Janice
Uncle Ray was such a blessing to me and to our entire family, as was his wife, our Aunt Eleanor. Because they never had children of their own, they were like a second set of parents to me and my four siblings. They hosted amazing Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve dinners and celebrated our birthdays, graduations, marriages--every stage of life with us.Uncle Ray and Aunt Eleanor always supported anything we wanted to achieve, cheering us on when we did well and consoling us when things didn't quite go as planned.
As for me in particular, they encouraged me to follow my dream of going to college and earning a degree in journalism--an ambition that some other relatives didn't quite "get."
To this day, I can still picture Uncle Ray sitting in his favorite chair, thoughtfully smoking his pipe as he perused the latest news in The Alliance Review--hoping that one day, he would read articles that I wrote. And he did. Although I never worked for The Review, some of my bylines from other publications made it into The Review--and he and Eleanor would always discuss those articles with me. It made me happy to know that he was there, reading my words and being proud of me. Once, he and Eleanor were actually my "secret" sources for a huge "scoop" I scored as a cub reporter late one night when I was alone in the Youngstown Vindicator newsroom.
Those are among the many happy memories that I hold dear today, and I know my siblings also are uplifted thinking of all the ways that Ray--and Eleanor--enriched our lives.
As we mourn the loss of dear Uncle Ray, we also celebrate the life he lived and the love he shared with all, especially with his beloved Eleanor. We rejoice knowing that they are finally reunited--for eternity.
Much love,
Janice (Haidet) Hisle
& Mike
