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From Elizabeth B. and Mary Y:
Its hard to believe that our remarkable friend Vic Schwarz has left us. He has graced us in so many ways. Vic engaged and enriched our ears, our eyes, our minds, and our hearts. In a very real way, he was a Renaissance man a description that is overused, perhaps, but which remains apt when applied to Vic Schwarz.

We find ourselves particularly missing Vic on sunny weekend mornings. Having had the stroke of great fortune to be the next-door neighbors of Vic and Linda Schwarz on Parrott Street, we had long been blessed by waking up and hearing, the first thing in the morning against a backdrop of birdsong the happy sound of Vics nimble fingers plucking the strings of one of his many musical instruments, be it a banjo, mandolin, guitar, or, most recently, charango (which we'd procured for him in a tiny market in Peru last Spring). Whether it be a familiar folk song, an intricate classical composition, a rowdy dance piece, or a blurred-fingers marvel whatever Vic played, it never failed to bring a smile to our faces. Vic knew not only the notes, but also the story behind, and the lyrics to, the songs that he played. He even delighted us by knowing the lyrics to Monongahela Sal, which had been written decades before by the father of another good friend of ours. Savoring Vics music, and learning about it, became a cherished part of our Cold Spring life.

In recent years, those early-morning melodies wafting into our windows from next door also signaled that Vic, who had been undergoing debilitating cancer treatments for many years, was feeling well enough to venture outside, onto his front porch. And that was welcome news indeed. Every Sunday morning, familiar cars would appear in front of the house, and a hearty band of instrument-toting musicians Pat, Greg, Art, Wendy, the guy with the bass, Jack, and assorted others would cross the Schwarz threshold. And within minutes, the strings and vocals of that cheery group would find their way to our welcoming ears. The Schwarz cats (Bill and Skipper) and dogs (Russell, and later Daisy) as well as our own three cats would settle in with us, and enjoy the music.

These impromptu concerts were just a part of the musical story. We also were privileged, over the years, to hear Vic and his talented musician friends perform at a number of public events and venues from a chilly maple sugaring festival, cozily seated in front of a roaring fire; to the Rising of the Moon at Guinans; to a rain-soaked outdoor concert; to Will Tresslers annual by-invitation-only shindig; to informal performances at the Cold Spring farmers market and other events. The concerts were always a delight, with the precision and intensity of Vics playing belied by his friendly grin and wave.

There are vivid reminders in our home, too, of the many other ways in which Vic enriched our lives. Gracing our walls are some of the vibrant prints that Vic created several years ago (during his Mt. Taurus Press days), depicting Hudson Valley scenes in and around Cold Spring. They are marvelous, and will continue to give us great joy. The quality of Vics art work, like that of his music, is a testament to the breadth and vast scope of Vics talents and interests.

Vic was so engaged. And he was so engaging. He liked people, and took a keen interest in their lives. Vic had a real love and talent for politics both national and local. On the local front, he made a real difference for countless generations of our community, having been the principal organizing force (with the help of George Pataki, among others) behind the Little Stony Point and its Hoot, as well as (with his friend Pete Seeger) the Clearwater sloop and festival.

We particularly regret that Vic wont be around for the November elections not just because we suspect we would have sided with the way he would have voted, but because he would have gotten such a big kick out of everything that is going on. (In the hospital, the last time Mary saw Vic, she told him a little bit about candidate McCains Vice Presidential pick. Vics eyes widened, and crinkled. While Mary may be projecting, she swears he was chuckling.) How we would love to hear his opinions and observations, as the events of these challenging times continue to unfold. Vic had strong opinions, of a solidly progressive variety. Vic wore proudly, and on every conceivable occasion, the Veterans for Peace cap that we had brought back to him from an annual demonstration against the notorious School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia. Vic deeply loved his country, and reserved his scorn for those elected leaders and other assorted scoundrels whom he believed were failing to live up to our nations highest aspirations.

