The world has lost one of the good people

The call came shortly after eight a.m on Friday from my daughter, Martha, informing me that “Jo Rogers died last night.” She was 90 years old. 

This saddened me and brought tears to my eyes. It was as if a member of the family had died. My friend Karen Spica was with me at the time and she put her arm around me to comfort me.

Josephine (Jo) Rogers was the best friend my late wife Mary (1931-2010) ever had. They met in 1964 and instantly bonded. They were two mothers with young children who met in Hanahan where we lived for decades. Our families went to the same church forever, or at least it seems that way, and Jo and Mary were part of the parish activities that unite people and make life happy and worth living. 

Our children went to Catholic and public schools together and the Rogers girls, Ann and Laura, became life-long friends to my daughters, Martha and Wynn.  Ed Rogers, Jo’s son, and my son, Patrick, are friends to this day. Billy Rogers and my sons Frank and James also attended school together and hung out in early life. 

Jo and Mary would confide in each other like only sisters could do. They shared the happy moments and the times when one was in the pits for something or other. When Jo came to the house Mary always fixed her a cup of tea. Jo was not a coffee drinker like Mary. They would sit at our kitchen table and talk to each other and give each other friendly advice if such was needed or enjoy something to laugh about. 

Jo and her late husband, Jim, met in New York While he was in the Navy. They were married over 50 years. Jim died several years ago. Jo had asked me to speak at his funeral and as I was dressing that morning to do so I had a Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA) and had instead to go the hospital. Jo was understanding in speaking to me later. 

She had the good quality of being able to see and deal with life in its many perspectives, pitfalls, humor and exhilaration. At a low point in my life, in the late 1980s, she bought me a book to read, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” Jo was that kind of a caring person. She was a friend for the ages, for my wife and our family, and all who knew her.  The world has lost one of the good people. 

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Gratitude in Life

Why I am grateful

When I woke this morning, October 2, 2016, it was the first day of my life I was 85. I am a guy who has had a good life; one who studied, worked, laughed and cried, and loved and lost.  During the past week I looked back on the many people and life events I have to be truly thankful for. My attention is with specific individuals and cohorts of people whose place in my life is deeply personal to me. By listing them here I hope to pay homage to them and let it be known publicly how truly grateful I am to:

• a loving God for the blessings of life and overlooking my failures and foibles.
• my country - the USA - for the privilege to live in freedom and opportunity to dream, to fail, to succeed. 
• my parents, Francis C. and Anne C. (Wynn) Archibald for giving me life.
• my siblings, children and extended family members who make life interesting and fun.  
• the public school teachers and Xaverian Brothers who instructed me through high school.
• my higher education professors and teachers who opened wide the doors to knowledge.
• Ed Cavanaugh who helped me get my first job as a teen-ager.
• Ed Quigley, part-time employer and kind friend who urged me to join the U.S. Air Force.
• Lt. Col. John A. Brock, USAF, mentor and career facilitator.
• the men and women who made my working life challenging, successful and pleasurable.
• Carl Meynardie, publisher of The Hanahan News, who gave me a column and expanded a voice.
• the friends and allies who supported my political and elected service. 
• the medical practitioners who take care of me.
• my late wife, Mary Frances Cooper, who married me, loved me, and gave me five children.
• my children who each developed in a different way and make me proud to be their father.
• my late second wife, Joyce L. Wahlrab, who loved me unconditionally.
• the innumerable men and women who touched my life, and I theirs, during these 85 years.

The timeline of a life is uncertain, but I look forward to the years ahead. I pray for long life, that I might love and serve My Lord, My God, and assist those in need in some small way.

