There Is Always a Reason to Dance: Work as If the Lord Is Your Boss; Love with the Love God Has Given You; Dance with the Joy of the Lord in Your Heart; and Give Them Some Razzle Dazzle Along Life's Way!

By Dick Coupe and Barbara Coupe

We were blessed to grow up in Roman Catholic families, and were married in the Church in 1960. Barb gave birth to six children during the next ten years. During this time, we made eight physical household moves, four of the relocations were made with newborn babies in tow! In 1974, we made the difficult decision to leave the Catholic Church, and have been actively involved in Bible Churches ever since.

Who would believe our schedule? We participated in every type of volunteer service available, including: basketball and soccer coach, Girl Scout leader, Sunday school teachers, and always time for family dinners. Barb was a stay-at-home mom, and eventually achieved an Interior Design degree. I worked for one employer for almost 50 years, which included five different companies, and positions from Apprentice to Director.

Now comes our together time. In 1985, Barb started to accompany me on business travel trips. We have traveled extensively: Europe, Canada, Alaska, Mexico, Caribbean, China, Russia and South Africa. Along the way, we have owned 36 automobiles, one truck and one motorcycle. Please come along for the ride of our lifetimes; we hope that you will enjoy it half as much as we have!

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781475994254

Dick Coupe

Dick and Barbara Coupe have been happily married for over fifty years. They live in both desert and mountain residences in Arizona. After working and raising their large family, they enjoy their extended family, studying the Bible, Christian fellowship, ballroom dancing, and several other hobbies and sports.

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Copyright © 2013 by Barbara and Dick Coupe.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-9424-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-9425-4 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013910814

iUniverse rev. date: 06/20/2013

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Contents

Introduction

No Late April Fool Joke

Second Only-Child Born

Rocky Start for Grade—‘A’ Girl

Let the Fun Begin

Walked Three Miles in the Snow

Let the Good Times Roll

Marriage Made in Heaven

Come Dance with Us

Here Comes the Moving Van… Again

I’m Only Going to Tell You Four More Times

Anybody Listening… Can You Hear Me Now?

Here Come the Grandchildren

Babs, Pack the Bags

Golden Oldies… and Still Hoofin’

Conclusion: Passing the Baton to Ezra

APPENDICES

Even Mary Knew She Needed a Savior

Will the Real Son of God Please Stand Up?

Musing On Favorite Scriptures

Cruising on the Road to Happiness

Quarter Century of Christmas Letters

Work as if the Lord is your Boss;

Love with the love God has given you;

Dance with the Joy of the Lord in your heart;

And give them some razzle dazzle along life’s way!

—Barb & Dick Coupe, 2013

We dedicate this book to our parents, Win and Dave Davis, and Clara and Bill Coupe. They all loved God and their family as the top priorities in their lives. Through their faith, love, patience, understanding, and strength, they molded Barb and I into who we are.

We express our thanks to our daughter, Cara Myers, and our granddaughter, KrisAnn (Myers) Valdez, for their thoroughness in editing the manuscript. We appreciate their efforts and assistance with this detailed task, which they accomplished in a timely fashion.

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Introduction

This book is dedicated to our parents, our children, our grandchildren, and our great-grandson. My wife, Barbara, and I both loved our parents and parents-in-law very much. Hopefully, this will become obvious in this book. We also share a mutual love for all of our children, daughter-in-laws, son-in-laws, grandchildren, and great-grandson, who are presented here from the oldest to the youngest:

Parents

Winifred Teresa McLaughlin Davis (Win)

Abram Henry Davis (Dave)

Clara Elizabeth Luebbert Coupe (Clara)

William Carroll Coupe, Sr. (Bill)

Children

Richard James Coupe, Jr. (Rick) . . . Deceased

Christine Mary Coupe (Tina), and Charles (Chuck) Montez

Cheryl Mary Coupe (Cherie), and Joseph (Joe) Sgovio

Carolyn Mary Coupe (Cara), and Patrick (Pat) Myers

Gregory Paul (Greg), and Stacey Coupe

Timothy Matthew (Tim), and Heidi Coupe

Grandchildren

KrisAnn Myers Valdez

Michael Patrick Myers

Kaylee Chelsea Myers

Abigail Lauren Coupe

Jackson Thomas Sgovio

Joliana Faith Sgovio

Tiana Hope Montez

Alejondro Myers (Hondo)

John Carlos Myers

Alysse Saria Coupe

Jacob Julian Thomas Myers

Great-Grandson

Ezra Ignacio Valdez

. . . And we Praise Our Lord for future grandchildren and great-grandchildren, too!