We will miss Vics booming, hearty voice. And we will miss his storytelling. Vic knew, and loved, history. His inquisitiveness was endless. His stories were, too. We remember in particular his tales of the Paul Robeson concert / Peekskill riots which, sadly, were new to us. Through his stories and recollections, Vic brought that tumultuous era to life for us, and reminded us of the importance of oral histories, and of sharing stories across generations, lest our important history be rewritten or lost.

Vic was our beloved friend, neighbor, and compatriot. He leaves us with lasting memories. And lasting gratitude.

Our hearts go out to Linda, Maria, Julann, Carl, Vics grandkids, the members of the band, his Parrott Street circle of friends, and the host of other people, and animals of all kinds, who loved Vic, as we do.

Thanks, Neighbor.

With Love, Elizabeth Broad and Mary Yelenick
(September 24, 2008)

From Will Tressler:
comment: To Linda,Carl,Maria,Julann and all,

Elizabeth and Mary painted such a beautiful and complete picture of Vic in their post that I will not be able to add too much, except some comments on how Vic affected my life.

I met Vic in 1951. He was sitting, playing guitar, on the front steps of a brownstone in Brooklyn, across the street from the brownstone I was living in. Hardly anybody in the northeast knew what a guitar was in those days, let alone be able to play one! I had been listening to late night broadcasts from Wheeling, West Virginia, where I had heard another instrument unknown to Yankees. I thought it was a banjo. Vic confirmed this, so I bought a banjo at a New York pawn shop. Vic said, "wrong kind; you want a 5-string" So another trip to a Salvation store yielded a 5-string.

I still had no clue what to do with the instrument, so Vic sent me over to the Village String Shop in Greenwich, where I was able to get strings, missing parts, and a mimeographed booklet called "How to Play the 5-String Banjo" by someone named Pete Seeger, (whom I remembered from The Weavers.) I went to work to learn the instrument, and in a few months, Vic and I had a band, and were playing for square dances at Pratt Institute.

After that, and after our time in the service, Vic and I played together a lot, making many trips between Cold Spring and Easton, Connecticut.

Eventually, as time went on, and Vic had gotten Pete Seeger interested in the sloop idea, funds were needed, and Vic made sure I was involved in the fund-raising effort, via a series of concerts in towns along the Hudson. By that Time, I had organized a group called The Jackson Pike Skifflers, here in Connecticut. We played for a couple of big events in Garrison, then Vic and I continued to partake solo, and as a duo, in many of the other concerts. I was pleased and honored to be a part of this great project, which Vic made sure I was able to share in.

I could go on and on, but the main point is that Vic rarely seemed to want to accept all the glory of his accomplishments for himself. He wanted to make others, often myself, share the limelight.

He liked to surprise me with unexpected gifts, such as custom made instruments he felt I deserved! The list of his acts of kindness is endless. So often I would be left feeling "why?" Why don't you give yourself more credit, Vic, or do more for yourself?

I am so glad that I had Vic as a friend.... a true friend, dearly remembered in so many ways. Although our communication in recent years has been mainly through frequent phone calls, I will miss him...... a lot.

Will Tressler
Easton, Connecticut

I first met Vic shortly after he opened his music store “Acoustic Stringed Instruments” on Route 9 in Cold Spring, a short distance from his home. I was his first customer, and bought a Yamaha 12 string guitar that was actually one of Vic’s personal instruments. There were many a session played in the store, and Todd Novak, myself, and others hung out there a lot. There was never a need to bring our own instruments because there were plenty of them hanging on the walls of the shop. Vic’s shop did some business, but we had lots of time to jam until a potential customer came into the shop. Often, the potential customer would join us in our informal sessions, and we all had a good time there.

I told Vic about the Irish Music sessions, which we called the “Rising of the Moon”, which I was heading up down in Garrison at Guinan’s country store, and asked him to come down and sit in with us. He was hesitant at first since he didn’t play Irish music, but we made a deal that I would teach him some Irish music, and he would give me some guitar lessons, and show me how his good friend Pete Seeger played the guitar. That was a sweet deal, especially for me. I also took Vic down to the Bronx and Yonkers, to sit in with some of the best players in the NY City area at the pubs there, especially the Hibernian on Mc Lean Avenue in Yonkers. There was a time when we headed up an Irish session at the Beal Bocht Café in Riverdale, a local coffee shop that was listed as a fun place to go for tourists, and we often had people coming there from all over to visit.

