Art DeLorenzi

DeLORENZI, Arthur “Art” (1935–2014) – Passed away suddenly in Port Charlotte, Florida on Sunday, February 2, 2014. Beloved husband of Loretta (Vadori) for 51 years. Loving father of Paul, Alida, John (Lana) and Dina (Ernie Kreps). Special nonno of Max, Remy, Grace and Emmett. Brother of Sandra “Vanna” (Nick) Palandra. Art was predeceased by his parents Albino and Albina and his in-laws Egidio and Teresa Vadori of Windsor. Art was a very hard working man whose family was always his first priority. He took great delight in his grandchildren. He immigrated to Canada with his family from the Friuli region of Italy at age 14. Not speaking a word of English to start, Art put himself through University and went on to have a long successful career as a teacher and department head, making an impact on many students and making a lot of friends along the way. Art loved playing golf, and living on the golf course before retiring to St. Joseph’s Island where he tended to his vegetable and flower gardens, milled wood for his decks, and enjoyed fishing and boating. He cherished time spent with friends, relatives and colleagues, with great memories of the Kinsman Club, the poker gang, and the TGIF group. Art was a truly selfless person, and will be missed by many. A Mass in memory of Art’s life will be scheduled at a later date. Memorial donations may be made to the Matthews Memorial Hospital Association (St. Joseph Island), the Sault Area Hospital Foundation, the St. Vincent de Paul Society of Sault Ste. Marie, or a charity of your choice. (Arrangements entrusted to the Arthur Funeral Home & Cremation Centre 705-759-2522). Expressions of sympathy may be offered at www.arthurfuneralhome.com.

DeLORENZI, Arthur “Art” (1935–2014) – Passed away suddenly in Port Charlotte, Florida on Sunday, February 2, 2014. Beloved husband of Loretta (Vadori) for 51 years. Loving father of Paul, Alida, John (Lana) and Dina (Ernie Kreps). Special nonno of Max, Remy, Grace and Emmett. Brother of Sandra “Vanna” (Nick) Palandra. Art was predeceased by his parents Albino and Albina and his in-laws Egidio and Teresa Vadori of Windsor. Art was a very hard working man whose family was always his first priority. He took great delight in his grandchildren. He immigrated to Canada with his family from the Friuli region of Italy at age 14. Not speaking a word of English to start, Art put himself through University and went on to have a long successful career as a teacher and department head, making an impact on many students and making a lot of friends along the way. Art loved playing golf, and living on the golf course before retiring to St. Joseph’s Island where he tended to his vegetable and flower gardens, milled wood for his decks, and enjoyed fishing and boating. He cherished time spent with friends, relatives and colleagues, with great memories of the Kinsman Club, the poker gang, and the TGIF group. Art was a truly selfless person, and will be missed by many. A Mass in memory of Art’s life will be scheduled at a later date. Memorial donations may be made to the Matthews Memorial Hospital Association (St. Joseph Island), the Sault Area Hospital Foundation, the St. Vincent de Paul Society of Sault Ste. Marie, or a charity of your choice. (Arrangements entrusted to the Arthur Funeral Home & Cremation Centre 705-759-2522). Expressions of sympathy may be offered at www.arthurfuneralhome.com.

EULOGY

I first met Art in September of 1957 at Assumption College in Windsor. He was one of a group of resident guys checking out the new crop of incoming frosh girls. He was a junior, good looking pipe-smoking treasurer of Student Council. Our first date was that week in a huge truck he was driving pulling a float in the frosh week parade. The truck had been lent for the occasion by Sterling Construction, the company my father worked for. It turned out that several of his relatives and neighbours knew my father, mother and me from a stay in the Soo while my dad was working on roads including Queen Street in 1945. Art and family arrived in the Soo in May of 1950. He said he saw lots of snow from the train on the way here. Our first DATE as I said, was in September of 1957. Our second date was in Toronto in December of 1961. Why four years later? She was pert and pretty with long wavy auburn coloured hair. Turned out that a mutual friend told him I was living and working in Toronto, as was he. Art claimed he told his then roommate that he was calling the girl he was going to marry. How cool is that! We decided to marry on August 18th of 1962. Art claimed he never proposed; we just decided. Another major decision was where to live. I knew he favoured the Soo over Windsor and he contrived a devious ploy to win me over. He described in glowing terms the beaches north of the Soo and took me to Harmony Beach the July 1st weekend before the wedding. For a beach deprived water lover like me, Harmony Beach was beyond gorgeous. I was sold and that is how we came to live in the Soo. As the years went by and our children were born, the kids and I would go beaching on weekdays and Art would join us on Sundays after golf and church for picnics with friends and relatives. Then came a particularly hot summer weekday when the kids and I arrived home on Dell Avenue followed closely by one of the city’s finest who could have ticketed me for speeding. He gave me a stern warning. Art saw all this and was not amused. A few “dammit Lorettas” and thus was built the backyard pool with the help of very good friends. And once a year, on a very hot summer’s day, in a show of solidarity, Art would get in the pool, swim to the other end, get out, dry himself off and he’d be good till the next year or even the year after that, depending on how hot it got, or didn’t. As much as he hated the pool, the maintenance and expense of it, he loved the golf course and golfing. I enjoyed watching the golfers go by but never had the desire to join them. Matter of fact I got a little nervous thinking ahead to retirement in Florida as a golf widow. Well fate stepped in. Art’s chronic back ache forced him to quit golfing. And that’s how boats came into our lives, first one here and later one in Florida. As Pindar said around 500BC, water is the best of all things. Later, Loran Eisely said of it, if there is magic in this planet, it is contained in Water. Art seemed born to boats, and his backaches gradually went away. He taught me how to fish in the beautiful waters of Southwest Florida. He baited the hook for me with live shrimp, took the caught fish off the hook and put up with me squirming and saying “Don’t hurt him. Don’t hurt him.” We learned that a pelican will land in your boat, take your unattended baited hook in its beak and fly off taking your pole with it. Dolphins will follow your hooked fish up to the boat, will almost never take it but will come up out of the water to check you out and look for a handout. Small sharks, a meter or less are plentiful but not that tasty. Did I mention that Art also cleaned and cooked the fish too. Meanwhile the citrus trees that Art had planted over the years in our back yard were yielding all manner of fruit. I particularly enjoyed the pink grapefruit of one particular tree. One year when Carlo and Marie Barban and Bob and Linda Vaughn were staying at our house while we were off to Argentina, Art told them they could eat the fruit of any tree except for the pink grapefruit. They called it the Forbidden Tree and joked about it. He always took care of me. Other trees in our backyard attracted lots of beautiful birds. Who knew that robins migrated in flocks, were very noisy and could fill our back yard. They loved our freshwater birdbath and took turns drinking from it. Mockingbirds, with their phenomenal repertoire of songs, were special as were the 2 big neighbourhood barred owls that visited our huge pine trees every afternoon around 4 o’clock, Happy Hour. Every fall when we arrived in Florida we would listen for their distinctive call and when we first heard them in the neighbourhood we’d breathe a happy sigh of relief. All was well in the neighborhood.