Scripture taken from the New King James Version, Copyright @ 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

As for man, his days are like grass;

As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.

For the wind passes over it, and it is gone,

And its place remembers it no more.

But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting

On those who fear Him,

And His righteousness to children’s children,

To such as keep His covenant,

And to those who remember His commandments to do them.

(Psalm 103: 15-18)

The Purpose Behind This Book

Unfortunately, due to the two-generation gap, our parents and our grandchildren did not have the opportunity to get to know each other very well. In fact, from our grandchildren’s viewpoint, they remember very little of their great-grandparents.

Relating this generational thought to Barb and me, neither of us knew any of our great-grandparents, with the exception of Barb knowing her maternal great-grandmother. Unfortunately for me, I also knew only my maternal grandmother. However, Barb can recall memories of all four of her grandparents. Even though, as children, we were not aware of too many details, I believe that they all had a significant influence on our families, especially their principles and values.

Reflecting on the generational relationships in our family has provided the catalyst for me to write this book. My objective is to document the lives of Barbara and I, including some humor and personal thoughts, so that our grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and beyond, will know the details behind the names on the ancestry chart.

A by-product of this effort may be that other individuals, unrelated to our family, may find this book of interest. This is due to the somewhat unique situations and times that we lived through, and how Barb and I handled them. I trust that this audience will also find this book interesting and worthwhile reading.

We were blessed to grow up in Roman Catholic families, and were married in the Church in 1960. Barb gave birth to six children during the next ten years. During this time, we made eight physical household moves; four of the relocations were made with newborn babies in tow! In 1974, we made the difficult decision to leave the Catholic Church, and have been actively involved in Bible Churches ever since.

Who would believe our schedule? We participated in every type of volunteer service available, including: basketball and soccer coaches, Girl Scout leader, Sunday school teachers, and always making sure to leave room for family dinners. Barb was a stay-at-home mom, and eventually achieved an Interior Design degree. I worked for one employer for almost 50 years, which included five different companies, and positions from Apprentice to Director.

After the kids were grown and gone, we found ourselves with more together time. In 1985, Barb started to accompany me on business travel trips. We traveled extensively: Europe, Canada, Alaska, Mexico, Caribbean, China, Russia and South Africa. Along the way, we owned 36 automobiles, one truck and one motorcycle. Please come along for the ride of our lifetimes, we hope that you will enjoy it half as much as we have!

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No Late April Fool Joke

Barbara and I were both born towards the latter part of The Great Depression of 1929-1939. Fortunately for us, our parents were very hardworking, middle-income types, and we always had a roof over our heads and food on the table. In fact, both of us never realized that we lacked anything during our childhood years.

Barb was born on April 2, 1939 in a hospital in Brooklyn, NY although her family lived in Richmond Hill, NY at the time. She was born on Palm Sunday, and everyone was delighted to see their first born child and grandchild. Mom and dad picked ‘Nancy’ for the first name, but her dad secretly changed it to ‘Barbara.’ This was totally out of character for her dad, since he was generally a legalistic type person. As the story goes, her dad bought the hospital nurse a box of chocolates to change the name on her birth certificate, prior to its official submittal, to ‘Barbara Ellen Davis.’ ‘Ellen’ was her paternal grandmother’s first name.

Her birth certificate lists her dad’s occupation as a horse trainer. Abram Henry ‘Dave’ Davis was a jockey, from approximately age 14 until he could no longer make the weight, when he then changed to training thoroughbred horses for the Vanderbilt Stables. Barb remembers her dad taking her to the stables when he was checking on horses, at about age 3.

Barb’s mother, Winifred (McLaughlin) Davis, was a registered nurse who graduated from the Bellevue Hospital Nursing School in New York City. However, she was a stay-at-home mom, until Barb was in her early teens.

