| Notes |
- Eulogy given by Kellie Sue Sapp King for Ronald Sapp:
"I remember my Dad taking the training wheels off of my first bike, it was a Strawberry Shortcake bike, him giving me away to be married, saying goodbye to me as I moved to North Carolina and finally when he said his last goodbye to me before he died when all he could say is 'I love you Sweetie' over and over again. There were so many times he had to let go of me and now I have to let go of Him.
Right now I feel like that little girl holding on so tight and letting go all at the same time. The only way I know how to do that and to say Dad, I love you is by speaking to all of you today.
Many people here may think of my dad as an engineer or even a person who loved getting paid to tell other people no and then bragging about it. You may see the New River Gorge Bridge, the Blennerhasset Bridge or Corridor D as some of my dad's greatest accomplishments. I am so proud of my Dad for leaving his handprint across this beautiful state. He even received the attention and a personal phone call from then President Ronald Reagan, but those things he does not want to be remembered for. He blamed his coworkers and the contractors for those successes.
Other people here may think of him as Ronnie, a friend, cousin and class mate. It is also easy to think of my Dad as a model train enthusiast and train chaser, for that he was. He was so many things to so many people but I don't think of any of those things when I think of my Dad. I think of the man who joked that he dated a Brewer, then dated a Stein and finally got right when he married a Bier.
My Dad was a story teller. He loved sitting at the dinner table or anywhere were people were gathered around him and tell stories about family, friends and coworkers. He talked about family all the time.
He told the same stories over and over again. When he did he seemed to always use the same words, end them in the same way, yet always be just as excited to tell them. He would always tell every story the same way every time so that those around him got to know them by heart. Just as he never tired of telling them, I never tired of hearing them.
Dad knew that by telling the stories and doing genealogy research he kept those people with us. It did not matter if they were deceased or simply lived hours away, no matter how far away we are from one another his stories kept us together. He allowed those loved and gone to live on in a vibrant, meaningful way that brought smiles to faces. A lesson sometimes we all need to remember. The lesson and the tales he told, they are the greatest gift he has ever or could ever have given to me and our family.
As a child I often thought my Dad was just trying to make laugh or pull my leg when he told his stories. He had me convinced for the longest time that I was older than him. He was born on June 28th and I was born on June 27th so that made me a day older than him. He also had me convinced that Lou Costellos math was correct in the Abbott and Costello math skit 7*13=28. And for some reason Dad later wondered why I was so poor at math.
One day he told me that as my uncle was at work one day and was on a piece of heavy machinery, fell down and stepped on his own ear with his heavy work boot I had a hard time believing him, but it was true. I often found with my Dad that the more fantastic the tale the more likely it was true.
One of his favorite work stories was one day when he had to fire someone. He did not want to fire the guy but he had to. So first this guy gets fired, then his car breaks down and Dad has to give him a ride home in our old Honeydew colored Pontiac Bonneville with hot leather seats in the middle of summer. This guy is humiliated at this point. So just when it seems it cannot get any worse, I was in the backseat with him, get car sick and throw up all over the poor guy, twice. The guy gets out of his car trying to joke with Dad about how things cannot get any worse as he trips up the stairs to his house. Dad laughed so hard every time he told that one that tears would well in his eyes.
His favorite stories though were about family. He enjoyed telling me that he had a double aunt and made me try to figure out. I think he was preparing me for genealogy. When he told me his biological aunt through one of his parents married his biological uncle through his other parent the story always ended the same, 'So when mom and dad said we were going to see my Aunt, we really were going to see my AUNT.'
What he did was more than keeping the memories and stories of our friends and family alive. He gave his descendants an opportunity to know death is temporary and that lives are more than dates placed on headstones or in the genealogy programs he loved so well. He taught that this is where we are only parted until we can be together again and we will be together again.
Even at funerals, viewings and wakes he would tell stories and laugh. He got it. He understood that they were not gone. My Dad knew that those who passed would not want the living to stop living, to stop laughing, to stop loving. In that he lived as an example to me and to others.
That is his legacy, the understanding that life goes on until we are together again, that stories keep us together, the decades of genealogy two of which we did together, and knowing that this is only the end of a chapter and not the end of a book is what he has left us all.
In conclusion I need to say that it seems with so many people gone from all of our lives, with my Dad gone that the world is a much darker place. It is not so much that this world is a darker place it is more that now the next one is simply that much brighter because he is there. So today I invite you to bring some of that light back as we embark on the next chapters of our own stories, today I ask you all to follow my Dads example by telling stories and jokes about him and other people that you miss and in doing so honor his memory. Thank you."
- Sources:
Bible: Family Bible Virginia "Gini" Lee (Bier) Sapp (Location: Given by her parents Dec 25, 1961, Last updated 1975).Source Medium: Book.
Compilation: 'Sapp and King Family History - Pedigree Charts'. Ronald "Ronnie" Stuart Sapp and Kellie Sue Sapp King. Date of Import: August 28th, 1988 - November 20th, 2015. Source Medium: Manuscript.
Document: Ancestry.com. West Virginia, Births Index, 1804-1938 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
Document: "West Virginia Births." Index. FamilySearch, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2008, 2009. From digital images of copies of originals housed in County Courthouses throughout West Virginia. Birth records.
Drivers License: Ronald Stuart Sapp.
Eulogy of Ronald Stuart Sapp: Written and delivered by his daughter Kellie Sue Sapp King.
Family Records: Morgan Bier.
Gedcom: Bier by Bruhn.FTW, Jerry Bruhn. Source Medium: Electronic.
Gedcom: King.Ged. Date of Import: December 13th, 2001. Source Medium: Electronic.
Gedcom: Moore.Ged. Date of Import: November 24th, 2001. Source Medium: Electronic.
Gedcom: Sapp.Ged. Date of Import: November 24th, 2001. Source Medium: Electronic.
Gedcom: Trippett.Ged. Date of Import: November 24th, 2001. Source Medium: Electronic.
Obituary: Ancestry.com, United States Obituary Collection (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006), Ancestry.com, Newspaper: Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register; Publication Date: March 29th, 2009; Publication Place: Wheeling, WV, USA. Name: Ollie Sapp. Source Medium: Newspaper.
Obituary: Malinda Virginia (Darrah) Shuman.
Obituary: Ronald Stuart Sapp. Written by Virginia Lee (Bier) Sapp and Kellie Sue Sapp King.
Personal Knowledge: Kellie Sue Sapp King. Daughter of Ronald Stuart Sapp.
Personal Knowledge: Ronald Stuart Sapp. Self.
Personal Knowledge: Virginia Lee "Gini" (Bier) Sapp. Wife of Ronald Stuart Sapp.
Social Security Card: Ronald Stuart Sapp.
Web: Ancestry Member Trees.
Web: Find A Grave.
Web: Keller Funeral Home Guest Book. Ronald Stuart Sapp. https://prod1.meaningfulfunerals.net/home/index.cfm/obituaries/guestbook/fh_id/10544/id/3388899
Web: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Died:
Buried:
- No Headstone as of 09 May 2018.
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1946 - 2015 (69 years)
Kellie Sue Sapp