One night at one of the “Rising of the Moon” sessions, a couple that was planning a party and were looking for some musical entertainment approached me. When their wish list of music exceeded my repertoire, I asked Vic, who was usually sitting next to me at Guinan’s, if he knew some other people who might be interested in doing this gig. This was the start of what developed into the formation of the group, “Acoustic Workshop”, a group of very talented local musicians, Art, Greg, Wendy, Pat and others who gathered at Vic’s house on Sunday mornings, and who also played out locally, usually at community events. Andy Revkin was also a frequent sit in guest at Vic’s house. Many local musicians brought their instruments to Vic for repair and tweaking, or just to “show and tell” their latest finds. Vic himself played many instruments, guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, to name a few, and played them all well. Vic was the first person we musicians looked to for input, because of his great knowledge of music, not to mention his luthier skills, excellent artist skills, photography skills, and an amazing knowledge of the history of the Hudson Valley, and the Hudson River he loved so much. Vic designed the logo for the shirts we wore down at Guinan’s. This logo can be seen on the website of Wendy Bounds www.gwendolynbounds.com , who wrote a book about Guinan’s.

Vic was a humble man and I was pleased to see him get the recognition he deserved for being the catalyst for the building of the sloop Clearwater.. Pete, to his credit, has always given Vic the credit for the idea, and he reiterated that at the Clearwater Annual Meeting last Sunday, where there was a special memorial service for Vic. My fondest memory of Vic was the privilege of going with him a few years ago to the annual Clearwater Revival, down at Croton Point Park. It was a real treat to see him enjoying the festival and playing with Pete Seeger and many others at impromptu sessions on the grounds of the festival. In fact, Pete invited Vic to sit in on an informal banjo session, and I gave Vic the loan of my guitar, which I had taken along to the festival specifically with this in mind. I also had the privilege of overhearing Pete and Vic admiring the huge crowd at the festival, and discussing amongst each other whether an organization like the Clearwater could be started in these times. Both agreed that the time then back in 1969 was ripe for the formation of the Clearwater, and that today, the odds against such great success would be much stronger. Vic and Pete had a great friendship, and I was privileged to one of Vic’s good friends as well. In fact, Vic was a great friend to all of us, and I miss him deeply.

I would often stop at Vic's before I went down to Guinans..Sometimes when he wasn't feeling up to going...We would just chat about life in general...Always about guitars..

Vic and I were friends from day one..
And he will be thought of quite often...
And missed by all of us who were fortunate enough to know him..
Especially those of us who had the opportunity to make music with him from time to time...
May he be surprised to wake up in heaven with some other great musicians..Thom Pease

Stories of Vic Schwarz
Part 1, our meeting

Jasmine & I would drive down & up 9D wandering the hills outside of Cold Spring, and would occasionally catch site of a stringed intrument shop. In an old rundown mini-mall there was a beautiful little music store. It was of course Vic's little guitar/fiddle shop. One day Jasmine & I were on a mission to see what the fellow in the little shop was up to, and we ventured out to meet him. Well, the shop was closed, and had no clear schedule posted. Hmmm? Commuting in to NYC to manage Context Music Studios continued for me, and Jasmine started back at school. We were slowly but gratefully getting used to being in the country and relaxing.

So, weeks past and on another fine weekend day Jasmine & I were cruising down 9D and AHA! Vic was at his shop, he was open, and we stopped in to say hello. There he was sitting behind a small counter, wearing a little hat, flannel shirt, jeans & some old workboots. Vic looked like he had just finished chopping wood, or possibly doing some sort of mill work. A split second after we enetered he almost shouted "HELLO THERE". The details here are a little foggy, but I remember playing guitar for him, and we told the story that we were new in town, that I had been a professional musician my entire life, and was looking in to figuring out a way to get out of the music bizz. I do remember playing the Carter Family tune "Wildwood Flower". Vic's ears perked up and I think we realized then we would become fast friends.

