Taylored Memorial Creations

               Ed was a pastor who seldom wore a tie. He owned ties but believed in a more casual appearance. He didn’t want people to feel like they couldn’t attend church if they didn’t have nice “church clothes”. He always prescribed to the “come as you are” philosophy.             However, he often sported a tie when officiating a wedding or funeral, or some other more serious event. He had a small variety of his favorites. Most of his ties were the plain red, the plain blue or black, and a couple with stripes. He might have had few varieties so as not to interfere with his partial color blindness, I am not sure.             Either way, he had his more professional and versatile plain color ties, and then he had the ties that more reflected his personality. His Snoopy and Charlie Brown tie, his Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse and two...

                I never donated any of my uniforms because I felt like after serving 8 years in the military, I earned my right to keep them. They were a large part of my life spanning almost a decade. For 3 of those years, I wore a set of the Battle Dress Uniforms (BDUs) almost every day.                Those uniforms were issued to me a few days after arriving for my basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. At the reception station we often stood in a long line for something, those first few days—shots, haircuts, and when we were issued our uniforms. Reception personnel took a few measurements and then my 5-foot 95-pound frame was issued 4 sets of “Small, Short” BDU uniforms, 4 brown t-shirts, small, and 2 pair of size 4 black, combat boots complete with 4 pair of green, wool socks.               ...

I dated online. The following stories you are about to hear are true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. I know some might find this shocking. However, after I lost my partner of 29 years, I made the conscious decision not to live the rest of my days on this earth alone. Even God said it was not good for man to be alone. I could live alone, but I did not want to. I loved having that partner who had your back. Someone to laugh with, someone to share your life with. Especially someone with whom I had basically “grown up”. We had a lot of things in common, and we each had other interests outside of our relationship. We each were not perfect, but we were perfect for each other. His strengths complimented my weaknesses, and vice versa. A year or so after he passed away, I began contemplating dating. But at my age, and with my limited dating experience, I wasn’t sure how to go about it. I had not dated in 3 decades. Even though my friends and family knew ...

                 Our family was all about scouting—with Ed IV in Tiger Scouts, Cub Scouts, and then Boy Scouts, Ed was the Cubmaster for several years, Ellis was in Girl Scouts, and I was a Tiger Scout Coordinator one year, and a co-leader for the Girl Scout Troop for several years. “Scout” should have been our middle name! The cubmaster uniform Ed wore at scout events for several years, including pack meetings, pinewood derby races, marching in parades, and Blue and Gold banquets where he would lead the meeting and the songs. He enjoyed leading the scouts, perhaps foreshadowing his time as a pastor. I had hand sewed many of the patches onto his cubmaster shirt. Turning the shirt inside out easily revealed which ones I had sewn, versus the ones that were applied by machine. This shirt enveloped his body for several years while we lived in Iowa. The red and white numbered patches reflected his troop, the “Hawkeye Area Council, Iow...

                                After the t-shirt quilts, I thought about what I could do as an “Ed” memorial for my kids. One of the things I had remaining from my husband’s belongings was an old, wrinkled bag full of patches. Yes, you read that right, and yes, I wrote that right! A brown, paper lunch bag, wrinkled with decades of use. The bag, soft and wrinkled, contained a decade of Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) patches--every year beginning their first year at the EAA Air Show in Osh Kosh, Wisconsin, in 1975 through 1985. Ed’s family were big airplane “buffs”, and indeed, his dad had a pilot’s license for a long time. They would often regale everyone with stories of flying around the country back “in the day”. Ed’s family, every year, would camp out all week at Osh Kosh, for the big air show. His mom had quite the set-up with tents and a screen tent complete with a Coleman ...

Sorting through Ed’s t-shirts brought back a flood of memories of Ed wearing them. Years prior, I had made a t-shirt quilt from t-shirts he designed in the 80s and 90s. It was a beautiful quilt, but cutting all the shirts, sewing on the borders and sewing all the rows together took forever—or at least a couple of years. Then I sewed on two more borders, then pinning together the batting and the backing. Sewing that all together and then the quilt stitching. Next was the binding that rounded it all out. Okay, truthfully, I only did the top piece. The quilt spent years in a box that I would bring out occasionally to show people. I finally talked to a friend who taught a t-shirt quilt class and paid her to finish it. It was beautiful once it was done. Many years later my sister mentioned an organization called “Operation: Quiet Comfort”. This organization made rag quilts from jean materials that was cut in squares and then people signed each square with an encouraging message. They ...

I have always loved Christmas trees. There is something about all the family gathered around spending time together that pulls at my heart strings.   Christmas Eve, growing up, would always find us at Grandma Finazzi’s house with all the aunts, uncles and cousins. Christmas morning with my siblings. It warmed my heart. In the beginning of my life with Ed, our first apartment we borrowed a fake tree from his parents for Christmas. It wasn’t anything spectacular, but once we added some lights, garland, and a few ornaments, it was ours. We didn’t have many presents underneath, but it always warmed my heart during Christmas to have it displayed in the corner of the room.   When we had kids, we still put that tree up every year. The first Christmas in our own house, we started buying a real tree every year. We did the classic Christmas “thing” and took the kids out to pick one, strapped it onto the top of the car, and brought it home (only once did it fall off and go rolling do...