A month ago I was in Western New York, enjoying the sight of the green, green grass of home. Visited with folks in Salamanca, Ellicottville, Olean and Hornell, enjoying every minute of my brief vacation. I hope to be sharing more photos soon.
News reached me yesterday, via the main Steinbroner Nation blogsite managed by my brother Pat, that our Uncle George P. Steinbroner died at age 85 on Aug. 11, 2008. He wasn't able to make the trip to this year's reunion in spirit, but we did have a portrait of him there to remind us that he was still with us. Few of us thought he would be taking his leave so soon afterward.
I am proud to have known him ... because he's my mother's older brother, because he's been among the company of many role models given to me as a nephew of Steinbroner uncles, because he survived the Normandy Invasion of D-Day (or, so I've been told) helping return freedom to Europe in World War II, and because he shared his pride of being a Steinbroner with his children and with his nieces and nephews so that we can do the same.
Many of us there to see it will forever remember the scene, as part of a Steinbroner reunion some few years ago, of Uncle George (even then not in the best of health) at Meyers Restaurant in Salamanca, rising (was he in a wheelchair or using a walker?) to dance till he could dance no more. What a night! What a sight!
We will miss him and we will remember him.
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