I had always worked on my electric instruments, but had not owned, repaired or played acoustic intruments much. Since moving to Cold Spring I had started scouring the countryside for old guitars, ukes, banjos, mandolins etc. to fix up a little and sell in NYC. I told Vic the day we met that I had an old Silvertone acoustic guitar that needed a neck re-set. I remember driving home, dropping off Jasmine and then taking the guitar back out to the shop for Vic to see. He said he would re-set the neck for I think $50 or so, and I said yes. I'm still not sure if Vic had ever re-set a neck before, but he called me about 2 days later saying it was already done. I was to come over to his house on Parrot Street, which was walkable for me living on Main St. in Cold Spring.

It was a beautiful fall day, and I had one of the nicest walks of my life cutting through a stand of old trees, along a fence, near an old abandoned hospital building. Coming out of the woods I realized Vic's place would be straight ahead about a block or so, and I could hear a lawnmower running in the distance. That's when I rounded the corner on to Parrot St. and saw Vic mowing the side lawn, and his wife Linda sitting on their front porch. Upon seeing me approach Vic turned the mower off, gave it a push, which sent it slowing careening in to the high weeds & grass sputtering. Vic said "THERE YOU ARE". I remember that I was already laughing out loud when Linda said "Vic what about lawn? To which Vic's response was "Get your next husband to mow the lawn".

Vic took me inside his house which reminded me of some of the houses my family has owned back in south western rural PA. Gorgeous paintings on the walls, and I remember seeing an old flint lock musket above the back yard window. There seemed to be books everywhere. I think there was a cat sleeping in a banjo case, which I would find to be common at his place. Vic corraled me throught the living room, and down the steps to his basement shop. As it would turn out I would spend many hundreds of hours down in the Vic luthier workshop. There seemed to be a disorderly order down there. Proper work stations for different instruments, and on the large bench was lying the Silvertone guitar Vic had reset the neck on. The guitar looked great, and we both checked it out closely. The Silvertone guitar seemed secondary to both of us compared to how much we were hitting it off, and just talking shop. I asked how he had done the repair, as well as some of the other work that was being done. He said "come back around whenever you want and I'll show you".

This started a very long friendship, love and kinship. Vic would become a second father to me in the next 3 years.

