Tributes

Richard King
(as written by his brother, my Uncle Dave)

Fellow friends,

As many of you may know, last Thursday my older brother Richard suffered an aortic aneurism. He went thru open heart surgery at St. Vincent's hospital on Thursday night/Friday morning. Since that time he suffered numerous strokes. On Tuesday afternoon, life support measures were removed due to the damage that the strokes had caused. He lost his battle with life at approximately 10:30 p.m. last night........

Dick was a very avid fisherman and had spent many years in Florida catching lunker bass and thousands of pan fish. Other than family, fishing was his love of life. My dad, George had a fishing tackle shop and made fishing rods in the 1950's. He too also died of heart problems in 1958 when I was 5 years old. I guess fishing doesn't cure all your heart aches... Dick really enjoyed to fish with "Brownie, Bill, George, and other friends" each week at Wawasee... the guys would then hang at Jim’s tackle shop and tell those infamous "caught the big one lies."

As I sit here teary-eyed, I guess I am sending out this e-mail as a tribute to my dad and brother for which I know are catching the really "big ones" together now. I know this is top-8 weekend... for which I know Dick would tell me to go to if he could. Mary, his wife said to go because if I didn't, Dick would be upset. I will be attending this week-end as a tribute to my dad and brother... so if I am quiet and reserved this week-end, please understand........



Barbara J. Graham
Born in Manhattan on Aug. 25, 1950, daughter of the late Richard and Marion Littauer Graham, she was a graduate of New York's High School of Music and Art and the State University of New York at Albany. She held a master of science degree from Columbia University Teachers College.

She moved to Scranton in 1975 to work as an audiologist at the Scranton State School for the Deaf, where she remained until her recent retirement. She was renowned throughout the area for her ability to test children, and was instrumental in writing a grant for laptop computers to be used in the Parent/Infant program, to enable families of newly diagnosed deaf infants to learn sign language.

Her many community activities included the board of the Scranton Council for Literacy Advance, Friends of the Weinberg Library, Hearing-Impaired United Public Supporters, Scranton State School for the Deaf PSO, SSSD Superintendent's Search Committee, PA Society for the Advancement of the Deaf, and various committees on audiology and deafness for the departments of Health and Education. She received the state Department of Education's 1987 Employee of the Year award.

She was also co-chairwoman of the Women's Campaign for the Jewish Federation, plus a member of its allocations and shalom committees and board of directors. She was a life member of Hadassah. As president of Temple Hesed, she served as the congregational representative at the Union for Reform Judaism's Pennsylvania Regional Council. At the Jewish Community Center, she chaired the Yom HaShoah program and served on the Sunday Simchat series committee, as well as lending her considerable artistic talents to many programs and events. On June 19, she will be posthumously honored as the 2005 recipient of the JCC's Woman of the Year Award.

She was noted for her quick wit and her willingness to help those in need. She was especially adept at befriending children of all ages and entertaining them with her artwork and paper roses.

She will be greatly missed by her many close friends, who were all a part of her extended family.