As a genealogist, I have to say that my favorite record in research, due to the sheer amount of family history information that can be found in it, is the obituary. A well-written obituary not only gives the important dates and names, but some of the facts in between - where someone worked, what social organizations or what church they belonged to, who their parents and siblings were, who their kids married, and how they journeyed through life. Obituaries have knocked down seemingly-impossible brick walls for me on numerous occasions.
My dad does not have one.
When my grandmother died, I wrote up her obit for the local paper. I made sure all the pertinent info was in it. My dad has a roughly sketched out bio on the website for the funeral home that took care of his final rites. But I was not in the headspace to write up something proper. It’s too final. It’s too real. I’m still not there, but today is his birthday - he would have been 68 and I had plans to try to visit him this weekend to celebrate him and my son, whose 5th birthday is in just about a week. But that’s dust in the wind now. And so I offer this obituary not just as a resource for future generations researching our family history, but as a glimpse into the dash - my dad is not just the dates 1952 and 2020. This is just a little bit of what happened in the in between:
Timothy James Gorry passed suddenly on October 8, 2020 in Freeport, New York. He was born November 27, 1952 in Jamaica, Queens, New York to Elmer A. Gorry and Helen (Stutzmann) Gorry. He lived his early years in Queens Village but grew up in Freeport, Long Island, New York. He attended elementary school at Our Holy Redeemer School in Freeport and graduated from Chaminade High School in 1970, following in the footsteps on his father (Class of ’47) and followed by his youngest son Denis (Class of 2004). He loved football, and played the sport for Chaminade and St. John’s University. He was a lifelong New York Jets fan. He followed in his father’s footsteps of working for NBC at the real-life “30 Rock” in New York City, where he was employed for almost 50 years. In 1992, he won an Emmy for his work on the Olympics in Barcelona. He loved traveling – later in life, his favorite trips were to Atlantic City where he loved playing craps. He was married to Margaret Raynor, who he had known since childhood, from 1976 until her death in 2000 – they raised four children together. In his retirement he doted on his three grandchildren, enjoyed watching the Jets lose over a beer at Jeremy’s Alehouse on Freeport’s Nautical Mile, and loved spending time with his family. He made friends wherever he went. He was a history buff, loved reading, and was a talented cook - when he worked on the Today Show, he would often come home and test out recipes they had filmed for the show that day. He is survived by his wife, Lorrie; his siblings Terry of Nokomis, Florida; Tracy Stock Schroeder of Freeport, NY; Mary Kennedy of Fort Collins, CO; and Betsy White of Rio Rancho, NM; his children Mary (Sam) Hall of Macungie, PA; Tim of Los Angeles, CA; Maggie (Frank) Collado of Freeport, NY; and Denis of Freeport, NY; beloved Pop Pop of grandchildren Elena and Julian Hall and Francine Collado. Burial was in St. Charles Cemetery, Farmingdale, NY.
Happy birthday, Dad.