 at the time. Services were held at Cumberland Street Methodist Church, in Philadelphia, where Marjorie was a member. She was buried in Hay's Cemetery, in South Easton. Elwood and his parents, Lew and Henrietta Boyer, were later buried in adjoining graves. During Marjorie's illness, and for several years after her death, all three of their children lived with Henrietta and Lew Boyer. Later, when Elwood moved back to Easton, Floyd and Walt went to live with their father. Shirley remained at 1900 Ferry Street until 1942, living with her father's younger brothers, Art and Dave, and his sister Ruth.
Granville Davey's grandparents, G. and Mary Kate Langdon Davey (1826-1882) were from Lands End, Cornwall, England. Of their nine children, Edward Davey (1856-1942) came to America in 1874, and four years later, on June 22, 1878, Edward married Ida Dietz in Bangor. Granville (1888-1980) was the fifth of the five children of Edward and Ida Davey. He was born on July 27, 1888, and died on July 21, 1980. Ida lived on Northampton Street in Easton, between 15th and 16th Streets. After Granville and Jane Lang Davey divorced, Enid lived with Jane for a year, and then moved in with her grandmother Ida Davey, Granville's mother, until she married Elwood Boyer. Enid said she learned to cook from Ida. Ida was ill for about three years after Edward Davey died. She died in 1945. During Ida's final illness in 1945, Enid and Granville's sister, Gertrude Davey, a Methodist deaconess, helped to care for her. Enid attended Wilson High School along with Elwood's brother Art, and was a highly skilled pianist and typist. She was very active in Calvary Church activities in Easton. Among other things, she sang in the choir, played the piano for the Sunday School, and occasionally substituted for the organist in the main church service. At the time of her marriage to Elwood, Enid was employed as a stenographer for Cameron Pump Works, part of Ingersoll-Rand Company, in Phillipsburg. Later she worked for the Dixie Cup Company and for many years in the office of the Pennsylvania Pump and Compressor (later called Cooper Industries), in Palmer Township not far from the house where she and Elwood lived on Tatamy Road.
The 1930 census shows Elwood in Palmer Township, but the site is not clear. The household consisted of: Floyd E. Boyer, 36,
head of household, owner of property valued at $3,500, Enid G. Boyer, 21,
wife, stenographer, pump works, first married at age 19
Floyd E. Boyer, Jr., son, 15 Walter S. Boyer, son, 12 Lew Boyer had offered land to his children if they would build homes on portions of the large farm he owned along the Bushkill Creek north of Easton, close to Tatamy. In 1929, Elwood built his own house there, along what was known as Tatamy Road. While he worked at Ingersoll-Rand, he raised poultry and various crops on the land. Later he built another house for himself and Enid next door, and they rented out the first one. In 1978, after Elwood's death, his granddaughter, Janet Kovacs Matthews (daughter of Shirley) and her husband Jim built a third house on the property, alongside the house of Enid. Elwood and Enid had one child, Barbara Irene Boyer, who was born in Easton on May 16, 1938. Elwood was fascinated with many things, among them advances in technology. He enjoyed entertaining visitors with silent home movies taken of family events in his large front yard. He probably was the first in the Boyer family to own a television set, about 1948, just after television became commercially available; it had a small 12-inch black-and-white (actually blue-and-white) screen and was mounted in a tall console. Lew and Henrietta Boyer, Elwood's parents, got to see the television shortly before their deaths, and it is recalled that Henrietta was scandalized by the showing of the Rockettes chorus line from Radio City Music Hall. Like his parents, Elwood was active in Calvary Methodist Church, singing in the choir and belonging to several Sunday School classes. He was also a member of several Masonic lodges. The home of Elwood and Enid was often the site of Boyer family gatherings, often at Christmas season but also at other times of the year. Enid continued this tradition after Elwood died. After his retirement from Ingersoll-Rand, Elwood suffered from leukemia for about eight years. While his activity was limited, he turned to oil painting, in a rather primitive Grandma Moses style, and later to the collection of tropical fish. He died in Betts Hospital, Easton, on July 25, 1967, at the age of 73. He was buried in Hay's Cemetery in South Easton, in a plot adjoining that of his parents. Pallbearers included Steve Kovacs, Walt Boyer Jr., Paul Duhamel, Donald Boyer and David T. Boyer.
Enid's Travels. Following Elwood's death in 1967, Enid continued to live on Tatamy Road for 24 more years. Enid had always been a reader, especially about faraway places, and after Elwood died, she decided she would go off to see America and the world. In 1968, she went to visit her stepson Walt Boyer and his wife Lucy in California, near San Francisco. Among her comments from this outing were these: Sunday, Lucy and I went to church, where the young people had charge of the service. Eight young people came marching up the aisle, leather jackets, jeans, boots, mini-skirts, etc. A bit of a shock! Monday,
Walt borrowed a 1966 Volvo, so after supper I drove him back to the
dealer to pick up his car. After power steering in the Ford,
it was quite different to drive this cute little job, and the first
corner was taken pretty wide, but I soon got used to it, and liked it.
Lucy and I had a ball the next two days with it.
From 1977 to 1990, according to her detailed notebook, she went off on 11 cruise ships and took shorter trips to countless places. Her elaborate logs counted 22 countries and 18 islands. Among other places, she visited almost every European country, Canada, Mexico, Yugoslavia (3 times), Turkey, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Tunisia, and numerous Caribbean islands, as well as a trip through the Panama Canal. Enids brother-in-law Jack Boyer wrote to family members in October 1972 that "we got a card from Enid where she was visiting in Florida..... Geeeee.....how that woman gets around .... and having only to legs .... (with feet to match) ..... she gets a lot out of life. In April 1973, Walter wrote: Now, what do you know? Enid is going to Germany and to Switzerland and Austria, et al. in the month of September. Pleasant journey, Enid." In 1991, Enid sold the house and later moved to Moravian Hall Square, a retirement community in nearby Nazareth, Pennsylvania, where she sang in the choir, played bingo and Uno, and participated in many other activities. One of her favorite stories about that time involved being interviewed by her great-grandson Michael Matthews. Each student in Michaels elementary school class had been told to interview the oldest person in the family and to write a report to the teacher. During the interview, Enid confessed to Michael that when she had been in school, she had sometimes played hookey. As an elementary school student, Michael didnt quite understand the concept of hookey or how to use the word. He wrote in his report that his great-grandmother had once been a hooker. In 2000, she moved to the Assisted Living section of Moravian Hall Square due to a slow decline in her health. Then she suffered what appeared to be a stroke, and she died in her room at Moravian Hall Square about 4 p.m. on Thursday, March 31, 2005. She was 95. After a service at Ashton Funeral Home in Easton, she was buried in the Boyer family plot in Hays Cemetery, South Easton, on April 4, 2005, next to the grave of Elwood and close by Elwoods first wife, Marjorie, his son Walt Boyer Sr., and Elwoods parents, Lew and Henrietta Boyer. Pallbearers included Tim Duhamel, Craig Duhamel, Jim Matthews and Neil Boyer.
