Lives Remembered: Greece couple who died three months apart made family a priority

At approximately 7:30 on Saturday mornings in the mid-1960s, Dick Sullivan would walk upstairs in his home in Greece, New York, to wake his children. “We have things to do, people to see, and places to go,” he would call out. “Where are we going? Where are we going?” his children asked excitedly.

Where they were going was outside. What they were doing was mowing the front lawn. And who they were seeing was nobody until the job was finished.

Inside, Dick’s wife, Roselyn Sullivan, might have been found sorting envelopes. She meticulously filled each envelope with an allotted amount of cash: one envelope for groceries, one envelope for RG&E, and one envelope for savings.

Dick Sullivan, passed away on May 10, 2024, at the age of 97. Roselyn, passed just three months earlier, on February 4, 2024, at the age of 96. Their four children remember their parents as strict and orderly but immensely loving and caring.

Despite the financial strains of raising four young children, Dick and Roselyn always ensured their children were provided for in every sense. When a teacher informed them that their daughter, Carol Sullivan, seemed to have a gift for playing the piano, Dick and Roselyn made sure it happened.

They couldn’t afford to buy a fully functioning piano, but they did invest in a broken one that lived in their garage. “When winter came, my fingers were so cold practicing out there that they borrowed an accordion from the school,” Carol remembers. “My mother would pump the back of the accordion so I could practice the keys as if it was a piano.” Eventually, in 1971, after Carol demonstrated her dedication to music, they used their savings to buy her a piano for $550.00.

“The blending of dad, with his quiet strength, and mom, with her personality, melded to become a very strong unit that taught us and modeled for us what a good relationship, but more importantly, a good person should be like.”

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This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Dick and Roselyn Sullivan died 3 months apart, made family priority