Stories of Vic part 2

Vic and I spent many afternoons driving around to lumber yards, saw mills, and once to The Martin Guitar factory in Nazareth PA with my wife Jasmine. It was a longish quality drive with Vic at the helm telling stories of his time in the service, how he had become a photographer, going to Pratt, and how the art business in NYC used to operate in the 60s and 70s. You could pretty much talk to Vic about anything. We had discussed racism, politics, and the state of the world. The Bottom line is that Vic and I mostly talked about Guitars, banjos, mandolins, violins, and my new passion. Ukuleles. I started collecting, and finding them everywhere. Antique shops, yard sales, and even in music shops in NYC. One of the ukes I found was an old beautiful Slingerland Banjo uke or as some call them Banjoleles. The calf skin head had a few holes in it and needed to be replaced. So, Vic and I realized that if we bought one regular sized Calf Skin Banjo head from a supplier we could use it for several banjo-ukes. I had found some S.S. Stewart Guitar and banjo journals printed in the 1880s and they had articles about how to replace a banjo head. A story about how some fellow had to ask the blacksmith for assistance and "How We Did Sweat" !!! Old Bill who used to drive around the area in his van filled with guitars and junk left over from his days as a Harmony guitar dealer insisted and almost yelled that we soak the calf skin head in COLD WATER. Vic knew this already, but we let Old Bill yell "Cold Water" over and over again. We chuckled over that many times. The reheading of the banjolele was a great success, and after being strung up was one of my favorite instruments ever. How Vic and I DID SWEAT too! It was not easy. I remember when Vic took me up to meet Pete Seeger for the first time, and Vic laughed as Pete handed me a pair of work gloves to lift some heavy equipment in to the back of his electric truck. After doing that I handed the ol' uku-banjo to Pete, and he played a little and reminded us that the uke was the first
instrument he learned to play. That was one of my greatest memories of a Todd/ Vic adventure. Standing there on MT. Beacon listening to Pete talk about his love of the Hudson, and Washington being offered to be the King of America by the British. It was beautiful and passionate, Vic and I standing there with tears in our eyes, with Pete cradling the little banjolele. Sometimes memories are better than photographs to be sure.
As I got to know Vic better, and was continuing to work part time in the city at a music studio, I would often convey the going ons down in the heat of it all to him as we sat and played guitars, ukes and banjos drinking instant black coffee. It was surprising how often I'd see Pete on the train usually coming back from Grand Central. Vic loved hearing the stories of my seeing Pete on the train. Now thinking back it was pretty incredible. Pete and I watching a spectacular Maxfield Parrish sunset over the Hudson while noticing we were the only two taking it in. Vic enjoyed hearing my story about Pete and I helping pull a girls purse and arm out of the closing train doors as it was pulling away from the Cold Spring stop. The next day I told the girl who the older fellow was and she about fainted.
One day Vic and I got on the topic of Mullet hair cuts. He sat and listened as I described and laughed about the outrageous short in the front long in the back hair style. In the front all business, and the back all party. He started to laugh, and said " I saw a guy in Beacon that I thought was wearing a Raccoon Cap". We sat and howled. If I played any old traditional country song Vic would smile and sarcastically say "Nashville". There was something very funny about the way he said it.
Once Vic and I had a gig together at the old church in Garrison. We as it turned out were the headliner so to speak, and it was a packed house. You have to understand I was still quite the rocker, and this was a new kind of setting for me. Vic knew I had a knowledge of music theory, was ok at reading music, and was very good at session type stuff & chord charts. We got up in front of the crowd at the church and Vic introduced me by saying "This is my friend Todd on guitar, He's paper trained"!!!! We finished our hanful of songs and walked right down the center isle of the church through a large crowd of applauding folks. Vic and I also played at the Cold Spring High School doing a demonstration of Civil War Songs for the students. Vic showed me a bunch of trad. CW tunes and we dressed the part. It was a great learning experience for me and I can't imagine ever learning those tunes and having that experience if it were not for Vic. Somewhere I have a recording of those performances and at one point in front of one of the classrooms, and in the middle of the song we were performing Vic blurted out half singing "I can't remember the words". It was meant to be.
Vic and I started a little duet called the Hudson Valley String Ticklers. We had a pretty large repetoir of Weaver/Seeger/Guthrie tunes as well as some nuggets Vic had collected over the years. One of my favorites was a Pete Seeger song which I wish I still remembered how to play called "Old Devil Time". When I think of Vic I think of that song. As I get older and I'm now the older guy in the Violin shop, I think about trying to be a good teacher and friend. Encouraging others while trying to enforce some history and tradition.

Stories of Vic part 3

As many people know Vic was an incredible wood carver. Out of all of the artistic things that he was in to, the woodcuts and woodcarving in my opinion excelled. That art translated to the carving of violin plates and soundboards to achieve the proper/standard thicknesses for proper vibration between the top and back of the violin, as well as between the soundpost and along the bass bar. I would watch Vic working on Violins without nearly as much interrest as I should have taken. I of course now work full time in a violin shop in Mountain View CA doing repairs, restorations, including touch up work with varnish and anolyn dyes. I should have paid more attention and asked more questions, although I have learned now from a master in CA. I knew Vic had been working on a new special violin. He had spent more time on this one, and he fealt this would possibly be the one he would keep and play. I called to check in with him, and Vic invited me over to see the new violin, telling me he had carved the scroll. I imagined a Magini style scroll with a mans head and long flowing beard & mustache kind of like Michael Angelo or something. Vic was sitting next to the work bench with a cheshire cat grin on his face. I asked to check out the new born fiddle and looked amazingly upon a scroll carved meticulately as a devil's head! Complete with scary eyes, and soon to be ivory or bone horns. It was a sight to behold. Beautiful work I said! Vic was still half smiling as I expanded on how much I dug the new fiddle. Then Vic said something close to "Lad, I finished carving this thing and was proud as a peacock, I went up stairs to show Linda my grand achievment, and she bellowed "Vic that's My Father!!!!!" Vic lowered his head and said, yup it does look like her father. Whoops! I have told that story at the Violin shop I work at many times. We get instruments that are copies of Maginis, and even have a cello with the scroll cut as an owls head with big red eyes. Vic's devil head fiddle takes the crown!

