Ron Carlotti
I am so sorry to just now read of Ted having passed away. We became good friends as we started at Wheeling Jesuit University in Wheeling, West Virginia. He invited me to stay for a weekend at his parent's beautiful family farm. We enjoyed playing basketball in their barn. Next day 4 of us, each with a shotgun, went along a 1 lane country road taking a few shots at crows in the tree tops. Later, Ted showed me the go-cart he and his dad built using a rebuilt engine and 4 speed manual transmission, which I got to run up and down an unpaved country road. Ted's dad was no ordinary farmer, but also a gifted self taught mechanist who built a small bridge over a stream using old railroad track welded to steel pipes. His dad was also proud of having built a mechanized manure remover which pulled all the cow manure out of the barn while the cows were being milked. At the time the whole family were devout Catholics attending St. Mary's tiny church in Temperanceville. The pastor was Fr. Schwendeman, a gifted musician on the clarinet. Ted and I lost track of each other for decades until I found out he was living nearby in Muskegon. We enjoyed a 4 hour lunch at an Olive Garden where we caught up on the previous 40-50 years of our lives. Sadly, Ted told me of his divorce many years earlier. When I asked Ted if he had kept his faith, he told me that he believed he had been excommunicated because of his divorce. I told him that was untrue, but Ted insisted he was correct. Ted will never know how often I prayed for him to regain his faith in our Lord and I am sure our Lord forgave him for such a misunderstanding shared by many other former Catholics. He was a great engineer and because of his abilities our armed forces have the world's best diesel tank engines. Ted joked that "I built death and destruction". I told Ted that his diesel engines powered the U.S. Army helping keep our great country safe and enjoying freedom. May our Lord grant Ted eternal peace in Heaven.
