![\"The](\"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/marguerite.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBefore Marguerite first called me for plumbing service in November of 2002, I had never heard of her. She identified herself as Marguerite Bergtholdt, which was her married name, and told me that she’d gotten my name from her daughter-in-law Veronica.<\/p>\n
When I entered her home at 2813 Central Avenue, I just assumed that she was one more well-to-do lady like so many other customers I’ve served. She left me alone near the stairs while she finished tending to her bedridden husband, Harry. I began studying the trophies, plaques, posters, newspaper clippings, and photographs that covered the walls where I stood and slowly got an idea of who she was. When I acknowledged what I’d been looking at upon her return, she simply observed, “Well, I’ve lived a long life.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I became a regular visitor to Marguerite’s home, mostly for plumbing purposes. I was always amazed by the force of her personality and the liveliness of her mind. I spent many hours, all told, sitting at her table and talking, but mostly listening.<\/p>\n
Harry died in ’03. The day of the funeral (March 18th), the kitchen sink stopped up. I was over there that morning to straighten it out. They all left for the funeral and I left a bill and locked up on the way out. I managed to get loose from my jobs long enough to attend the services at St. Louis Catholic Church.<\/p>\n
Marguerite was gracious enough to come to my church a couple of times, and it was my privilege to chauffeur her and her daughter Shirley.<\/p>\n
Many obituaries and testimonials will pour forth in the next few days to retell some part of the story of this amazing woman. My contribution is meager: she was kind to me and it was an honor to serve her for these ten years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Before Marguerite first called me for plumbing service in November of 2002, I had never heard of her. She identified herself as Marguerite Bergtholdt, which was her married name, and told me that she’d gotten my name from her daughter-in-law Veronica. When I entered her home at 2813 Central Avenue, I just assumed that she … Continue reading “Marguerite Piazza, R.I.P.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p45dxY-3r","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":218,"href":"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions\/218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.barleyservices.biz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}