Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Who knew when my grandfather Roland Wiedmann and his wife Helen bought a farm in 1949 on the 2nd Concession near Marysville, that it would lead to four generations of Wiedmann friendships with their new neighbour, Jack Stafford.
My Aunt Edie (Hynes), a teenager at the time remembers Jack coming over to help my grandfather. Help he sorely needed no doubt, being not a farmer but a landscaper, an expert horticulturalist. "Mr. Wiedmann" as Jack called him, knew how to grow flowers and shrubs no doubt, but hardly corn nor hay.
From that first contact, another true lifelong friendship also blossomed, between Jack and my father Mickey Wiedmann. A friendship my whole family, Jean (Bryson), Linda, Joyce, Ron, Catherine, I and Karen would benefit from - each of us finding ourselves welcomed at Jack and Mary's table over the years, often. Ron, and I, benefited most of all from Jack and Mickey's friendship. Living and working with Jack and Mary (and Brenda and Clair) summers in high school and beyond.
Since that time, the 1970s, Ron and I took our kids too whenever we could to meet and spend time with Jack. We wanted what's best for them, and that meant spending a little time with a cherished old friend. The truly wonderful and helpful man my grandfather met way back when on the 2nd Concession, four generations ago.
Condolences from the Wiedmann and Hynes families to Mary, Ruth, Donnie, Brian, Brenda and Clair, and your families. Jack will be deeply missed by all of us.
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