Quinn Ralph Peyton

Quinn inherited his love of chocolate from both sides of his family — from Grandma Omi in San Diego and Grandpa Newt in Minnesota. For our housewarming party, I baked chocolate chip cookies and put them in the freezer for safe keeping. On the day of the party, I was so happy to see the cookies were still there and Quinn hadn't found them. As I laid the cookies on the serving platter, I noticed some of the cookies were much larger than the others. It was very puzzling. I stared at the cookies, and grew more and more confused. After making off with half the tray, Quinn baked his own batch from scratch, because store bought would not do. He carefully alternated his cookies and mine — one big cookie next to every bite size cookie that I had made. Despite making every effort to cover his tracks, his monster cookies gave him away.

Quinn never did Christmas shopping at the mall; his gifts were from the heart. Last Christmas, he was working under top-secret conditions in his office on presents for my family. Finally on Christmas morning, he unveiled a menagerie of three-dimensional paper animals. He spent weeks intricately cutting every detail with an exacto knife, carving out of shiny paper a miniature alligator, polar bear, and orangutan.

Quinn had a love for birds and had several pet birds growing up. This spring, at our house he was very excited to find a family of robins building their nest under our deck. He watched over their progress and waited for the robin family to arrive. He would climb on a chair and peer into the nest to check on the baby robins. As they grew older, they flew the nest. Until they were ready to fly on their own, he would watch carefully over them in the backyard.

Quinn and I completed a hundred and fifty mile bike tour through Pennsylvania this June. Quinn had used his bike as his main transportation for many years, so he was in good practice. I am a slow rider compared to Quinn, but he rode by my side during the entire fourteen hour ride. As we cycled, he enjoyed observing the beautiful scenery and wildlife along the path, and always called back to me, "Christina, look, —." I was focused on pedaling and making it up the next hill, unable to move my sights from the road directly in front of me. Thanks to Quinn's reports, I was able to enjoy the beauty of Pennsylvania through his eyes.

Even though Quinn called Ken uncle, the kind of love they had for each other was that of brothers. They had an enthusiasm to always learn new things and to explore new interests, and when they undertook a new hobby, they excelled in mastering it. They loved the symphony, discussing politics, working in the shop together, and flying.

    – Christina Peyton


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