Children of Elwood Boyer
Floyd, born and educated in Easton, was known as Floyd, and also as "Junior" or "June." He lived in Philadelphia when he was very young, and was 11 when his mother died. He was then raised at the home of Lew and Henrietta Boyer, his grandparents. He graduated from Wilson High School in 1932 and saw action in the U.S. Navy's submarine service in World War II. He worked for 42 years -- both before and after the war -- for the Dixie Cup Company (later a division of the American Can Company), first in Easton and later in Chicago, Illinois, and Anaheim, California. At the time of his retirement in 1975, Floyd was Dixie Cup plant manager in Lexington, Kentucky. In Anaheim, Floyd ran for and was elected to the school board in the late 1950s. In Kentucky, Floyd was a Kentucky Colonel and a member of the American Legion and the Submarine Veterans of World War II. During the 1960s, he held leadership positions with the Lexington Chamber of Commerce and Junior Achievement. The family moved to Kentucky in 1962 after Karen graduated from high school. There Floyd was part of a syndicate of owners who owned one horse, Lagado. Floyds daughter Karen remembers that the only race Lagado ever won was on the day the family was in Pennsylvania for the funeral of Lillians mother, and so Floyd wasn't at the race. However, he gave his mother-in-law credit for the win, saying he was sure she had something to do with it. Floyd also owned other horses, including Runaway Spook, Robbie's Roman and Jeff's Boyar. Karen recalled that this was back in the day of tax benefits for hobbies like this. You had about seven years to show a profit, and if you didn't, you could no longer claim the tax benefits of this hobby. So.....Floyd's horse ownership lasted no more than 7 years. Floyd inherited from his father the only known "Boyer Gun," a rifle passed down through the family and understood to have been made by David Boyer of Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania, the great-great-grandfather of Floyd. In 2007, Floyd's daughter, Karen, had the rifle at her home in Vero Beach, Florida. Floyd was married on September 7, 1935, to Lillian Adele Buckley. Lillian had been born March 1, 1916, in Paterson, New Jersey. Her parents, George and Adele Roomy Buckley, had been born in Damascus, Syria. Lillian graduated from Phillipsburg, New Jersey, High School, and received a degree in art education from the University of Kentucky in 1975.
Lillian Boyer was an accomplished artist and was active in many arts-related activities in the Lexington area. Beginning with acrylics, she became an award-winning painter, sculptor and printmaker, and created a variety of handmade paper for use in her designs, including her annual Christmas cards. Her works were exhibited in numerous galleries around Lexington, some of them as solo exhibits. Lillian served as president of the Lexington Art League off and on between 1977 and 1985 and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Lexington Council on the Arts from 1976 to 1982. For nine years, from 1977 to 1985, she was chairman of the Lexington Fourth of July Festival Arts and Crafts Fair. She also chaired the Woodland Arts Fair from 1977 to 1980. Lillian was listed in Who's Who of American Women from 1976 through 1997, and in Who's Who in America from 1994 to 1997. Lillian began work as an art instructor at the University of Kentucky in 1976 and did not retire until 2002, at the age of 86. The Boyer Gallery at Loudoun House in Lexington's Castlewood Park is named in her honor. Floyd and Lillian had one daughter, Karen Lee Boyer, born in 1945. They celebrated their 51st wedding anniversary in 1986. Later that year, on Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1986, Floyd died of emphysema at Central Baptist Hospital in Lexington. He was 71. Seventeen years later, Lillian Boyer died, on August 12, 2003, at the University of Lexington Hospital. She was 87. Lillian requested that her body be bequeathed to the University of Kentucky Medical Center.
Karen
Lee Boyer,
born on
March 10, 1945, was the only child of Floyd and Lillian
Boyer. She received a degree in journalism in 1966 from the
University of Kentucky. On August 12, 1967, shortly after the
death of her grandfather, Elwood, Karen married Robin
Adair (Rob) Lloyd, an
attorney. Robin had been born March 7, 1946, in Louisville,
Kentucky. They had two sons, Robin Adair Lloyd, Jr., born in
1969, and Jeffrey Miles Lloyd, born in 1971. Karen and Rob were
separated about 1994 and later divorced.
Karen had a real estate broker's license and in 2005 was working with Dale Sorensen Real Estate in Vero Beach. 1. Robin Adair Lloyd, Jr., (also called Robbie), the first child of Karen and Rob Lloyd, was born in Lexington, Kentucky, on September 30, 1969. He graduated from Williams College, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, in 1991. Robbie worked for Harris Semi-Conductors during summer vacation while in college, and then took a full-time job with them after graduation. He traveled in 1994 as Asia/Pacific Market Development Manager, then took assignment in Singapore, where he was living at the end of 1997. In 1998, he left Harris and took a position with Northpoint Communications, in San Francisco. In early 2005, Robbie was vice president for solutions development at Lionbridge Technologies, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, a provider of services to assist other companies to develop technology applications globally. In early 2006, he and Wendy moved to Mumbai, India, where he took the position of Vice President and General Manager of India Operations for Lionbridge.