Art had achieved his dream of living on a golf course and in 2001, his other dream of living on the water came true when we moved to St. Joseph Island. Another dream must have been to work very hard after retirement. He cleared the lot, felled many trees, had the wood milled and then with it built 3 decks, a dock, flower planters, trellises and lots of book cases, using skills he said he learned from Carlo, Jerry Porter and fellow teachers. He planted 3 vegetable gardens, fruit trees, and lots of flowers, following the traditions of his parents. He built a bocce court and loved to see it being used. When the fish weren’t biting - which was almost always for us - he took us 4-wheeling exploring the Island. Everything he did was with his beloved children and grandchildren in mind. Art always put his family first and was happiest when they were coming to visit. They knew they were loved and appreciated. We will all miss listening to him argue with the grandchildren about who loves who most. At last count, 5yr-old Emmett loves his nonno to the farthest galaxy and back a thousand times or more.

Art first noticed the cancerous lump in his neck late May of 2012. Seven weeks of radiation in September and October destroyed the lump. But then in May of 2013 an ominous cancerous mass was detected behind his right clavicle. It was inoperable. Art underwent 4 more weeks of radiation, twice a day during Sept. All this treatment took a terrible toll on him – loss of appetite and taste, great difficulty eating, swallowing, talking, even breathing, general weakness and much weight loss. He never complained. His courage and hope for more life never flagged. And so when the oncologist declared him stable, not cured but stable, in October, we booked flights for a 2 month stay in Florida after Xmas.

The Xmas season was a busy, happy times with several gatherings with family, friends and relatives. Art chopped down a little tree in the yard and brought it in to decorate. He hung coloured lights around the waterfront deck.

It was a bitterly cold morning when we left the Island at 2:30 a.m. on Jan. 7th for our flight to Florida. Don and Gayle Sarlo had so very kindly got the Florida house ready for us and stocked it with necessities. Four days later, Paul, John, and his children Max and Remy arrived bringing us our truck. Art was elated to be back in his second home. He seemed to be re-energized, did some yard work, visited the neighbours and went shopping for new phones and a clock. One day while the kids were at Disney, we took a ride to Englewood and walked the km or so to our favourite fishing pier. Our boat had broken down once too often and Art had gifted it to Goodwill. Art felt he had enough stamina and that we should go ahead and renew our fishing licenses. We had heard the owls the day after our arrival and all seemed well, until it wasn’t. On Thursday evening, January 30th after a rough day healthwise, he sat out on the lanai for a while looking pleased with the world. He came in, talked to Grace and Emmett during a phone call from Dina, and then said that he was tired and wanted to go rest. He collapsed as he was getting into bed. The paramedics from emergency 911 and then the doctors at the hospital worked mightily on him until a pulse was found and he was put on a ventilator and into intensive care. He had suffered a massive heart attack caused by blood clots in his lungs and legs. Fortunately for me, my sister-in-law, my brother’s widow, was with us at the time. Alida, our elder daughter, was able to fly down from Toronto on Friday. On Sunday we were told that there was no hope of recovery and to let him go. Alida, always the pillar of our family, watched as his life slipped away and with it his final dreams of seeing his beloved grand children grow up, of going to Italy one more time and of all of us drinking the bottle of Dom Perignon that the kids had given us for our 50th Anniversary.

As Alida and I were leaving the hospital we stopped to drop a few things off in the truck and there, on an overhanging wire, was a mockingbird singing one song after another. I couldn’t drive yet so Alida and I went for a walk. When we returned an hour later the bird was still there, still singing. We took it as a sign. All was well. Art was in a better place where mockingbirds sing and angels too. Thank you.