In Memory
Tricia M. Miller (Frede)
Tricia M. Miller (Frede) passed away on August 5, 2005. Following graduation from SSHS, Tricia completed Cosmetology School and worked in the Fort Wayne area for several years. Tricia married Jerry Frede in June 1966. Tricia and Jerry celebrated their 39th wedding anniversary just weeks before her death. From 1967 to1971, they were stationed at USAF Bases in Biloxi ,Mississippi, and Omaha, Nebraska. Son Michael was born in November 1969. Following Jerry’s discharge from the Service in 1971, Tricia and Jerry lived in Madison Heights, Michigan, and Troy, Michigan, until 1978. Son Scott was born in April 1973. The Frede Family moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1978 where Tricia completed Medical Assistant Training at Concordia College. The next move was to Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1985. While in Charlotte, Tricia’s career in health care progressed from her position as Medical Records Director at The Durwood Clinic to Clinic Administrator at a large pediatric clinic. The final move for the Frede Family was to Atlanta in 1995. Son Michael married in 1999 and brought grandsons Stewart and Alex to the family. Son Scott married in 2000 and twin granddaughters Madison and McKenna were born in September 2001.
Those are all facts and of course don’t even presume to describe the life of Tricia. The following was read at Tricia’s funeral in 2005 and hopefully gives at least a hint of a very full and rich, albeit far too short life.
“From Jerry – I don’t know who will be reading this to you, but I know for certain that it will not be me. For while my heart, my mind and my soul have been running at full speed since Tuesday, May 24th, I have learned that when it comes time to put those feelings, those thoughts, those emotions into spoken words, I simply cannot do it. I am writing this while sitting next to the hospital bed where Tricia has mercifully fallen asleep. She has been here for 8 days and I have never seen her so weak and so tired, not only physically, but for the first time emotionally. She has been through so many battles, she has fought so hard day after day, sometimes hour after hour, that to even sense a hint of giving up is incomprehensible and at the same time so very understandable.
In those first days of this struggle, when we came so close to losing Tricia, when her life depended on a second surgical procedure being successful just hours after the same procedure had failed, I came face-to-face with the overwhelming presence of her in my life. A presence that I had taken for granted for so very long. As I returned home late that night, I was overcome with the realization that every square inch of our home was Tricia. She was the interior designer who selected all of the room colors, wallpaper and draperies; the seamstress who made all of the draperies and curtains, the antique hound who filled our home with antiques that reminded us of our childhoods; the carpenter who put up all of the crown holding and wood trim (and yes she really did ask for that electric miter saw I gave her for Christmas one year). Tricia was the architect of the porch we added and then the construction manager much to the woe of the contractor; she was the landscaper who planted all of the trees whose shade we now enjoy and who filled the yard with flowers spring through fall. She was the gardener who took such joy in a few tomato plants; she was the yardman who so enjoyed cutting the grass. Tricia was my bridge partner, my golfing buddy, the beach bum who enjoyed a day at the beach more than anyone I have ever known. Tricia was our dog trainer and our dog groomer, poor Doc had to endure hours of preening and trimming. Tricia was my barber for 40 years, my tailor who could make anything including men’s suits, all on a sewing machine she had bought used 35 years ago. Tricia knitted, she crocheted from the angel that goes on the top of our Christmas tree to the bedspreads that are on our beds. Tricia was an excellent cook from her world famous barbecue ribs to the wide range of dishes that we enjoyed at her annual Christmas Party for the neighbors. She was my dining partner, my dancing partner who loved to shag. Trish was the winemaker and when there was no more space to store the newly filled bottles, she designed and built a 200 bottle wine rack. Trish, with the child-like spirit, who filled our home in recent years with more toys than our sons ever got to enjoy in their childhood. She loved her neighborhood ‘adopted’ grandchildren, Nick and Joey, Riley and Annabel, Luke and Olivia, Caitlin and Lindsey, Allison and most recently Tate. They all knew exactly where the toy closet was and they never had a more enthusiastic playtime partner than Tricia. Her love for these children was surpassed only by the overwhelming joy and pleasure of her own grandsons and granddaughters.
Finally, there was the Tricia who loved music, as much as life itself. Tricia’s music that praised the God she loved so much her whole life and whom she knew loved her through her last moments. She filled our home with sounds of piano and guitar. One of the most satisfying and joyful days of my life was the day we brought home the long promised piano. Her voice joined choirs in every city in which we lived. In the past weeks, we have heard from friends and neighbors we had not been in contact with in the past twenty years and who remembered Tricia for the music and how it touched their lives. One wrote ‘When hearing of your circumstances, my heart went out to you. The very first thing that popped into my mind was how generous you were with your time and talents to work with our daughter with her music. She also remembers fondly your help in singing ‘To God Be The Glory’ at Vernon Lutheran Church. She has been blessed with a wonderful voice and is still using it to God’s glory. Your seeds of encouragement made a difference in her life and for this we thank you.’
So that’s my Tricia; actually that’s just a very small description of a very large life. Hopefully you recognized in my ramblings here the Tricia you knew and likely have other fond memories of. The most talented, creative, giving individual I have known in my entire life. Tricia loved the challenge of trying something new; she was full of enthusiasm for life. We received an email in the past few weeks that captured Tricia’s approach to life very succinctly. ‘You take life as it comes, not sweating the small stuff, living today for all that it can be and knowing that it is all up to God in the end. I really admire you for this and I hope it is a quality that I am able to develop.’
But most of all, Tricia was a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a neighbor, a friend who touched our lives and made us the better, the happier, the more fulfilled for it.
From everything that Tricia was to me, her death will leave a huge void in my life. I know there will be many, many days when that will be overwhelmingly true. But I also know that I was blessed with more than 40 years of her spirit and eagerness for life in my own life and for that I thank God. And I thank him all the more for the certainty that one day she will be waiting for me to be together in eternity with our Lord and Saviour. To him be the glory.”
Tricia and Granddaughter, McKenna
Susan K. Smith (Terry)
What a beautiful tribute to a woman so obviously well loved.Patrick H. Fraizer (Fraizer)
To the family of Tricia, reading what was written I just want to say, 'she was loved'God Bless
James W. Lambert
Hello, my name is Jim Lambert and I attended school with Tricia. We went to school at South Calhoun Elementary School on S. Calhoun St. for the 5th and 6th grades and then to Harrison Hill Elementary for the 7th and 8th grades. And then on to South Side High School. I was the family's evening paperboy in the evening. The house sit back on the alley, so I had to ride my bicyle down the alley to deliver to the back door. What a pain in the rear! Anyways what a beautiful tribute to a real nice gal I had the pleasure of knowing during the 50s and 60s. May God Bless her Family.