On April 29, 2004, Robbie married Wendy
Colleen Otto at Parador Nacional de San Francisco, in
Granada, Spain. Before moving to India, they lived in
Newton, Massachusetts. Wendy was born on October 26, 1966, in Ventura,
California. She received a B.A. degree in English from
California Polytechnic State University, in San Luis Obispo in 1989,
and also attended the graduate school for journalism at the University
of California in Berkeley. In 2005, she was manager of
communications for Gap, Inc., a
clothing retailer. 2. Jeffrey Miles Lloyd, second child of Karen and Rob, was born on April 2, 1971, in Lexington, Kentucky. He graduated from the University of Richmond in 1993, majoring in Latin American studies, and he traveled in Latin America. In 1995, he began work with America On-Line (AOL), the computer service company, in Vienna, Virginia. He left AOL in 1997, visited his brother in Singapore, and worked at MCI for two years. Then, In 1999, he joined Vignette Corporation, a software firm that helps companies and the government manage Internet portals and assist non-technical staff to publish information on the web. In 2008, he was Regional Vice President for Consulting, with responsibility for the company's East Coast, Canada and Federal Government markets. Jeff married Hanh Nguyen on September 29, 2007, in Annandale, Virginia, outside Washington. Hanh was born in Saigon on November 15, 1972, and moved to Northern Virginia in 1990. Her entire family -- 12 brothers and sisters, her 76-year-old mother and her 96-year-old grandmother -- lived in Northern Virginia in 2007. Her father was deceased. Hanh received a bachelor's degree in mathematics and chemistry from Virginia Commonwealth University, and then graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine in 2005. Prior to their marriage, Hanh worked as an associate dentist at a practice in Tyson's Corner, Virginia. Jeff and Hanh were married at her mother's house in Annandale, in a ceremony that was a mixture of Christianity, Buddhism and Vietnamese ancestor worship. In early 2008, they lived in Washington, D. C. They had a daughter, Alexandra Uyen-sa Lloyd, on June 6, 2008. Another girl, Lisa Uyen-Giang Lloyd, was born on October 26, 2010.
2. Walter Ralph Boyer, Sr., the second child of Floyd Elwood and Marjorie Boyer, was born in Easton on November 15, 1918. His mother died when he was nine, and he was basically raised by his grandparents, Lew and Henrietta Boyer, along with their own younger children. Walt graduated from Wilson High School in 1937 and played baseball on a farm team for the Philadelphia Phillies. He also attended the North Carolina State University. When World War II began, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps and was trained as a pilot in North Carolina. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Walt was stationed in Hawaii and organized athletic events, especially baseball, for U.S. troops stationed in or near Pearl Harbor. Later, when living in Easton, he flew a Piper Cub, and his daughter Junie remembers being taken for a ride in the plane when she was very young. For many years, Walt was a member of the Harker's Hollow Golf and Country Club, outside of Phillipsburg, and often took his family there for Sunday dinner.
Walt was married to June
Edith Young at Calvary Church in Easton on June 10,
1941. Shirley Boyer, Walt's sister, was maid of
honor. June was born on June 10, 1921, a daughter of Sarah
Ashworth and John Wesley Young. In a proliferation of
"Junes," June was married in June, on her 20th birthday,
and her
daughter, who was also born in June, was also named June.
Walts wife June was a graduate of Henry's Beauty Academy in
Allentown. Before her children were born, June had a station
in Jeannie's Beauty Shoppe, owned by her sister Jean Basta, at 17th and
Washington Streets in Easton, across from the bus barn, where the citys
buses were maintained and stored. Later, June had her own
beauty salon on Ferry Street in Wilson Borough, in the mid-1940s, when
her son Wally was an infant and young child. After
Junie was born in 1952, Walt bought a large house on Washington
Boulevard, near 18th Street and down the street from Jeannie's Beauty
Shoppe. The family lived there until about 1957.
June and the children later moved to College Hill, and June
opened a new salon on Knox Avenue. Walt and June had three children: Walter Ralph Boyer, Jr., June Edythe Boyer, and Stephen John Boyer. Walt was an automobile salesman, as were his son Walter, Jr., and grandson Dan after him. At one time, Walt was a salesman at Brown-Daub in Easton. Later, from 1946 to 1959, he was co-owner and general manager of Continental Motors, a Lincoln-Mercury dealer at 15th and Northampton Streets in Easton. He belonged to the Dallas Masonic Lodge and the Tall Cedars of Lebanon. After Walt and June divorced, he married Lucy Allen Scrocco, of Easton, and they moved to California. Apparently, Walt had been urged to make that move by his brother Floyd, who was then managing the Dixie Cup Company in Anaheim. In Laguna Beach, in southern California, Walt became Western regional manager for the manufacturer of the Hillman automobile. (Walt's daughter June remembered that in 1960, when she was 8, Walt drove her across the country from Easton to California in a Sunbeam Alpine.) Walt returned to Easton as sales manager for Wilson Auto Imports in 1964, then returned to California. When his daughter June joined them after graduating from high school in 1970, Walt was general manager for Wester Porsche-Audi, in Monterey. He left there around 1971, going first to Vacaville, then to Eureka in Northern California, just south of the Oregon border. In Eureka, he and a partner purchased McRea Datsun, and Walt was its general manager. Walt had heart problems around this time and was hospitalized several times in 1972. In November 1973, he was invited on a golfing holiday in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and had a heart attack on the plane while en route. He turned 55 while hospitalized in South Carolina and, after another heart attack, died in Greenville General Hospital on November 19, 1973. Funeral services were at Ashton Funeral Home in Easton. Walt was buried in Hay's Cemetery, Easton, in a grave near the graves of his parents, Elwood and Marjorie. June married Jerry Caponigro of Roseto in the summer of 1975, and she and Jerry often visited her daughter Junie in California. Jerry had been born on June 2, 1913, the son of Antonio and Rose Pallidino Caponigro. His first wife, the former Pauline Ronane, had died in 1971. Jerry owned the Silver Dollar Café in Easton from 1963 to 1986. He died in 1987 at the age of 73. June assisted her son Walt in the operation of his used car business in Easton for a number of years, until he sold the business in 1999. In 2005, June was working in the Utopia furniture store in downtown Easton. The store, featuring wicker furniture, was owned by June's stepson from her second marriage, John Caponigro. June died at Easton Hospital on February 13, 2012, at the age of 90. See her obituary in the Easton Express-Times. Lucy Scrocco Boyer, Walt's second wife, moved to Florida after Walt's death, then to North Carolina, where she died in the early 1990's. A. Walter Ralph
Boyer,
Jr.,
known to
the family as "Wally" when he was young, then later as
"Walt," was born on August 26, 1943, the first of a new generation of
the Boyer family. The first child of Walt and June Boyer,
Walt was the first great-great-great-great-great-grandchild of Johann
Friedrich Boyer, who came to America in the mid-1700s, and the first
great-grandchild of Lew and Henrietta Boyer. (In turn, Walt's
daughter Tammy was the first child of the next generation, and his son
Dan's son Jordan was the first great-great-great-grandchild of Lew and
Henrietta Boyer.)
Walt graduated from Easton High School and Churchman's Business College, and served in the U.S. Marines. On July 11, 1963, he married Barbara Ann Hughes, of Phillipsburg, New Jersey, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Elias Hughes. They were married at St. Mark's United Church of Christ, in Easton, by a Rev. Weiler. Barbara and Walt at the time of their marriage were both employed at Mack Printing Company in Easton. Barbara later became a licensed practical nurse and worked as a private duty nurse. In 2005, she was retired but continued to work part-time with developmentally disabled people.
Like his father, Walt was engaged in automobile sales -- in the Easton area from 1967 to 1979, and in Clinton, New Jersey, from 1979 to 1981. He was self-employed in the auto-service business until 1984, when he moved to Wausau, Wisconsin, and became manager for Chevrolet fleet sales and leasing with Bob Johnson Chevrolet. Later, he moved back to the Easton area, first living in Pen Argyl and then in Saylorsburg. Walt was active in civic affairs in Easton, including serving on the board of directors of the Jaycees and chairman of the Bicentennial Committee. He was also a member of the Chevrolet Truck Sales Honor Club. In 1997, Walt was running the Boyer Auto Center, selling used cars, at 13th Street and Bushkill Drive in Easton. The Boyer Auto Center received considerable publicity in the local press in the early 1990s. In one interview, Walt said that most of the cars on his lot were practical vehicles that would be good as second cars or back-to-school cars for students. "At Boyer," he said, "we offer everything that the big boys offer except the hassles." Because of his low overhead, he said he could pass substantial savings on to his customers. In August 1990, when war broke out in the Persian Gulf, Walt's business encountered some bumps. He had been supplying luxury model cars to a dealer in Kuwait. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait occurred about three hours after Walt had bought a dozen new cars -- Thunderbirds, Lincolns, Cadillacs -- to ship to Kuwait. In addition, he had some 30 cars in ships on the way to Kuwait. One of those, he told a reporter, was a Lincoln stretch limousine with a color television, two VCRs, a sun roof and a compact disc player with remote control. Out in front of his lot on 13th Street, Walt and his son Dan had a sign proclaiming "Middle East Crisis Clearance Sale." Walt's advertisements proclaimed his business to be: The Little Guy at 13th St. and Bushkill Drive . . . From the streets of downtown Easton to the streets of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Dubai, you'll see the famous "BOYER AUTO CENTER" sticker that means value the world over! Walt sold the business in mid-1999. In 2005, Walt was selling cars for Mueller Chevrolet, in Phillipsburg. He was also active in the Marine Corps League in Easton, in the "order of the devil dogs." In June 2006, at the annual convention of the Pennsylvania Department of the Marine Corps League, held in Wilkes-Barre, Walt received the Chaplains Legion of Honor Award, which recognizes the recipients' exceptional contributions to humanity and their communities without regard to race, religion or creed. After suffering a series of health problems, including cancer, Walt died at his home in Saylorsburg on March 12, 2008. He was 64. He and Barbara had been married 44 years. A memorial service was held at Ashton Funeral Home, in Easton, on March 20, and he was buried at Indiantown Gap National Cemetery, near Annville, Pennsylvania.
i. Tammy Lynn Boyer, first child of Walt and Barbara Boyer, was born on February 8, 1964, in Easton. She was the first-born of the generation of great-great-grandchildren of Lewis Elmer Boyer. Tammy graduated from Easton High School in 1982 and attended Kutztown State College for two years. After her family moved to Wisconsin, she studied at Northcentral Technical College in Wausau and in 1989 received an Associate's Degree in Applied Sciences, which led to her fluency in American Sign Language and her work as an interpreter for hearing-impaired children. She then went to North Central Bible Institute, in Merrill, about 15 miles north of Wausau, to major in Christian education.
Among Tammy's hobbies were writing stories and poetry. She enjoyed onomatology, the study of names, both surnames and given names. She was also involved in painting and singing. She was able to use sign language to interpret music, and also provided sign language interpretation during church services. In 1993, on her father's 50th birthday, Tammy took out a classified advertisement in the Easton Express, containing a photograph of Walt holding Tammy as an infant. The advertisement said "On this day, 1943, Walter R. Boyer, Jr., made his family three by entering into the Boyer's tree. Glory Be! I'M PROUD TO BE HIS DAUGHTER IN THIS FAMILY. Happy 50th Birthday, Daddy. I love you. Tammy Lynn." In 1997, Tammy was working at D. C. Everest Senior High School in Schofield, Wisconsin, interpreting for a deaf student in the junior class. She worked in a self-contained classroom with cognitively disabled students, of which two were deaf and one deaf and blind. She also was working in home settings with developmentally disabled adults and continuing to work on her degree from North Central Bible Institute. Tammy also served as a volunteer at the Christian Academy, a private Christian school. After returning to Pennsylvania in 1999, Tammy worked in autistic support for the intermediate unit at Cheston Elementary School in Easton for one school year, and then worked for T-Mobile for four years in technical support. She then decided to try journalism and enrolled in Northampton Community College, in Easton, where in 2005 she was a writer for the college newspaper, The Commuter On-line and doing on-line tutoring in journalism. Her brother Dan enrolled to study journalism at the same time and also published in The Commuter.
