Jerry

My colleague and friend, Jerry Foley, died on October 22.  He was 93, and he chose to close out his time on earth without extra means  to deal with cancer.  His obit is here.

Jerry Foley July 12, 2011

Our friendship was relatively brief.  Back in 2011 I had gone to the Stevens House in Minneapolis Minnehaha Park to listen to Story Teller and friend Larry Johnson.  It happened that at the same venue a man was giving a talk on plants familiar to the indigenous peoples of the area.  He knew his subject.  I introduced myself and we quickly zeroed in on something in common: our French-Canadian ancestry.

So, Jerry and I knew each other for 14 years.  We didn’t make contact all that often.  We lived in different communities.

Nonetheless, we had a lot in common, particularly when it came to our ethnic heritage.

Jerry’s name, Foley, sounded Irish to me.  It wasn’t long into our friendship that I learned the original paternal name was Fallau, which somewhere down the line ended up as Foley.  This wasn’t uncommon in immigrant families, of course.  The immigrant may be illiterate and spoke a different language and it was up to a clerk, who may not even have meticulous penmanship, to interpret what the name was.  There are infinite variations.  Your family names?!  Of course, many survived the many miles and countries and languages, but a great many didn’t.

For Jerry, finding a local affiliation with French-Canadians was pretty important.

In 2013, a group of us founded an organization, the French-American Heritage Foundation, and Jerry and myself were among the founding group, which in turn had succeeded an earlier La Societe Canadienne Francais du Minnesota.

Early on FAHF did workshops.  Jerry was one of the presenters.

When FAHF decided to start a Foundation, called 100 Associates, Jerry was first in line with his contribution.  Presently the Foundation has over $50,000 in its permanent endowment.

Jerry made a difference in his life – there is more in his obituary.

He is at peace.  Bon Voyage