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A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year greeeting

Having crossed the 82^nd meridian of life I pause to wish a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to those living people who played a significant role in my vibrant, interesting and mostly pleasurable life, to wit: my brother and sisters; neighbors and boyhood friends in places I lived; teachers from first grade through high school and fellow students encountered along the way; folks I worked with prior to going in the service and those I hung with after work; men and women I was privileged to associate with during eight years of Air Force service, including those who trained me and advanced my career; the wonderful people over the next 50 years who I met in my work, college and graduate school, community, church, political and social life; my five children  

who made me and their late mother proud by turning out to be good people in their own lives and mating with a good husband and wives and making us proud grandparents; the many folks we came in contact with around the world, especiallyin China, Australia and South Africa; doctors and nurses who have helped keep me going all these years; the fine women and men who cared for my wife in her advanced and declining years; those neighbors and strangers who became fast friends and sustained me in many wonderful ways during those difficult years; and my new wife

and her family and the recently acquired friends and neighbors who continue to make my life worth living.

Merry Christmas one and all and Happy New Year!

A dear friend - Dot Ruotolo

I was saddened this morning to read in the local paper of the passing of a dear friend, Dorothy J. Ruotolo, at age 84. Our relationship goes back several decades. In the early sixties my wife and I were attending Mass on a beautiful Sunday morning. Mary was not then a Catholic. She was struggling with the Catholic missal and keeping up with the service when a lady in the pew behind us reached over and pointed in the missal to where the service was and helped Mary stay connected. Later, she told us she had similar problems earlier in her life. Very quickly we learned Dot was also a teacher in the Catholic school and would be the one to introduce our boys to the first grade. We formed a friendship on that Sunday morning and it continued for years. At one point when her son joined the Air Force, I talked to Dot about my eight years in that service and helped to ease her mind that her son had made a great choice. He would go on to a fine career and be honorably retired. Dot also had a daughter who worked at the Naval Supply Systems Command Center where I was the security director. She was a fine young lady and excellent employee. Dot spent many years teaching in Catholic schools and was a friend to thousands of families in North Charleston, Hanahan and Goose Creek. She will be missed by all, including her many students who got a great start on their education in her first grade. She was preceded in death by her husband Michael, a fine gentleman.

Ten thoughts on turning 80*

1. I am happy to be here and able to write these thoughts.

2. When I was a child I wondered if I would be alive at 65. That age seemed so far away to a child in grammar school.

3. I have been blessed and or lucky in so many ways I cannot count them but I know them in my heart. 

4. Looking back our early family life was tough, but our mother kept us (five children) together and we persevered.

5. Joining the U.S. Air Force was the best thing I ever did. It gave me opportunity, training and set me on a career path for my adult life.

6. College and university opened new doors, but education is a continuing process through life.

7. Along the highways of life I met many men and women who helped; especially my late wife of 56 years.

8. My five children have turned out well, and have been on someone else’s payroll for years. (The dream of all parents.)

9. It is best to be liberal in thought, word and deed, especially to, with and for others who have less than I.

10. It is said we will live 15 years beyond our parents. My mother lived to be 92. I hope I am here writing another bog entry when I am 107.

*(Oct. 2, 2011)