Vic got in to little veneers and repairing little tiny pieces of instruments. He was always rigging up some sort of little mad scientist gone mountain man rig in his basement shop. One of my favorites was going to the shop and having him show me his new mini wood mill. Vic had taken his dremel tool and tiny saw blade, and rigged up a tiny wood mill saw and table. He was able to push a tiny piece of wood across a tiny saw fence and cut tiny little veneers. It was like watching a giant work in an Oregon wood mill. I called it Vic's flea circus saw.

From Richard Severo:
I met in Vic in 1944 when we were both starting junior high school. We hit it off right away, for Vic loved to talk (all of you know that) and I loved to listen. We shared a strong interest in music, in the environment, and in what some of our Republican friends came to think of as radical left-wing politics, which weren't very radical at all. Indeed, we thought we were quite moderate. There are many things I could say here but then this message would be interminable. So, I will take just one part of his remarkable character: his utter disdain of money. He never had much of it, he didn't care about it and he consistently did favors for his friends that he could ill afford. I cannot count the many kindnesses he bestowed on me, among them polishing and refinishing my cello and giving me a fine-tuning device which he could have and should have sold in his shop. He wouldn't take money from me. Vic and I got cancer at almost the same time about 14 years ago. I rushed to take care of myself when I noticed the first symptoms. Vic waited a year, dawdling as only he could dawdle, and then casually picked a urologist out of the yellow pages. Yes, I said out of the yellow pages! Even after the cancer was diagnosed, he said little to me about the doctors he saw. He had no complaints about what happened to him. He responded well to the chemotherapy, even if he took it too late. His disdain for doctors was matched only by his disdain for money. We assumed we were both doomed to be claimed by the cancer and I suggested to Vic that I really ought to insist on going first, since his eulogy of me would have been magnificent (if undesereved), whereas my comments about him are quite modest. (Pretty hard to write about a guy you were so close to). But I will say I think a part of his waiting to see a doctor for so long came from not just being disinterested in what a professional might have to say about his condition, but his desire not to spend money on himself. And that brings me back to something on which Vic and I strongly agreed: that money should not be so important a factor in taking care of one's self and that this country has a crying need for a universal health care plan that everyone can afford whatever his or her rank or station. We can't afford to lose a Vic Schwarz. Not too many of Vics around. I am writing this just a few weeks from an election that will hopefully purge this country of eight years of reckless and uncaring Bushism. Hopefully, he will be replaced by Obama and Biden and not McCain and Palin. As great a day as Obama's election may be, I will miss going through the final days of this election with him, getting his take on politics, his irreverence, his wit, his ability to see through sham and the slogans of political hacks, his predisposition to be absolutely candid with everyone who was privileged to know him.

I grew up in Cold Spring and was a friend of Vic's back in the early 70's. I used to come to the house and sit with Vic in the back room. I didn't see Vic again after that time but he had a profound and lasting effect on me. I was just getting into folk music and had just started to play the banjo. He took me under his wing and kind of introduced me to the whole culture. I still relish the memory of him telling me stories that sometimes started with phrases like "when Pete was sitting there where you are..." I particularly remember a story related to the fact that Vic and I had the same model of 19th century banjo. He mentioned that he had loaned his to Don McLean and when it was returned about a year later it was "covered with chocolate sauce." We also talked about the first Clearwater festival at Osborne's when he had the privilege of going on-stage immediately after Arlo who of course had blown the crowd away with "Alice's Restaurant" - at the height of the song's popularity. He said it was the most difficult performance he had ever had. I also remember him telling me about a music gathering he had gone to in Connecticut where he met a good bluegrass mandolin player who said Vic was a great guitar player. He later realized it was Bill Monroe.

