At this point in time,
"The LaPier's" consist of my husband David and myself.
I'm Kathy. AKA KathyL and/or JP_Gramma
We both hail from New
England. David was born and raised in Worcester, Mass. and I grew
up in Fairfield, Conn.
David's folks, Dutchie
and Ruthie LaPier, both hailed from New England and made their
home in Worcester, Mass. Ruthie was a secretary in the Worcester
School system for many years and Dutchie was a primo auto
mechanic. They designed and built their own home in Worcester.
After they retired, they moved to Port Richey, Florida. They
lived to celebrate their 50th Anniversary together, but are sadly
both now gone.
Kathy's parents, Dot and
Mac McMahon met during WWII in England.
Mac was born and raised
in Connecticut and was serving in the Air Force in England during
the war, in the 306 Bomb Group,
368 Squadron . There he met Dorothy Body
and it was love at first site.
Mac brought his young
bride back to the United States and they bought a home in
Fairfield, Conn. There they raised their two daughters. After
retirement, they moved to Marathon Key, Florida. They too were
lucky enough to celebrate a 50th Anniversary.
We lost Mom in April of
1996. Dad joined her 5 years and 4 months later, in August,
2001..
Together again, amd for all eternity.
Mom..Dad.. I miss you so.
David graduated from
Classical high School in Worcester in 1962.
I graduated from
Fairfield's Roger Ludlowe High in 1964.
I arrived in Boston in
1966. David was a student at Mass College of Art at that time,
though he left shortly after that for a stint in the U.S. Army.
We hadn't met yet, but
we were both 'doing the 60's' to the hilt. I moved to San
Francisco , right into the heart of 'the Haight' in November of
1966. I moved around quite a bit back then, living in a cabin in
Inverness (Marin County); several apartments in the Haight; one
in Berkeley and at one point in an old abandoned water tower
somewhere in Redwood county. (memory's a little vague here) ;-)
I hitched back to Boston
during the Summer of '67 and lived on Beacon Hill and in Allston
til I left for England in the Winter of '68. Spent 7 months in
England on a one month VISA. (hey! those were different times
back then!)
I loved it in England.
Spent most of my time in Torquay, which is a resort town on the
Southern Coast of England. I did get tired of cold pork pies
though. Learned to like Players number 6 tipped, but was in
heaven whenever I could score a pack of Marlboros.
I arrived home from
England about the same time David was getting out of the Army. He
went back to Mass College of Art to complete his degree in Fine
Arts. I settled back into Boston and got a job managing a
Boutique.
I did go to Woodstock,
but always saw it as the 'swan song' of flower power. :( I moved
to the big Apple for a few months after that, but came home to
Boston with my tail between my legs. NYC was too fast-paced even
for me back then...besides, I was pregnant and Boston felt like
home.
Jump to April of 1970.
My darling Kasia was born and I grew up fast. <G>
While I was learning how
to play Mom, David was having fun with his Bus.
Kawasaki green with big
silver lips on the front. ;-)
I soon realized that I
needed to go back to school and get my BS. I decided on a
Teaching Career as I enjoyed children and my hours and days off
would be the same as Kasia's. I worked my fanny off and graduated
Summa Cum Laude. (When you work that hard, you earn the right to
boast a bit).
I taught in the Boston
Public School system for 3 years, but in 1979 I left teaching for
a job at MIT. I worked there for 13 years, at the Plasma Fusion
Center as its Fiscal officer. It was a great job, and I worked
with terrific people, but I also worked about 70 hours a week.
David and I re-met in
1981 and were married in 1982.
Life is good. I put in a
5 year notice at MIT in 1987, telling them that I planned on
trying to get my life back from MIT once Kasia had graduated from
College. Well, five years later, in 1992, Kasia did graduate from
Emerson College and I did leave MIT. They never believed me about
my five year plan, but they do now. They gave me a great party
when I left. I received the MIT Rocker you're supposed to get
after 25 years. 13 years at double time qualified me I guess.
They also stocked me up
pretty well on Bailey's. Yummmm
People ask me what I do.
I hate that question! LOL
I'm having fun being
Dolly Domestic, something I never had the luxury of being in the
earlier years. I LOVE my puter,
and I'm also enjoying
having the time to read, garden, knit and bake.
