Grandpa has passed

Grandpa died on October 21, 2010. His obituary ran in the New London Day paper. Below is the eulogy I delivered at the funeral.

When I was a child, my grandfather would come to our house to pick me up. He would stand outside his car, parked on Ledyard Street in New London, and whistle. I'd run out of the house, jump into the passenger seat, and we'd head off for ice cream. I still look toward the window when I hear someone whistle like that. My grandfather defined himself by two characteristics: Work and Care. Grandpa was deeply proud of his accomplishments at work, of designing a storage system which saved the company a great deal of money, and of designing a transport system for bromine canisters. After his retirement, grandpa continued to work. He built a garage, and equipped it with a workshop. Some of my fondest childhood memories take place in that workshop. He was quick to offer help to anyone in our family whose house needed repair, or whose lawn needed mowing. I recall many afternoons spent helping Grandpa mow Mary Butler's lawn, or hearing about how he was fixing someone's sink or toilet. In later years, Grandpa turned to driveway sealing, and deck painting, I think in part as a way to use his new pressure washer. We sealed decks and driveways together, often starting as the sun rose.
Grandpa took deep care in both his work, and in his relationships. After my mother died, grandpa was a fixture at our house. Not only handling regular maintenance, but also driving us to school, often taking us out to breakfast on the way. Among my favorite times were spending the night at his house. We would get up early in the morning, and bicycle to Michaels Dairy, where Grandpa would tell me about his first childhood job, delivering milk on one of the Michael's dairy trucks.
My grandfather understood the value of people, and the way people appreciate small things. As the residents of his street aged, Grandpa would show up during snow storms, with his trusty snow blower, and clear their driveways and steps. He said that it was important to take care of the people around you. That was nice, but he went above and beyond, by cutting paths across all the lawns so the mail carrier had a more efficient route, and wouldn’t have to walk through the snow. I met her while cleaning grandpa's house this summer, and she told me how she appreciated that small gesture, how, during those snowy winters, it made her job so much easier.
Nowhere was my grandfather's care more evident than his response to his wife's hospitalization and decline. Grandma was in hospitals as far away as Hartford, a long distance for a man who lived scant miles from his childhood home. My grandfather drove daily to sit with her in the hospital, encouraging her to work hard in rehab, and ensuring the staff provided top notch care.
Later in life, Grandpa spent much of his time in his workshop, sometimes cleaning, sometimes woodworking, one of his favorite things to make were swan shaped planters, which he never sold, but gave away to family and friends. The lions share of my grandfathers' tools, as well as the original swan patterns, now reside in my workshop, and as I use them, I think of him often, and I strive to live up to his example.