Thank you, Mom, Aunt Rita, Todd, Beth, and Julie for your contributions, help, and encouragement.

* * *

On behalf of my mother, and my brother, and my sister, thank you, everyone, for being here.

The first thing you should know about my father, William Dawson, Jr., Bill, Dear, Dad, Billy... is that, in order to fall asleep at night, rather than counting sheep, he used to plan bank robberies.

He loved puzzles and games.

          crosswords
          cribbage
          solitaire, of course
          backgammon
          the best card game that ever was - bridge!
          and the greatest game of all, chess, although you should know that he appreciated the beauty
          of the game more than he enjoyed the contest.

And, I should say, he was good at these things.

He loved baseball, and for reasons which unfortunately become obscure again for me, he was a devoted Detroit Tigers fan. He didn't have many prized possessions, but one of them was an autographed photo of manager Sparky Anderson. And why did he love baseball? Because (he would say) it's a mental game!

He wasn't nostalgic, but he could be sentimental about things. He would get choked up sometimes talking about the things that he liked, as though they filled him with an inexpressible feeling for their beauty and perfection.

I think if you know the things that he liked, then you can have an appreciation for my dad.

And the most important thing of all was music. It was the most important part of Dad's life, and it had deep spiritual meaning for him.

Dad's father, also William, was a musician. He didn’t earn his living at it, although that was his dream when he came to this country. He was a percussionist. He played with the Queen's Island Band, the company band at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, and in the theatres, and occasionally with the Belfast Symphony. After he brought his young family to Philadelphia in 1925, he was lucky enough to get his son enrolled in St. Peter's School, an Episcopal choir school for boys, where he was immersed in the English choral music tradition, under the direction of Harold Gilbert. Gilbert's daughter, Eleanor, is here today, with her daughter, Debbie, who is assisting with the service.

Gilbert was like another father to dad. I have a feeling that some of the things that he felt most strongly about may have been because someone that he admired and respected also felt strongly about them.

It was at St. Peter's that he was superbly trained as a singer, and learned to appreciate wonderful music.

          Mozart's Jupiter Symphony
          Anything by Bach, but especially the passions
          Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius
          Operas - "The perfect wedding of words and music"
          Beethoven Symphonies - 3, 9, 7
          The Elizabethans - William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons
          Gregorian Chant
          Speech Rhythm Chanting of the Psalms

With the St. Peter’s choir he got to sing with the Philadelphia orchestra under Leopold Stokowski.

When he was a teenager, he used to ride his bike down to the Philadelphia Library in order to check out the vocal score for the opera that would be broadcast from the Met that weekend, so he could follow along.

He wasn't trying to become cultured. I'm saying that he truly loved these things, and knew that they represented the highest achievement of intellect, and the deepest expression of human feeling.

He liked food.

          shortbread
          oatcakes
          irish sodabread
          kippers
          turnips
          parsnips
          persimmons
          coffee
          cheeses
          rhubarb pie

At the table, he required good manners!!

He loved a good discussion, and prided himself on his logic and reasoning. And while we're on verbal skills, he prided himself on his report writing as well, although it was quite a painful task as I remember. He was like Chopin, anguishing over every note so that in the end the music would come out sounding perfect and brilliant and spontaneous. I think he was truly like an artist - he intuited that there was a great and excellent solution to his writing challenge, and he believed in his ability to find it, and he sweated persistently to find it.

He had an open mind about people. Though they might look different, as long as they were decent human beings, that’s what counted. This is a very important quality to pass on to your children and we're grateful for that.

At Christmas he liked to think of the most meaningful gift to give to each person. He was very good at it, too, and I have many books with lovely inscriptions in the front.

As a student, he had to work for everything he got. He would come home and really do his homework and study. And he achieved high marks and honors.

As a man, he wholeheartedly served his country, in the war, and afterwards, too. His field was international trade, and he believed in a saying from after the war which was "world peace through world trade."

As a father, he always supported us children. And he sacrificed for us. As his tour of duty in Istanbul was ending, he had to decide whether to accept a post in New Zealand (which I have to believe would have been lovely), or turn it down to come back to the States and end his career in the Foreign Service. And he chose to come back here to the Washington area, so that we kids, who were going into high school and junior high school, would be able to put down roots in American soil.

As a husband, he loved his wife and appreciated her companionship and her help in the last few years. I know - he had a funny way of showing it sometimes! - but I know this is true.

When I told him I loved him, he would say "love you, too, John."

Yesterday, Lauren Dawson Staehle asked if she could get up and say something about Pop Pop. Which is a very grown up thing to do. We decided to keep it that Uncle John would speak for everybody. But I promised that I would tell everybody what she wanted to say. And that is,

"Pop-Pop was a very nice man, and I'm glad he lived so long."

Amen.

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