Tammy was married on March 16, 2002, to Herman K. Mitchell, of Brodheadsville. Herman had been born in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, on July 18, 1971. His family lived in Hazen, New Jersey, and moved to Brodheadsville, Pennsylvania, in 1976, when Herman was 5. He had a brother, Kenneth Richard Mitchell (Ricky) Jr., born on August 23, 1967. Herman's great-grandfather came to the U.S. from Italy. The familys original name was Miccelli, but it was "Americanized" to Mitchell, as many Italian immigrants did in order to avoid discrimination. Anthony Mitchell was Herman's grandfather, and his parents were Kenneth Richard Mitchell and Carole Ann Wright. Herman graduated from Pleasant Valley High School in 1989. In 2004, he was manager of the Domino's Pizza outlet in Easton. Then in 2005, he was transferred to manage two outlets in Lewisburg and Milton, Pennsylvania, and Herm and Tammy moved to Lewisburg in 2006.
ii. Daniel Stephen Boyer, second child of Walt and Barbara Boyer, was born on August 6, 1966, in Phillipsburg. He graduated in 1984 from Easton High School, where he was a leader in school activities, including president of the concert choir. He was named an outstanding young American at his school. In early 1986, he joined the U.S. Navy and was assigned to Japan. The Easton Express carried a report of his award for outstanding performance of duties as receipts personnel man aboard the USS Blue Ridge, the flagship for the Seventh Fleet. While in Japan, Danny met Jojit ("Jet") Meguillo, a native of the Philippines who was working as a model in Tokyo. They were married on January 13, 1989. Dan and Jet had two children, Jordan Christian Boyer, born in 1992, and Genesis Abigael Boyer, born in 1995. They were divorced on June 19, 2006. After returning from Japan, Dan worked as a car salesman at Auto Land, on Hecktown Road in Easton, and lived on Cattell Street, in Easton. In 1995, he moved to Tampa Bay, Florida, to work at Abraham Chevrolet in Tampa. He produced a newsletter for the dealer. In 1996, he moved back to the Easton area and was selling cars there. In 2004, Dan's sister Tammy reported that Dan and Jet were separated and that the two children were living with Dan. Dan and Tammy were both studying journalism at Northampton Community College outside Easton in early 2005. Dan had published several articles in the Colleges Commuter On-Line newspaper. In 2006, Dan moved to the island of Cebu in the Philippines where, among other things he was raising pigs, although he conceded that "a pig farmer I am not." There, at a Christian seminar in Cebu City, he met Regina Lasas, from Negros, Philippines, and on March 30, 2007, they were married at Fort San Pedro in Cebu City. Dan's uncle, Steve Boyer, who lived in Japan, served as best man at the wedding, and Regina's sister Rosa was the maid of honor. In early 2008, Dan and Regina were living in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania. They had a son, David Yeshua Boyer, in 2007. a. Jordan Christian Boyer, the first child of Dan and Jet Boyer, was born on February 19, 1992, at St. Luke's Hospital, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the first of a new generation of Boyers. He is the first great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchild of Johann Friedrich Boyer, who came to America from Europe in 1752, and the first great-great-great-grandchild of Lew and Henrietta Boyer.
b. Genesis Abigael Boyer, second child of Dan and Jet, was born at St. Joseph's Women's Hospital, Tampa, Florida, on April 7, 1995.
c.
David Yeshua Boyer, child
of Dan and
Regina Lasas Boyer, was born in Cebu City, the Philippines, on
December 25, 2007.
d. Samantha June Lasas Boyer, second
child of Dan and Regina, was born in the Philippines on June 26, 2009.
e. Daniel Stephen Boyer, Jr., third
child of Dan and Regina, was born in Cebu City, the Philippines, on
November 6, 2010.
B. June Edythe Boyer, the second child of Walt and June Boyer, was born in Easton, Pennsylvania, on June 9, 1952. Both her mother June and Junie (to distinguish her from her mother) were born in June. Later, Junie was known as Elizabeth (Beth) Ashworth. This June went to March School in Easton and graduated from Easton High School in 1970. Shortly thereafter, she went to live with her father, Walt Boyer, and his wife Lucy in Monterey, California. There she attended Monterey Peninsula College for two years, and while there she worked for her father at Wester Porsche-Audi as receptionist, car title secretary and a mixer of specialized auto paint, for which she seemed to have quite a talent. Later she worked at Monterey Peninsula Hospital in a variety of roles ranging from admissions supervisor to emergency room technician. June then transferred to the University of California at Berkeley, where she graduated with honors and received a masters degree in creative writing in 1977.
Subsequently, June taught creative writing to Vietnam veterans in Monterey and acted in local Monterey theater. Talent scouts noted her on stage and invited her to move to Hollywood, which she did in 1978, becoming a regular on television shows such as MASH and The White Shadow and having parts in several Woody Allen movies and films of Clint Eastwood. A veteran horse rider, June trained horses for movies and appeared as a stunt double for a number of actors, both male and female. In early 2005, she said she still rode horses as often as she could. June was married on December 31, 1971, in Big Sur, California, to Lawrence (Larry) Edward Barrett, a Vietnam veteran who had worked with her at Wester Porsche-Audi in Monterey. It was a small wedding, and afterward they honeymooned by hiking and skiing at Yosemite National Park. Due to Larrys unresolved trauma in Vietnam, they were amicably in divorced in 1975. On March 27, 1982, June married Phillip Browning, a film, television and Broadway producer. They were married in Pacific Palisades, California, at a Buddhist sanctuary, the Self-Realization Fellowship, site of some of the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi. Phillip had two children by a prior marriage, Elizabeth and Anthony. June and Phillip had a son, Jonathan Ashworth Browning, born August 6, 1983, in Santa Monica, California. June and Phillip worked together in producing shows for television, films and Broadway. Among other things, they developed the idea for The Will Rogers Follies: A Life in Revue, a great success on Broadway, winning seven Tony Awards. June and Phillip were amicably divorced in 2002, and remained good friends, still writing and producing theatrical endeavors. During her time in Ojai, California, June owned an up-scale womens clothing store and art gallery, The Front Room Gallery. Drawing on the surnames of her husbands, she adopted June Barrett-Browning as her stage name. When her step-daughter, Phillips daughter Elizabeth, changed her name to Victoria, June adopted the first name of her step-daughter, Elizabeth, whom she had raised from the age of 8. The two remained very close and shared a passion for horses. In 1992, Beth went to Scotland to do research on Scotlands national poet, Robert Burns, with the idea of producing a Broadway musical. She went back in 2000 to continue the research and moved to Edinburgh in December of that year. Except for occasional trips to California and to Easton, Beth lived there until August 2005, when she moved back to California.
