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Joan Coyne was born on the 19th of April, 1931 in Heworth, a residential area in Gateshead, located around 3 miles from Newcastle upon Tyne, in England. Unlike most family members, she wasn’t named after anyone, signifying from her first day that she would be something different.  She grew up in a warm and loving home in Northern England; however, her father, a foreman for the steel erection company Wright-Anderson, was gone for long periods of time on construction projects….

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Thank you all the friends and family that have joined us here today to remember my sweet mom, Joan Roland.  When my kids asked how I was doing, I said that I was holding it together ….unless people were nice to me and then I would get quite teary so given where we are right now, buckle up for some emotion. Welcome to this beautiful facility that meant so much to my mom, who was instrumental in the conception, fundraising,…

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“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art. “ — Eleanor Roosevelt supposedly said that. My Mom, as you have seen in the slideshow,  was fortunate enough to be both.  Not just in the looks department, where she certainly ranked highly, but also in her spirit, her tenacity, her intellect and also in just how friking funny she was. In this she had always inspired me. Not in the beauty department, clearly. But…

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What can I possibly tell you about the incredible force of nature that was my mother-in-law John Roland – the mother of my heart. I fell under her spell upon our first meeting, Gavin and I we’re simply friends then, stopping by his mother’s house to pick something up from the basement. Upon leaving my immediate comments to him were, “Wow! Your mother is spectacular! What is her accent? And if you ever get married, you should do it in…

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My name is Charlotte and this is my brother Jack, we were lucky enough to be the grandchildren of a really amazing person. Growing up, our Granny was a source of constant comfort, reassurance and most of all fun. She loved to laugh and play with us, and was always so supportive of our creative endeavors. She had a number of games she invented just for us. Our favorite was called treasure hunt, we had made these various shapes and…

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My brother Michael spent a year in China working as an engineer. Being the person he was, he enjoyed living as authentically as possible and learned how the locals went about their lives, including how they cooked. As a result, whenever he would come home to visit, he would inflict his education on us, and make us learn these super-authentic techniques for cooking. The most memorable meal was this Peking Duck three-day extravaganza that included plucking a duck, marinating it,…

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One way or another, all of us will end up alone, and in Keith’s case, to most folks surprise, as Mary was considered to be immortal, it is him. Thanksgiving was us bringing up a ton of oysters and a fresh turkey from St. Jacobs and the end result was three full bellies and lots of tears. Thanksgiving is a strange time this year. There is no previous context for Leslie.