On Behalf of Snurdley: Thanks

'Thought I'd take a moment to express a note of thanks to the extended
Studebaker hobby "family" for all your thoughts, prayers, and
continually remembering our friend Tom Stephany with cards, letters,
and calls during the difficult last five months of his life.

I want to emphasize that he never lost ANY mental capacity, memory, or
ability clear up to the end; his maladies were all physical. He was
very much aware of AND GREATLY APPRECIATED everyone's staying in
touch. (After the initial wave of care and concern when someone gets
sick like that, or has an accident, when days turn into weeks and
weeks turn into months, we -myself included- tend to kind of "carry
on" with our own inconsequential little lives and relegate a person
lanquishing like Tom to the back burner.)

But that didn't happen here; it almost became a circus, moving all his
cards, momentos, reading material, photographs, etc., whenever he had
to yet again change hospital locations! It was gratifying to see and
hear Tom's reports of communications from his friends whenever a
personal visit was at hand: He repeatedly talked about who he had
heard from, and "what was going on, on the NG."

Of course, personal visits can result in the same stories being
retold, so here's one of Tom's you might enjoy. (I heard it at least
three times with no variation in detail, so I'm sure it's true.)

If you remember, Tom was a combination (new & used) car salesman circa
1967-1969 at downtown Indianapolis' Hatfield Ford. Because it was
right downtown, an occasional vagrant, drunk, or some such would
wander in the front door and had to be dealt with.

One mediocre Saturday morning in early winter, kind of early for
anybody to be wandering the downtown streets drunk, an older,
disheveled guy in a brown trenchcoat walks into the showroom. Everyone
is leery of the bulge in his coat pocket that looks to be the right
size of a flask, pint, or half-pint.

Tom Stephany is on floor duty among other salesmaen. When no one paid
attention to the old guy, Tom took the "up" and made the approach. The
guy did act a little strange, but at least he wasn't drunk. 'Asked Tom
if they had any big used cars. Tom takes him out and shows him a '63
Olds 98. 'Kind of hard to sell an Olds 98 off a Ford lot, and this one
had a little body damage on one quarter panel to boot. They had put
'way too much money in the car on trade and hadn't wholesaled it to
avoid losing even more. On the other hand, for whatever reason, they
hadn't gotten around to making the car a retail piece, either. Bottom
line: It had been there over a year and they really wanted it off the
inventory.

Tom pitches the car to the old gent and the guy likes it! The gent
says he'll take it and Tom, still cautious, asks how and when he'd
like to pay for it. 'Sure enough, the ol' feller says he'll just pay
for it right then, and pulls out a big wad of 20s, the bulge that Tom
and all the other salesmen had assumed was a cheap bottle of hooch!

So Tom makes the sale and gets a bonus for offloading one of the
oldest pieces -if not the oldest piece- on the used car lot. All the
other salesmen have to take a hard swallow at losing a sale on what
proved to be a slow day in the early winter. Ha! Serves 'em right.
(Anybody who has been in the car business longer than a week has at
least one similar story to tell.)

So thanks again, everyone, for staying connected to Tom while he was
hospitalized. Being the "people person" he was, he appreciated it more
than you know. I'll post another report after visitation this
afternoon and the funeral tomorrow. 'Looks like it will be a nice day
around here Monday, so here's hoping for a good Studebaker turnout. BP