June then reinvented herself (in her words) yet again, and for a nom de plume, she took the last name of Ashworth, which was the maiden name of her maternal grandmother, Sarah Ashworth, the mother of June Young Boyer. Beginning in 2001, she was known as Elizabeth or Beth Ashworth. In early 2007, Beth was living in the Napa Valley of California and working as an interior design consultant, heading Ashworth Interiors, Ltd., in Kelseyville, California. Besides her involvement in raising horses and dogs, Beth was a published poet as well as a medical writer and editor, using different names as noms de plume. In early 2005, she reported that she was working on a series of humorous books called The View from Here, containing vignettes about her life abroad. Her topics included the ups and downs of home plumbing renovation in Scotland and the dead man who went up in flames in the flat below. Among other employment in Scotland, she had served as a team leadership facilitator for British Petroleum. Her job was to build team spirit on an off-shore oil rig by leading 300 oil engineers in singing Oh, What a Beautiful Morning at 6:30 a.m. each day for months, a job she described as the funniest in her varied career. Jonathan Ashworth Browning, the son of June and Phillip Browning, was born on August 6, 1983, in Santa Monica, California. In 2005, he was managing a clothing store, Campus Casuals, in Fort Bragg, California, and preparing to attend nearby Mendocino State University. He also worked in the film industry with his father as a streaming video producer and music arranger. In 2006, Jonathan was studying the hotel and hospitality business and working at the Little River Inn in Mendocino.
3. Shirley Anna Boyer, the third child of Floyd Elwood and Marjorie Boyer, was born in Easton on October 26, 1921. After the death of her mother when she was six, Shirley lived with her grandparents, Lew and Henrietta Boyer, on Ferry Street in Easton. She grew up largely a contemporary of their last three children, Art, Dave and Ruth. As Jack Boyer noted later, we must remember that Shirley was raised with us . . . as a sister. Shirley graduated from Wilson High School. She was infinitely generous with her time and interest in members of the family. When Henrietta was very ill with a heart condition prior to her death in 1948, Shirley basically provided her with round-the-clock care.
On Valentine's Day, February 14, 1942, at Wesley Methodist Church in Phillipsburg, she married Stephen Louis Kovacs. Steve had been born on December 31, 1916, in Passaic, New Jersey. His father was Joseph Kovacs. At the time of his marriage to Shirley, Steve lived with his family on Lucy Street in Easton, and both Steve and Shirley worked for the Ingersoll-Rand Company in Phillipsburg. Later, for many years, Shirley was administrative assistant to the superintendent of schools of Easton.
Steve served in the Navy during World War II, beginning shortly after his marriage to Shirley. After his return, he became a master plumber, working with a plumbing firm in Easton. Later he worked in maintaining the technical plant at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He was also an avid golfer and took frequent trips to Bermuda and other places to play golf. On his 70th birthday in 1986, he was honored by his daughters and friends at a special party at the home of Enid Boyer.
Shirley and Steve were active in the work of Calvary Methodist Church,
in Easton. They celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary in
on Valentine's Day 2012. A notice of the anniversary was published in the Easton Express-Times.
In 2013, Shirley and Steve decided to give the Easton apartment where
they had lived for many years, and they moved to Country Meadows, a
retirement center on Green Pond Road, close to Route 22 and Route 33,
between Bethlehem and Nazareth. Shirley's lively personality made her
what some called a "rock star" at Country Meadows. The residents there
elected Shirley and Steve as king and queen on Valentine's Day in 2014.
Shirley died at Country Meadows on February 20,
2014. She was 92. Her obituary appeared in the Easton Express-Times on February 22, 2014. Shirley and Steve had two daughters, Marjorie Ann Kovacs, born in 1949, and Janet Louise Kovacs, born in 1953.
Marjorie (also called Marge) was involved in many aspects of psychiatric counseling. In 1987, she was serving as a psychiatric nurse therapist, supervising other nurses, for the Lehigh County Mental Health Association, and providing counseling for patients -- especially those involved with narcotic drugs -- referred to the association by the Lehigh County officials. She also served as a nurse manager with the Slate Belt Detoxification and Rehabilitation Program and as a psychiatric nurse therapist with the Muhlenberg Hospital Center Base Service Unit. She co-founded the Action Coalition for Women's Services, a referral agency for women seeking treatment and support services.
In July 1996, Marjorie was appointed deputy mental health administrator
in the Office of Mental Health of Lehigh County, based in Allentown,
Pennsylvania. Her position was to oversee and evaluate the
county's case-management services, as well as crisis intervention,
residential and hospitalization services, and socialization programs
for people with mental illness. At the time of her
appointment, the director of the county's Human Services was quoted in
an extensive newspaper article -- "Kovacs named to Lehigh Post" -- as
saying that "Marge Kovacs brings more than 25 years of mental health
experience to this position. She has the respect of the
community and consumers of mental health services and is an excellent
supervisor who is well-regarded by employees."
Marge suffered for a number of years from rheumatoid arthritis, which seriously impaired her mobility and required extensive medication. On Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010, she unexpectedly died in her sleep at her home in Allentown. She was 60. On April 9, her ashes were buried (along with ashes of three of her dogs) in Northampton Memorial Shrine, in Palmer Township outside Easton. A large number of people attended the graveside service, and the websites of the Easton Express-Times and the Allentown Morning Call included a long list of tributes from Marge's friends and colleagues in the mental health field.
B. Janet Louise Kovacs, the second child of Shirley and Steve Kovacs, was born in Easton on April 18, 1953. She graduated from Easton High School and Kutztown State College, and received a master's degree in education from Kutztown in 1978. In various capacities, Janet was a teacher and a trainer of teachers. In 1987, she was teaching remedial reading in the Easton public schools to students in first to fifth grades in a federal reading program. In 1997, she was doing part-time teaching to elementary school students with learning disabilities, and she was also teaching a graduate education course at Penn State's campus in East Stroudsburg.