I went on-line with msn
in June of 1996. I'd been obsessively playing the Chips Challenge
game that came installed on my Gateway and got hopelessly stuck
on a level. I went on-line just in the hopes of finding help with
the game. And help I did find. I located a bulletin board on the
old classic msn where several dedicated Chipsters were already
assembled. Our board has moved a few times, and is now 'out there
on the Web'. This group is still active and I'm proud to say I'm
an msn Charter Chipster. There's a Chips Challenge link on my
home page which will tell you more about this.
In October of 96 I
upgraded to the 'new msn' msn2.0 <it's an old one now :-)
>.
During the beta phase
they (msn) had something they called the Stress Test party. Well,
I moofed all over the place that night, and never did get my
promised tee-shirt, BUT..I did find the Broken Line Game!!!
This one deserved a page
all it's own..so I made it one...you'll see it's button on the
main page.
Several of us ex-Broken
Liners found a new Cyber home and many other wonderful folks on
the msn Over40sBB Newsgroup. The NG has since been closed down as
part of an msn re-organization. There's a link to a page
dedicated to this wonderful group of folks on the main home page
also. Click below to get back there.
Kasia's all grown up
now. In May of 1997 she married and she and her husband live in a
lovely house they bought south of Boston. Not as good as when
they lived next door, but a very nice town to raise kids in, and
not a bad drive for Gramma and Grumpa.
Kasia was an
administrative assistant for an attorney on Beacon Hill, before
she left to become a full-time Mom. <BG> . Eric is a
Mechanical Engineer ,working in the metropolitan Boston area.
On August 7th, 2000, Kas
& Eric changed all our lives. <G> That's the day they
made a Gramma & Grumpa out of David & I. Announcing the
light of our lives, Ms. Katya Rosalie
Prior to the birth of
this MOST perfect Grandchild, my obsession had been creating web
sites. I'm up to 3 now.
It started with this Geocities "The LaPier HomePage "site in June, 1998.
I soon started to run
out of room, so in October of 1998,I got a second site at Fortune
City, just for my stationery collections and how-tos. I call that
one KathyL's Outlook Express Stationery &
How-Tos . (You may even
have arrived here from there, from the section I have for my own stationery creations.) That one got a mention and link to in the msn
update newsletter back on Dec. 10, 1998. The article was about
using Christmas Stationery in Outlook Express. I was so surprised
and s very proud! As a result largely of that initial exposure,
that's my most active site, with lots of hits daily and a high
profile in the major search engines. The folks at Fortune City
gave me a FREE domain name : WWW.KathyL.com which forwarded
automatically to my Fortune City Stationery site (see next
paragraph).... They have since removed that easy to remamber
name. sorry..
Since I now have a
Sitemap linked to all my pages, hopefully, it's pretty easy for
folks to find what it is they're looking for by clicking on that
from any of my sites.
In 1999, msn decided to
provide it's members with free homepages. Well, I couldn't pass
up on that, so we now have a 3rd site I call Kathy & David
LaPier's msn HomePage. This one is used to showcase David's
collection of stuff as well as his old 27' Hunter Sailboat. I
have my own collections showcased there. I'm an avid collector of
Enoch Wood's old blue and white transferware patter, 'English
Scenery;. In addition, I'm a Yourktowne fanatic and showcase that
collection as well. ..um..please read next paragraph...
We had an msn talk-city
homesite as well, but talk city very unceremoniously shut it'd
doors without warning and all pages anyone had on thoat server
was lost. I've moved some of the pages I had on that site, most
notably our David's Stuff and Kathy's Stuff pages, over to this
good old dependable geocities-yahoo site. I'm still in the
process of removing all the buttons that link to the now defunct
msn site. If you stumble upon one, my apologies in advance. :(
Here's the place for my plug. As a result of this, I've entered
into the web-design business. If you'd be interested in having me
design your homepage or small business site, email me! It's about time I started making some money
out of this obssession of mine. ;-)
OK...that''s it. Quit
cher moanin'..the title said it was ALL
about the LaPiers! ;-)
(Created
6-01-98) :)
To Kasia & Erics's Wedding Page
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