Jerome Gustaf Verryden, passed away peacefully at 91 on March 13th 2020 in Beaverton Oregon after a long, adventurous, and fulfilling life. He is survived by his daughter Nadine Lee, his son Erik Verryden, his granddaughter Nicole Nelson and his longtime partner Rosemary Pohl.
He was born on December 8th 1928 in Gent, Belgium.
Jerome lived through German occupation in World War II as a child. He even mastered four different European languages.
He studied at the Art Academy in Belgium as his passion was using his unique artistic abilities to create wonderful pieces of art (drawings, paintings, sculpting, and hand engraving). He opened his own business engraving and selling jewelry in Belgium in the late 1940’s.
Jerome was also an avid outdoorsman and loved hiking and mountain climbing and loved the Alps. He was an avid Jazz music fan and collected 1000’s of old recordings.
He moved to Canada in the mid 1950’s and then to Detroit MI in the United States in the 1960’s for more opportunities. He learned the English language in full when moving to the US by watching movies and reading books.
Jerome was a progressive and believed and fought for equal rights for all and even marched in the Martin Luther King Jr. march in Detroit in 1963.
He found and moved to Oregon in the 1970s and fell in love with the scenery and landscape. He became a fulltime hand engraver, engraving jewelry for all the major jewelry stores in Portland, Beaverton and surrounding areas. Soon enough he became the only hand engraver left on the west coast of the US.
Every weekend you could find Jerome at Mt Hood or a on a trail or on top of a mountain in the Pacific NW. Then he would come home and whistle to his jazz records in the evening with a glass of red wine.
He was a one of a kind, wonderful, loving, caring human and the world lost a beautiful person but Heaven gained a beautiful soul and he will forever live there looking down upon us smiling.
We will continue to remember him and the legacy he left us.
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