In 2004, Janet became the first teacher in the Easton Area School
District to receive national board certification. A long
article in the Easton
Express-Times on December 25, 2004, said that in
Pennsylvania there were 181 teachers with national board certification,
but only three in Janet's specialty -- early and middle childhood
literacy: reading and language arts. Janet received a letter
of congratulations from First Lady Laura Bush. In 2007, as associate
director literacy of the Easton Area School District, Janet and a
colleague, Joan Baldwin, also an expert in literacy, had an opportunity
to teach English to young children in a school in Nanking, China. When
they returned, the Allentown
Morning Call ran a long article on August 13, 2007, about
their experiences. living and traveling in
China. In November 2011, Janet was elected
to a seat on the Easton Area School Board, gaining the most votes of
four candidates for the post. She and other new members of the Board
were installed on December 6, 2011.
On June 17, 1978, at Calvary Church in Easton, Janet married James W. Matthews. Her sister Marjorie was maid of honor. Jim had been born in Easton on August 12, 1952. He was the son of James W. Matthews, who had taught a number of Boyer relatives as a teacher and football coach at Wilson High School. Jim graduated from Easton High School and Penn State University, and earned a master's degree in education from Temple University in Philadelphia. For a time, Jim was a teacher in the Easton Public Schools. In 1997, he was Human Resources Director of General Public Utility, formerly Metropolitan Edison power company, in Portland, Pennsylvania, about 15 miles north of Easton.
About 1980, Janet and Jim built a house at 1259 Tatamy Road, on land
owned at one time by her great-grandfather, Lewis Elmer
Boyer. Their house was next to the one built by Janet's
grandfather, Elwood Boyer, and occupied by Elwood's wife
Enid. Later Janet and Jim moved to a newly built house on
Maple Avenue in Easton, in the Sycamore Hills section of Forks
Township. Janet and Jim had a son, Michael James Matthews, born in 1984.
Michael
James Matthews, son of Janet and Jim Matthews, was born in
Easton on January 3, 1984. He attended the Shawnee
Intermediate School in Easton and participated in numerous sports
activities. Mike played football for Easton High School, and
after graduation enrolled at Penn State, where he was a junior in early
2005, majoring in hotel, restaurant, and industrial management. He was
selected for a five-week course in the summer of 2005 at the
distinguished Swiss hotel institute in Montreux, Switzerland.
Michael graduated from Penn State in May of 2007. In
mid-2008, he was working with a real estate land management company in
Las Vegas, Nevada. Later, he was working with a supplier of automobile parts in Los Angeles, California. On November 20, 2011, Michael married Patcha Boonpoom in a small chapel in Los Angeles. Her chosen American name is Anita.
She grew up near Bangkok, Thailand, and graduated from Burapha
University with a B.S. degree in Human Resources Management. Her mother
died when Anita was very young. In 2011, her father, Uthai Boonpoom,
was still living near Bangkok. After moving to Los Angeles, Anita and a
cousin operated a small Thai restaurant. Later they opened a day spa in
Santa Monica, California.
On June 17, 1961, Barbara married Paul Louis Duhamel, whom she had met at Albright. They were married in Calvary Church, in Easton. They had three sons, Timothy Paul Duhamel, born in 1962; Joel Alan Duhamel, born in 1964 (who died three weeks later), and Craig Eugene Duhamel, born in 1965. In 1991, Barbara and Paul celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary with a two-week trip to England, taking along their sons Tim and Craig and their wives. They also took trips to the western United States and to Mexico, and they had a vacation cottage at a lake in Maine. Barbara was a strong supporter of Paul's social service and counseling work and was his main support in medical care through the time of his death in 1996.
Barbara's husband, Paul Duhamel, was born on June 4, 1939, in Providence, Rhode Island, a son of Elmer R. Duhamel and Anna E. Hendrickson. He graduated from East Providence High School, Albright College and Andover-Newton Theological Seminary. He was ordained into the ministry at the Franklin Congregational Church in Cranston, Rhode Island, on February 13, 1966. Paul first held pastorates in Cranston and Providence, Rhode Island. In 1970, the City Missionary Society of the United Church of Christ decided to fund a full-time employee to work on urban problems in Somerville. Paul took the job. He gave up his pastorate and for the next 13 years served as director of the Multi-Service center in Somerville, Massachusetts, run by the non-profit social service Somerville Corporation. In 1983, and for the next five years, he took the pastorate of the First Congregational Church of Waverly, in Belmont, Massachusetts, near Boston. In 1987, Paul took a job with the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation. In 1991, he became Director of Constituent Relations, which included coordination of the work of volunteers at the Fernald State School, a large state institution in Waltham housing retarded citizens. Paul was also an officer with the Somerville Mental Health Board.
