My Cousin's Tribute To My Dad

I felt it only fitting to put this on my blog as my last and best tribute to my Dad. It was written by my cousin Jim who as you will see has a gift with the English language. It captures everything there is to know about who this man was and what he meant to all that knew him. Thank you Jim.



For Uncle Art’s Funeral April 20, 2010

Good Morning. Uncle Art’s family has asked me to say a few words today at this celebration of his life. Actually they asked me to write and deliver a eulogy. Eulogy is some kind of word derived from Greek that I define as a speech full of fancy words and compliments that might or might not be true. Well, I don’t think Uncle Art would want a eulogy. He would say that that was too high-brow for him. So instead I’m just going to say a few things I remember that might help us understand what kind of man he was.

I first knew Uncle Art when I was a little kid. I suppose that’s obvious isn’t it? He was the kind of Uncle who took kids on their own terms. So when I was visiting him … by the way back then he was known as Uncle Buster … he was friendly enough, but he had a way of talking to us like he was more of an older brother than an adult uncle. He would tease us and play silly little tricks on us. And when we fell for them, which was every time, he’d just give that little chuckle of his that we came to know so well.

Uncle Art was an outdoorsman, a guy who loved hunting and fishing. He also liked the other activities that guys who hang around in hunting camps enjoyed. Beer drinking, cigar smoking and telling stories all come to mind. I can recall seeing the results of a couple of his hunting trips hanging from a tree limb up in Lyon Mountain. I have vivid memories of some big deer and one year a bear. He tried to convince me that the bear was just sleeping and would wake up any second and be really ticked off because it was hanging there, which of course scared the heck out of me. He thought that was funny. But he really did have a true affection for the woods and streams of the areas in which he lived and traveled. In recent years as I became a more frequent visitor he gave me tips on where to fish and back roads to take to certain ponds and streams. And he wasn’t, like a lot of fishermen, sending me off on a wild goose chase. He was honest.

In fact, he was sometimes painfully honest. A few years back (and this is true too) he told me he always thought I had a big head when I was younger. I said “Yeah I guess for my size I had a pretty large head.” He said “No I don’t mean a fat head I mean a big stuck-up head.” ‘But you seem to be a little better now” he added. I said the only thing I could say … “Thank you”… because that’s how we should respond to honesty. Uncle Art was straightforward and honest in all his dealings. He wanted to be treated fairly and that’s how he treated everyone else he came in contact with.

There are a lot of clichés and overused things that could be applied to Uncle Art. He was hard working, clever and skilful in many things. He was a good citizen and a proud veteran of WWII. He was a good provider and he always did the best he could for his family. All of those are true for him as they are for many men of his generation. But he was also a unique guy with a wicked sense of humor. He loved seeing self-important people take a fall or get a pie in the face. But he was also capable of poking fun at himself and he didn’t take life too seriously. A sharp and funny remark was always just waiting for the right time to come out of his mouth. And those remarks came often.


Over the past years Uncle Art faced a lot of medical challenges. Colon cancer, lung problems, heart trouble and a nasty fall on the ice all knocked him for a loop. But he always took those troubles in stride figuring out how to deal with them and doing what it took to get back on his feet and moving ahead. Just last Wednesday I had the opportunity to visit with him. During that visit he told me that the frustrating thing about this latest set of problems was that he probably couldn’t get a whole lot better, but he’d do the best he could with what he had. He had the kind of courage that could face hard realities with a positive outlook.

And Uncle Art was a man of faith, which became more evident as he got older. That is not to say that he was a preacher or pushy about getting people to follow his particular set of beliefs. He was more of an example setter. His basic reliance was on the “golden rule”, which is, after all, the core of most religion and decent human behavior, and it was the guideline he followed the most.

And finally, above all Uncle Art was a family man. I’ve heard stories about his youth that indicated he might have been a somewhat wild and rebellious kid. But he had great respect for his parents and his sisters and brothers. He loved to talk about his dad, Grandpa Bourey, telling stories of craftsmanship, hard work and life in Standish. And Uncle Art was always concerned about and proud of his children and voiced that, not always to them. Maybe even rarely to them. But in conversations with others, including me, he was pretty liberal with his praise for his kids. He also was glad to have such fine grandchildren and enjoyed talking about them and their progress as they grew. To Uncle Art, family was a constant, something to rely on and to enjoy. He believed that you may not always be in frequent contact with family members but if they needed help you were there. And he was there at those needful times.

So today we celebrate the life of a good man; a good father, a good son and brother, a good friend and a darn good Uncle