Ray

Raymond Paul Calabrese

Raymond Paul Calabrese was born on May 24, 1916. When World War II broke out, he enlisted in the Navy, was assigned to a supply ship and sent to the European Theatre. Speaking about his time in the Atlantic, he told of his ship being torpedoed and sunk. When the war in the Atlantic was winding down, Ray was reassigned to the Pacific Theatre, again on a supply ship. Before Japan surrendered, he would once again be faced with long days and dark nights in shark-infested waters while he waited to be rescued.

Returning from war, Ray moved in with his mother in her home on the corner of 18th Street and Canyon. When his mother passed away in 1962, Ray continued to live there with his sister, her husband and children until he married Edna in 1965.

Ray cherished Edna. At 49 years old, he was late to marry and said that the best things in life are worth waiting for. He knew something of Edna’s previous marriage and talked about how her first husband never took her out. He had vowed to change that. He said Edna was a good woman and she deserved an easy life.

Ray and Edna Calabrese
on the Front Porch

Ray and Edna worked hard to improve the property. When Boulder replaced the flagstone sidewalks with concrete, Ray salvaged the flagstone and built a backyard patio, a base for a pot-bellied stove in the dining room and lined walls behind the stove in a mosaic pattern. He set up a bench under the apple tree where he and Edna could catch the shade. They planted roses and Ray built a foundation for the back porch.

One day while out for a drive Edna spied a dog in an abandoned Chevy pickup truck. She made Ray pull over and, at that moment, Ray knew they had a dog. Shep was a welcome addition to the Whittier neighborhood and the children would stop by and say hello to him on their way to school. On occasion, Shep would escape and make his way to the schoolyard to play with the kids. Edna may have rescued Shep, but he was Ray’s dog. He sure loved that dog!

Ray and Shep on the Front Porch

The last few years prior to Edna’s death were difficult ones. A diabetic, Edna’s health was declining and she was bedridden. She had been admitted to Boulder Community Hospital and released with prescribed medication. Within a matter of days, Edna died. Ray suffered tremendous guilt for the rest of his life because he thought the hospital had given her the wrong medicine and he “had fed her those pills.”

With Edna gone, Ray continued to care for the roses, drive to the buffet in Longmont and, as was Edna’s habit, made daily entries on his calendar. The entries had little variation and, just like Edna’s entries, show what Ray’s life was like:

“water bill came”; “church”; “took out trash for Western”; “washed dishes”; “bundled papers”; “Safeway”; “partly sunny”; “went to bank”; “Country Buffet”; “mopped floors”; “no mail”; “cooked squash”; “washed hair”; “cut buds off roses”; “went to McGuckins”.