My Dad

My father, Roy A. Fry, was born in 1928 in New York City to a very Catholic-based family. He had 1 brother and 1 sister and very interesting parents of English and Irish heritage. Roy studied in the Seminary, fought as a Marine in the Korean War and finally realized he wanted to be an educator. While working as a 6th grade teacher and the principal at the same time at Waterford Elem in VA, he met his soon-to-be bride, my mom Barbara Cooper. They married and moved to Fairfax County where they both worked as teachers and started our family. My father and a few others created the Fairfax School Employees Fed Credit Union and he worked there 1/2 days as the Manager/Treasurer and taught Social Studies in the local high school. Roy was very outspoken about the importance of desegregation in the school employee field, and I now understand better one of the attractions between my parents - their strong feelings that everyone was an equal and should be treated as such. This was a difficult stance to take in the 50's and 60's in the education field-especially this close to the South.
Quickly our family grew to include 5 children in 10 years, and my parents were so very happy. We lost my father to an early death when I was 10 and my youngest sister was 3. I have a few wonderful memories, like when he took us kids out on Burke Lake in his rowboat-aptly named for my mom, the "BarbaraAllyn". Or when he would introduce me to his Credit Union cronies at the summer picnics as his "Laurie-Annie". Then there were the few times when he knew I had sipped from his beer while he was mowing (yucky!) but he never scolded me. I remember leaning out of his parents' sky-high apt in NYCity and him holding on to the back of my shirt. My favorite memory is going to the World's Fair in NYC-just me and my dad-and he let me steer the car while we rode through "It's A Small World". Although I have very few memories of my Father I know he left us a wonderful legacy to live up to as a man of conviction in his beliefs of equality for everyone. This is my legacy to my children, and for that, I thank my parents.
I miss you Daddy and love you very much.