Although World War II started in Europe in 1939, the United States didn’t enter until 1941, with Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Soon thereafter, in early 1942, Dave Davis started working at the Triangle Cable Company in New Brunswick, NJ. The Triangle Company manufactured cabling that was critical to the wartime effort, so with a young child, Dave was not drafted for military service.

The lingering effects of the depression, and the beginning of World War II, both contributed to relatively tough economic times for Middle Class America. Barb’s parents moved several times, just to take advantage of the landlord’s offer for the first month’s rent free! At one point, they even moved back in with her maternal grandparents, with Barb’s crib in her grandparents’ bedroom and her parents sleeping in the attic (without heat). A real fringe benefit to these hard times was that Barb got to spend significant quality time with her grandparents… priceless!

During the summer / fall of 1942, the following scenario took place with Barbara and her parents. As a prelude, Dave had given Win a beautiful, light gold bracelet when they were dating. It was very fine and detailed, and probably very expensive, especially when purchased during those hard economic times. Due to a skin condition, Win was in the habit of putting both her engagement ring and wedding ring on the bracelet, for safe-keeping while she was doing household activity.

Throughout the summer of 1942, Win and Dave liked to pick strawberries on a local New Jersey farm, and of course Barbara tagged right along. During one of those excursions, Win lost her gold bracelet, along with her two rings that were attached to the bracelet. Several trips back to the farm always included looking all over the strawberry patch, to no avail. The bracelet and the two rings were nowhere to be found.

After the fall season had set in, one late afternoon Win asked Dave to make one more trip back to the farm, for a last look before the snow season. Dave took Barbara along, and the two of them went looking for Mommy’s bracelet. Dave stated that he believed that God directed his path, because he walked right to it. Dave found the bracelet, hanging on a bare strawberry bush branch, just waiting for him. The bracelet still had the two rings attached to it! Dave immediately put the bracelet in his pocket, so even Barbara did not see it.

Win’s custom was to set the supper table with the plates upside down, and then turn them over individually as she served dinner. Dave put the bracelet and rings under Win’s dinner plate, and then waited for the surprise. Win was overjoyed when she turned her own plate over, and there was the shiny bracelet with rings attached, all in perfect condition! Win enjoyed the bracelet for another 47 years, and then gave it to Barbara for Barb’s 50th birthday; needless to say, this is a special heirloom in the family.

In December, 1942, Barb’s sister Janet was born in New Brunswick. Just one month prior to Janet’s birth, their maternal great-grandmother, Katherine (Smith) McLaughlin died. Katherine had given Barb’s parents a $20 gold piece, since she said that she would not live to see the new baby. Her death really changed the dynamics of the family, since she was an invalid and the majority of Barb’s grandparent’s upstairs was dedicated to her care.

During the second half of 1943, Barb’s dad started working for the Pennsylvania Railroad, which was later split off and called the Long Island Railroad (LIRR). This required the family to move from New Jersey back to Richmond Hill, on 109th Street. Dave’s father, Abram Davis Sr., helped him get the position, since he was a life-time conductor with the Penn RR, before he himself got married. Abram Sr. initially met Barb’s grandmother, Ellen (‘Nana’), in 1910. Nana’s mother had died in childbirth, while delivering her 13th child! The children were disbursed to various family members, including one aunt who took two girls, including Nana. The aunt instilled much discipline; even to the point of timing how long it took Nana to make a trip to the grocery store. Nana found that she could make the trip faster if she walked along the railroad tracks. Nana met Barb’s grandfather, Abram, and married soon thereafter to obtain some freedom. Nana was only 17 when little Abram Jr. (Barb’s dad), was born.

In December, 1943, Barb’s brother David was born in Richmond Hill. Their family doctor had to come to the house to pick up Barb’s parents, in order to get Win to the hospital. This was not unusual during the war years, since there was tight rationing on gas, tires, batteries, etc., and therefore, very few people had access to personal transportation.

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Barbara, 1941

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Barb w/ Great Grandma Catherine McLaughlin, 1941

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Barb w/ Parents, Win & Dave Davis, 1941

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Barb w/ Parents, 1942

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Barb w/ Uncle John McLaughlin, 1942

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Barb w/ Grandpa Abram Davis, 1942

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Grandma Ada & Grandpa Tom McLaughlin,1946

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Mom & Dad, Barb, David & Janet, 1946

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Second Only-Child Born

I was born on January 23, 1936 in Utica, NY. The place was St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, which is significant for me because our oldest daughter, Tina, was also born in the same hospital 27 years later. You could see the hospital from our back yard, across a large field that was probably two football fields long. January is the dead of winter in Upstate New York, and my parents later told me that their doctor transported me home in his 1936 Chevy, with hot bricks on the front floorboard to help keep the new baby warm. Unfortunately, my maternal grandfather died in October of the same year, so while he did get to see his new grandson, I never had the opportunity to know him. My maternal grandmother then came to live with us for 12 years, until she died in 1948. She was a very positive influence during my childhood years. At the time of my birth, I had one older brother, William Carroll Coupe, Jr., who was eight years old and called ‘Bill’, and I understand that he was very happy to see his younger brother.

My earliest recollection of home was going up to see our new home with my parents, while it was in-process of being built. I was approximately three years old, and would like to run around and get into everything, as all three-year olds do. An older German carpenter, by the name of ‘Mr. Sleicher’, built this Cape Cod model in South Utica at 38 Ballantyne Brae. (The number ‘38’ has been my favorite number all of my life). It was a beautiful home, which my mother dearly loved, situated on a corner across from the John F. Hughes public school. We moved into this new home about one year before World War II started for the United States.

Throughout the 1930’s, my dad, William Carroll ‘Bill’ Coupe, was a manufacturer’s representative for the Tillotsen Carburetor Company, with a territory that spanned the New England states and Upstate New York. He drove a beautiful 1934 Buick 4-door sedan that they bought new, so along with the new house in 1940, it was obvious that my parents were not negatively impacted by the depression years. My mother, Clara Elizabeth (Luebbert) Coupe, was a stay-at-home mom all of her life, although she did graduate from St. John’s Business School in Utica, NY. I can still remember traveling with my parents on my dad’s business trips, and staying in those cute first-generation motels: little individual cottages typically clustered around some type of flower garden.

My mother was one of eleven children, and her mom, Anna Luebbert, never spent a day in the hospital. She gave birth to all of the children at home, and never had a major illness. My maternal grandfather, Henry Luebbert, was a brewmaster, who made the best beer in the city of Utica for the Eagle Brewing Company. I still have a leather handbook where he recorded each batch, including specific ingredients and his opinion of its success. Both of my maternal grandparents were born in Germany, and immigrated to the US at a young age. My grandfather came through Ellis Island, alone at age 12, and found his way to Rochester, NY to work on a farm, even though he could not speak any English at the time! He had lived in an orphanage in Heide, Germany, (near both Denmark and the North Sea), after both of his parents died. My mother’s large family resulted in 33 first cousins for me, with almost all of them living within a 100-mile radius of Utica.

My mother’s six brothers included: Ray, Henry, Carl, Joe, Eddie, and Andrew. The first three never married. Ray died in an industrial accident while working in a brewery. Henry was in the Army in World War I, was exposed to poison gas while serving as a motorcycle messenger at the front lines, and died in a TB Sanitarium after an extensive illness. Carl was also a brewmaster, and died relatively young, from mysterious causes while working in Cuba. Uncle Joe lived in Utica, and had three children: Joe, Jr., Mary Ann, and Carol. Uncle Andrew lived out of state, and had two boys: Carl and Andy. Uncle Eddie owned a pharmacy in Shanghai, China for 27 years. He married a Russian lady, and they had three children: Mary, Lucy, and Eddie, Jr. His wife was killed in the Philippines, by a Japanese bombing attack during the war. After WWII, Eddie lived in Rochester, NY, with his second wife, and had another son, Michael.

The family gatherings on the Luebbert side of the family, held several times per year, represent many of my fondest childhood memories. My mother had four sisters who all lived within about fifty miles of each other: Anna Sanderl, Mary Murphy, Loretta Ryan, and Angela Kress. The five Luebbert sisters represented the heart and soul of the Luebbert family. Anna married Ray Sanderl, and they had five children: Jane, Dorothy, Bob, Jack and Marilyn. Mary married George Murphy, and they had six children: Mary Elizabeth, Patricia, Joan, Tom, Lois and Larry. Loretta married John Ryan, and they also had six children: Mickey, Jane, Jim, Sally, Peter and Sharon. Angela married William (Bud) Kress, and they had seven children: Barbara, William, Jr. (Buddy), Danny, Pat, Carl, Mary Lou and Karen. In reflecting back on my relationships with the five Luebbert sisters, I believe that they all exhibited the nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit much more than any other group of women I have ever known. (Galatians 5:22-23: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control). I believe that all of their children, and grandchildren that knew them, would also attest to that fact. What outstanding role models to have in my life! They were all truly blessings from God, and I always had a difficult time trying to determine who my ‘favorite Aunt’ was.

When we got together for a Luebbert family holiday picnic, there were approximately two-dozen first cousins involved. I even had four first cousins who were exactly my age: Marilyn Sanderl, Jim Ryan, Carol Luebbert, and Carl Kress. I had another half-dozen who were within a year or two of my age. It sure was a ton of fun, including the anticipation of each upcoming event.

In addition to all of the fun times, I vividly remember an accident I experienced at about age six, while playing with everyone in Proctor Park, Utica. I was running full speed while looking backwards, then turned around and slammed my forehead into a steel roadside support railing. I was knocked out, sustained a bad gash in my forehead (scar is still there), and was carried over to my Uncle George Murphy’s 1935 Chevrolet Sedan. After first aid was administered, they laid me in the back seat, and my Uncle George gave me a brand new buffalo nickel. I think I still have the nickel! (Many years later, I heard Satchel Paige say: Don’t look back, someone may be gainin’ on ya and I thought of that incident).

The annual Luebbert Clan Reunion, held in Upstate New York in the Utica-Rome area, still continues to the present time. The old timers are now my generation, with the next two generations well represented, and building their own memories. My thanks and appreciation goes to Patti McGee, Aunt Angela’s granddaughter and my Cousin Karen’s daughter, for faithfully holding the group together and carrying on the family tradition. Unfortunately, since we have lived in Arizona for over 40 years, we have not been able to participate in very many of the reunions. Also, our children did not have the opportunity to enjoy the wonderful, continuous interaction with so many first cousins, as I did.

My dad had four siblings: two sisters and two brothers. He graduated from Utica Free Academy in 1916, and started college at RPI, in Troy, NY. However, WWI interrupted this plan, and the government drafted him into the Army, and turned the RPI campus into an Army Basic Training location. By the time he finished training, WWI was over in late 1918. He restarted college, but then both of his parents died unexpectedly at age 51, which left his family to pick up the pieces at young ages themselves. My dad was the middle child, and was 22 years old at that time.

In the fall of 1940, little ‘Dickie’ Coupe started kindergarten at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School, at age 4 ½. One day while going into school that winter, I slipped on the ice face-forward, and hit the school steps. The school nurse put mercurochrome (a red liquid) on my face, resulting in my first memorable embarrassment: the kids called me ‘clown-face’ for the rest of the day.

My first cousin, Marilyn Sanderl, and I walked back and forth to school together for about five years. Since the distance would take us about 45 minutes one-way, she quickly became my best friend. At that time, there were not any school buses, and with the war shortages, no one was driving their children to school.

In early 1941, my parents bought a new DeSoto 4-door sedan, to replace the well-driven 1934 Buick. However, when WWII started, all of the USA’s industrial machinery was quickly transitioned to the war effort. This meant that the manufacture of passenger automobiles was suspended for almost five years. It also meant that there were extreme shortages of all other forms of transportation parts and supplies: tires, batteries, gasoline, glass, and spare parts of any kind. What it meant to my family was that my dad’s excellent job simply evaporated into thin air. We used to push the new DeSoto out of the garage every couple of months, wash it, and push it back into the garage again, for almost five years!