Paul's civic interest also led him to serve on the Somerville School Committee. He was first elected in 1980, served as vice chairman in 1982 and later in 1991, and as chairman in 1983 as well as in 1993. In 1989, Barbara reported that Paul had just been reelected by a narrow margin, leading others to call him jokingly "Landslide Duhamel." About 1983, Paul was diagnosed with cancer of the stomach and esophagus. He underwent a series of difficult operations and painful treatment, but the disease then went into remission and he was able to lead a relatively normal life. Twelve years later, he was told he need not worry about recurrence of the cancer, but at the end of 1995 it did come back. This led to several more operations and multiple hospitalizations. Finally, there was nothing more the doctors could do, and Paul died at home in Somerville on April 21, 1996, at the age of 56. His remains were cremated and buried in Rhode Island with Duhamel relatives. Following Paul's death, there was an outpouring of accolades for his community service. A celebration of his life was held at First Congregational Church in Somerville. A headline in the Somerville Journal said "Duhamel mourned as community activist, friend." The article said "The Somerville School System lost 'a true friend' of the city's students with the passing of former Ward 7 School Committee member Paul L. Duhamel. . . . School Committee members asked for a moment of silence at the start of their meeting Monday night and remembered their former colleague as someone who always used kind words and spoke out on behalf of Somerville's students." Somerville's mayor said "The first time I met him I was in this room [Board of Aldermen Chambers] and I didn't know who he was. The speech he gave that night was the most powerful speech I had ever heard. He was not a politician the way we use the word today. He was a good politician because he chose to be in politics to give something back. I for one am going to miss him." A Boston Globe article was headed "Mourning the loss of Paul Duhamel." It quoted one friend as saying "wherever ordinary people needed an advocate, and the everyday routine needed fresh air, Paul Duhamel -- just an ordinary guy -- proved to the thousands he knew that an individual can make a difference." The Globe reported that Paul's civic contributions included launching of Citizens to Support Schools, and the Somerville Corporation, a development group working to increase the supply of public housing. He also sparked Respond, a battered women's shelter, a program to provide meals to alcoholics, and a local Council for Children. In a eulogy at his memorial service, a friend recalled that Paul loved his bicycle built for two. "If you were a friend of Paul's, you rode that bike at least once with him. And he and Barbara rode it often over the years. It was typical of him to prefer a bike on which he could offer someone a ride rather than a perfect model 12-speed for himself." Recalling all of Paul's civic contributions, especially for the poor, his friend said that now a great feast undoubtedly was awaiting him. "A man who lived for 12 years with a partial stomach and one year without a stomach deserves to eat with a gusto you and I cannot imagine. And when he's done, we are sure that he will be rounding up the waifs and strays of heaven, organizing a social, a committee for improvements, a campaign, Bikes for Angels, you name it." In the weeks after Paul's death, an 18-unit apartment building was dedicated in Paul's memory. Across from the Multi-Service Center where Paul worked for 13 years, the building had long interested Paul. It had been rehabilitated and offered subsidized apartments to low-income tenants. At the Fernald School where Paul worked for 10 years, in a dedication ceremony on October 9, 1996, a beautiful Olympic-size swimming pool, accessible to even the most severely handicapped people, was renamed the Paul L. Duhamel Pool. A new school in Paul's district of Somerville was officially opened on October 20, 1996, with Paul's name on the music room. And the 1996 Fernald/Marriott Celebrity Pro-Am Golf Tournament was dedicated in Paul's honor.
Also, after Pauls death, a group of friends got together to form a
memorial in his name first called the Friends of Paul Duhamel but later
the Duhamel Education Initiative. Paul had been concerned
about the high dropout rate among students in the Somerville school
system, and the Initiative raises funds to enable teachers to undertake
special projects to keep kids interested and involved in
school. In 2006, an annual pancake breakfast was still being
held for the benefit of this initiative, and local politicians would
use the event to solicit electoral support.
Barbara was also active in female barbershop quartets and choruses, in
particular a group called the Sweet Adelines. In 1987, her
group won a regional competition and went to Houston, Texas, to join
with 8,000 other Sweet Adelines for a week. In 2003, Barbara
was associate director of the Liberty Belle Chorus of Sweet Adelines,
teaching, directing and auditioning new members. She decided
to leave that position at the end of 2004, although she continued
singing in one of the choirs in a large Episcopal church in
Boston.
Tim married Debra Arline Rollins on May 30, 1987, in the Congregational Church of West Medford, in Medford, Massachusetts. Debbie had been born on April 9, 1961, in Boston, the daughter of Virginia and Wayne A. Rollins. Debbie's family lived in Medford. She worked with doctors and patients in a hypertension clinic at Massachusetts General Hospital and later in the hospital's obstetrics clinic. They were married by Tim's father, Paul. Following their marriage, they lived in an apartment above Paul and Barbara. In 1990, Tim was working as a quality control officer and analytical chemist for Prototech, a catalytic converter manufacturer. In 1997, he was doing extensive traveling in the United States and overseas to represent the company. In 1994 alone, he had been to Germany, Belgium and Poland. One of Tim's avocations was the restoration of MG automobiles. He and a colleague would purchase parts of old MGs and bring them together in one restored car. Their business card read "M&T MG's, Restorations and Repairs for the MGB -- Max and Tim, Everett, MA." At the 1997 reunion of the Boyer family and descendants in Easton, Tim and Debbie arrived in a newly restored (but not quite finished) MGB, driven from Somerville.
Tim and Debbie had two sons, Joshua
Timothy Duhamel, born in 1993, and Nicholas Paul Duhamel,
born in 1998. In 2007, the family was living
in Somerville. They later moved to Little Falls, New Jersey, and Tim worked for Scientific Design in Little Ferry, New Jersey.
i.
Joshua Timothy Duhamel, first child of Tim and
Debbie Duhamel, was born on September 10, 1993, in a hospital in
Malden, Massachusetts. In 2014, he was a sophomore at Rutgers University.
ii. Nicholas Paul Duhamel,
second child of Tim
and Debbie, was born in Boston on February 13, 1998. In 2014, he was
enrolled in a high school "shared program," involving carpentry and
academic studies. On October 26, 1990, Craig was married to Andrea Joan Forestier. Craig's father, Paul, performed the ceremony in the College Avenue Methodist Church in Somerville. Craig and Andrea lived in Marlboro, MA, about 30 miles from Boston. Andrea was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John A. Forestier and worked for the Wausau Insurance Company. Craig and Andrea were divorced in 1992. Craig was married to Leslie Anne King on October 25, 1997, at a resort in Brewster on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The ceremony was performed by a friend of the family for whom Paul had been a mentor. Leslie had been born on March 28, 1967, in New York City, the daughter of Thomas R. King and Janet M. Palpini. She received a B.A. degree in 1989 from Boston University and an M.A. degree from Boston College in 1996. Leslie shared Craig's love of sports, and among other things, they often skied in Maine. They were engaged on Leslie's 30th birthday in March 1997 and married in October of that year.
Craig had met Leslie met at Epsilon Company, where she worked providing list services for American Express. In the fall of 1997, Leslie became an account manager at Marketing Information Technologies, Inc. (MITI). They went to Ireland on their honeymoon. In July 1996, Craig and Leslie bought a house in Stoneham, Massachusetts, and they were living there in 2007. Craig and Leslie had two children in 2005, Lindsey Jan Duhamel, born in 1999, and Valerie Rose Duhamel, born in 2003. i. Lindsey Jan Duhamel, first child of Craig and Leslie, was born in Boston on January 20, 1999. ii. Valerie Rose Duhamel, their second child, was born in Boston on December 28, 2003.
LINKS: Elwood Boyer's Family
Genealogical Chart |