August 27, 2005

Richard & Sylvia celebrated their 17th wedding anniversary. The occasion caused Jeanne and I to pull out the wedding pictures. And since R & S are so physically removed from much of the family it seemed a good idea to give readers some background and some selected photos.

About Richard & Sylvia

For readers who are not familiar with Richard & Sylvia Troxell, Sylvia is the second child and the only daughter of Gene (me) & Jeanne Stickley. Some of you may know her brothers George or Gene, Jr. a little better. Colleen, who is represented on this site in her own right Colleen's Page, is their daughter.

Sylvia & Richard live in Austin, Texas and they have been there quite a while. Colleen, had never really seen serious snow until about a year or two ago, so balmy is central Texas. However, these transplanted Texans met in Philadelphia.

Sylvia's Work

Sylvia had enrolled at Philadelphia's La Salle University where she had discovered a widely respect program in Special Education. Her foundation must have been solid because she has been in this field for some twenty years. Two years back she was recognized as teacher of the year in her school district.

Sylvia began working with handicapped children as early as Junior High. She volunteered at a summer camp for handicapped children in the Cincinnati area (our home at the time). She continued this work for 3 or 4 summers.

Her work involved handling the children, some of them fairly large, in and out of chairs and the swimming pool and similar work. Fortunately Sylvia has a constitution much like her grandmother, Helen (Murphy) Stickley, and her great grandfather, John Murphy.

Her first Special Ed assignment was in a difficult disciplinary environment. She worked with children from Philadelphia's court system, children who were "wards of the court." Generally they came from the worst kind of family and home life situations. Some of these children were sizeable teenagers. But Sylvia She didn't seem particularly anxious and came through unscathed.

This work seems to require a lot of flexibility for handling a variety of people and situations. In all cases it requires dedication and a lot of sensitivity along with some toughness. Obviously Sylvia has the qualifications.