Category Archives: Obituaries

In Memoriam: Former Longtime Fair Havenite, School Secretary, Marie Ottesen

Former longtime Fair Havenite Marie Ottesen passed away on Jan. 25 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Marie was born and raised in Brooklyn, where she met her husband, Lloyd. They married in 1959. Soon after that, they moved to the “country,” also known as New Jersey, where they raised their family in Fair Haven.

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Cooper’s Legacy: The Art of Circle Gaming Among Childhood Friends

“We’re captive on the carousel of time … We can’t return. We can only look behind from where we came and go round and round and round in the circle game …” ~ Joni Mitchell

The news hit his nimble-footed, intricately painted-and-penned world like a sledge hammer. Thirty-year-old Thomas “Cooper” Ley had died. He was my best friend’s beautiful boy.

The wound left by the merciless hammer’s mark was a deep one. Somehow it didn’t break the circle, though. It wouldn’t. Never could. That was the consolation, so I was posthumously reminded by his mother, if there was to be any at all in something that seemed so senseless and unfair.

Circle. It was stuck in my head. Once that hammer hit, she started whispering to me as I grappled with how to remember him best for her, for his family, for his friends, with my words.

Continue reading Cooper’s Legacy: The Art of Circle Gaming Among Childhood Friends