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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