Mary Frances Cooper Archibald - Obituary

Mary Frances Cooper Archibald MT. PLEASANT - Mrs. Mary Frances Cooper Archibald, wife of Francis X. Archibald, died peacefully Wednesday in her sleep at the Skilled Nursing facility in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., where she had lived for the last three years. Mary was born in Georgetown, S.C., October 13, 1931, the daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Edward Cooper, also of Georgetown. She was educated in the Georgetown public schools and graduated from Winyah High School. During her teens she worked at the usual teen-ager type jobs, including a stint as a waitress at the Screven Hotel. She was taken to a commercial college in Columbia by relatives but arrived back home in Georgetown by bus almost before the relatives who traveled by car. Mary joined the United States Air Force and took basic training at Lackland AFB, Texas. She went on to specialized secretarial training at Okalahoma A&M and was then assigned to Headquarters, USAF Office of Special Investigations, Washington, D.C. It was there she met her future husband, Francis X. "Archie" Archibald and they were married in a Catholic wedding at the chapel at Bolling AFB on September 4, 1954. Mary and Archie had five children and lived in Washington, Charleston and again in Washington before moving to the Charleston area for what would become the family site. They settled in Hanahan in 1960 and lived there until three years ago. Mary was a most loving wife, devoted mother, caring grandmother, and friend of many people. She earned a college degree from New York State University through classes and study in the Charleston area. During the early years of her marriage she worked briefly from time to time at Charleston AFB, the Naval Base and later with the Department of Mental Health in Columbia. In 1980 Mary was a campaign leader in her husband's successful campaign for the Statehouse. She later bought an 80-year old Dutch Colonial house in Columbia, S.C., and restored it to its original likeness. Much of the work she did personally and supervised the rest. Mary was a devoted viewer of the Discovery and Travel television channels and yearned to see many places around the world. After Archie retired in 1993, Mary and he traveled by car throughout the United States, Canada and Alaska. In 1994 they went to China and taught at Taishan Medical College, Tainan. Mary had approximately 200 college students in Basic English classes. Following this, Archie took Mary on a six months trip to foreign countries to visit some of the places she had seen in films and on TV. They drove across Western Australia in nine days, a trip many Aussies will never undertake. In 2003, they traveled to South Africa on a self-guided tour for two months and in 2005 made a trip to Malaysia. Mary was a member for many years of the Berkeley Hills Garden Club and worked hard in her home garden and on club projects. She enjoyed sitting in her swing on the back porch her husband constructed for her at their Hanahan home, especially in the spring and early summer, and taking in the beauty of the yard and nature in bloom. Mary is survived by her loving husband, Archie Archibald of Mt. Pleasant, SC; five children, Francis "Frank" X. Archibald, Jr. and his wife, Lisa, of McLean, VA, James E. Archibald and his wife, Lisbeth, of Arlington, VA, Patrick L. Archibald and his wife, Donna, of Goose Creek, SC, Martha Archibald of Goose Creek, SC and Wynn A. Godbold and her husband, Rett, of Myrtle Beach, SC; nine grandchildren, a sister, Bertha Westbury of Georgetown, S.C. and a brother Edward Cooper, Marietta, GA. She was preceded in death by her sister, Lee Benton. Mary was a convert to Catholicism in the early 1960s and a devoted communicant at Divine Redeemer Catholic Church in Hanahan. The Liturgy of Christian Burial will be celebrated in Rodenberg Hall, Franke at Seaside, 1885 Rifle Range Road, Mt. Pleasant on Saturday, January 1, 2011, at 1:00 p.m. with military honors. Her family invites all neighbors, friends and those who were touched by Mary's life to attend. Visitation will be held Friday, December 31, 2010, at J. HENRY STUHR MOUNT PLEASANT CHAPEL from 5:00 until 7:00 p.m. Final commitment will be private to the family. The family wishes to thank the staff at Skilled Nursing, Franke at Seaside, for the loving and caring they showed Mary while she was living there. Also, Hospice of Charleston was a big assist to the family in Mary's final days. Flowers will be accepted or memorials may be made to the Alzheimer's Association Alzheimer's Association Alzheimer's Association , 2090 Executive Hall Road, suite 130, Charleston, SC 29407. A memorial message may be sent to the family by visiting www.jhenrystuhr.com. Visit our guestbook at www.postandcourier.com/ deaths

Mary Frances Cooper Archibald, R.I.P.

The Post & Courier
Charleston, SC
Thursday, December 30, 2010

ARCHIBALD, Mary Frances Cooper, of Mount Pleasant, wife of Francis X. Archibald, died Wednesday. Arrangements by Stuhr's Mount Pleasant Chapel.

(Full obituary to follow on Friday. Visitation at Stuhr's Mount Pleasant Chapel, Mathis Ferry Road, on Friday, December 31, 2010, from five to seven in the evening. Funeral Mass on Saturday, January 1, 2011, in Rodenberg Chapel, Franke at Seaside, 1885 Rifle Range Road, Mount Pleasant, SC, at one o'clock in the afternoon. Interment later will be private to the family.)

Note: This blog entry is primarily for friends and extended family outside the Mount Pleasant area, although the publication mechanism of necessity includes a wider audience.