Since the 70's I've lived in N.C. and in the Adirondacks. I'd always meant to stop by the house on Parrrott St. again but I never got around to it. I feel really badly that I never got to tell Vic what a lasting effect he had on me.
You may know my cousin Richard Shea. He was a friend of Vic's in more recent years.

Tim Lahey

From Carl Schwarz:
I would like to thank everyone that attended my father's memorial service . It was an appropriate event and something I am sure that he would have enjoyed . There were a lot of people there that I recognized and have not seen since my childhood , as well as people that I didn't know that my father befriended later in his life . He enjoyed all of you immensely and you were all a comfort to him both when he was in good health and later on when his health started to deteriorate . I would in particular like to thank Will and Katie Tressler , Don , Doris , Jean Marie and Ed Persutti , Todd and Jasmine Novak, Walt Michael, Pete Seeger , Richard Shea, Dick Severo , Jack McAndrew , Grace Gorham , Patricia Happy, Raina Estrada, Mary Yelenick , Elizabeth Broad, Peter and Peg Meisler, and all the members of Accoustic Workshop; Pat, Art, Greg, Steve, Wendy, and Jeff. Dad enjoyed you all and was always grateful to have you as friends and neighbors . It was also a comfort to myself and my sisters to know that my father and mother had the support of the good people that surrounded them . You are all truly appreciated .

Thanks,
Carl V. Schwarz

To Linda, with love, from Will T.
The following verses, slightly modified, are from a romantic country waltz, probably from the 40's, written and played by Charlie Moore. After we left Cold Spring last Monday, the lines kept running through my mind.

"When the fiddler has played his last tune for the night,
And the singer has sung his last song, And the mand'lins and guitars and banjos are quiet, And the friends who had gathered have gone.

There's nothing so quiet as a night with no music, Or as dark as a night with no stars, Or nothing as lonesome as a cold lonely room, Just wondering all night where you are.

Now the fiddler has played his last tune for the night, And the singer has sung his last song, And the mand'lins and guitars and banjos are quiet, And like the music, my love, you are gone."

.....and to Linda, Maria, Carl and Julann:
"Do not stand by the river and weep, I am not there; I do not sleep. I am the gentle winds that blow; I am the sparkling glints on snow; I am the sunlight on ripening grain; I am the falling autumn rain. When you waken in the morning's hush, I am the swift uplifting rush, Of soaring birds in circling flight, I am the star that shines at night. Please don't stand by the river and cry; I am not there; I did not die."

Surely Vic's spirit will live on in all who knew him!

With love,

Will and Katie

My wife Jasmine & I would like to thank Linda and the entire Schwarz family & friends for a beautiful send off for our close friend Vic. The weather, the autumn leaves en' all could not have been more perfect, and those are two days I'll never forget. As always we get to see old friends & family at these memorials that we would not see otherwise. For me it's back to work at Heaney violins, and a bench full of fiddles, violas, and cellos (sometimes basses) that need a little and sometimes a lot of tlc. I'd not be at that bench happily working if it were not for Vic. As I glue things back together, and Patrick & I figure out creative ways to do complicated repairs I hear Vic's voice constantly. While at Gettysburg on our way back to western PA to visit my father I kept hearing older fellows with big robust voices, beards, and Vic style hats talking to each other and their families at different historic battle sites, as well as the Gettysburg museum. I seam to be finding that Vic is with me forever now, and by my side constantly. I hear his huge laugh when something funny is said at the violin shop, and know that he's listening in. Such a huge spirit! I love you all, and thanks again for hosting such a special send off for Vic. Sorry all I could do at the Hoot was play and I was too choked up to speak or tell a funny story about Vic. If we have a hoot for Vic every year I'll do better at the next one. I will also play "The Legend of the Great Manjo" again for Vic who I told the lyrics to and he laughed heartily: