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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