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Dick w/ Parents, Clara & Bill Coupe, & Brother Bill Jr., 1938

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Best Friends, Dick & Cousin Marilyn Sanderl, 1942

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Rocky Start for Grade—‘A’ Girl

Barb’s family lived in Richmond Hill until Barb was in the third grade. Barb’s parents were married in St. Mary Gate of Heaven Catholic Church, which was also located in Richmond Hill. Barb was baptized as an infant there and eventually started kindergarten at St. Mary’s Grade School. The teachers were all nuns in the Daughters of Wisdom Order. Barb remembers getting in grade school trouble at an early age.

In 1947, when Barb was at the midpoint of the third grade, her family bought a small home at 12 Walnut Road, Inwood, NY. The home had two bedrooms and one bath, and was located on an inlet off Jamaica Bay. Just across from Jamaica Bay, there was an airport named Idlewild Airport, which has evolved into the JFK International Airport. Barb lived in this home throughout her grade school years.

When Barb’s mom enrolled her in the local Catholic school, Our Lady of Good Counsel, she insisted that they accelerate Barb into the fourth grade, rather than let her continue in third grade. The teacher that Barb was assigned to was Sister Juliana, who preferred that she go back to the third grade. Unfortunately for Barb, Sister Juliana turned out to be Barb’s teacher for grades 4, 5, and 6. (Can you imagine having a grade school teacher for three years, who really believed that you didn’t belong there?). A typical practice at that time was for the Catholic Parish to rent out the grade school basement for parties and events on the weekends. On the surface, this may appear to be a good way to supplement income, except that the basement is where the school children ate their lunch every day while at school. Barb and I vividly remember almost every Monday morning, when the basement (in our separate schools), reeked from the smell of spilled beer, etc.

Barb remembers missing one month of school in the seventh grade, due to having scarlet fever. Fortunately, this is one of those diseases that children no longer contract, due to the much improved level of health care that is now available. Barbara really looked outside of the grade school realm for her most enjoyable times. She took tap dance lessons while in the seventh grade, and danced to the ‘Tea for Two’ music. Her mother was also a Girl Scout leader, since she was a stay-at-home mom, until after Barb graduated from the eighth grade.

In 1949, Barb’s family drove to California in a 1942 Nash. This was before the nation’s freeway system was built, and Barb’s dad made the trip in seven days. The typical US Highway at that time was similar to the good old Route 66, which they traveled throughout the Western United States. Even though the Nash was a four-door sedan, sedans in those days were relatively much smaller than the larger sedans that were built in the late ’50s and ’60s. The passengers included her parents, the three kids, (aged 10, 7 and 5), and her mother’s parents, a total of seven, along with two pieces of luggage that wouldn’t fit in the trunk. The kids spent much of the trip sitting on those luggage pieces, surveying the USA. (Station wagons didn’t come along until approximately five years later).

The primary reason for the trip was to take Barb’s grandparents to visit Barb’s Aunt Catherine and family in San Mateo, CA. Catherine lived there since being married after World War II. She met her husband, Stu, while serving in the Marines during the war. (Grandmother Ada McLaughlin had seven children, and four of them served active military duty during the war years). Unfortunately, Barb’s grandfather, Thomas McLaughlin, became sick upon arrival, due to ‘climatic change,’ and was under the weather during the entire one-week visit.

During the week in California, Barb did get to visit San Francisco, including Chinatown, and rode the famous trolley cars. Since they were there over the Easter holiday, Uncle Stu helped the kids decorate fun hard-boiled Easter eggs, including some special deco stuff like sequins and feathers. Barb remembers that they made sure that Janet found the ‘prize egg’, which included a special prize: A box of chocolates shaped like an Easter hat.

Then, the whole family packed up for the long ride home of eight days, since Barb’s dad took his time on the return trip. This was dad’s idea of a leisurely trip. Barb’s dad always made sure that her grandparents stayed in a nice tourist home; similar to today’s B&B, and then they took what was still available for the rest of the family. Since Dave sometimes drove until it was too late to obtain nice accommodations, what was still available turned out to be quite interesting, not to mention gross. Barb still recalls cute little individual cottages, small motel rooms over the motel office, sulphur water, etc. One old house in particular, behind the tourist home, the kids were convinced was haunted.

Another eventful driving trip that her family took was to the Gulf of Mexico area, including Florida and West to New Orleans. This was in 1951, in the same old Nash sedan,