Birth date: Dec 1, 1955 Death date: Jul 9, 2024
Ric Habbersett Groff, 68, of Charlotte, passed away Tuesday, July 9, 2024 at Novant Medical Center in Huntersville, NC. Ric, a proud descendent of John Morton, signer of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, was born in Chester, Read Obituary
Ric Habbersett Groff Eulogy by Lee Melton - July 16, 2024 (part 3)
Washington College, a great liberal arts college on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake in Maryland. (Trivia: Washington College is said to be the only establishment that George Washington ever gave explicit approval to use his name), just a 20 minute drive from our grandparents’ cottage on the Sassafras River. During some of that time at college, he lived at our grandparents’ cottage, and became even closer to our grandmother after Pop-pop died in 1972. After Ric started working in the airline industry, he surprised Nana with her very first airplane flight ever, from Baltimore to Chicago, touring Chicago for the day, and flying back to Baltimore that evening. She was beyond thrilled.
In general, Ric just experience, kept, and held onto knowledge of our extended family. Ric knew all the stories of the great aunts and uncles and second cousins and great-grandparents, as well as of the Swarthmore social set, much of which swirled around the Springhaven Country Club.
This all was MY experience and observation of Ric’s kinkeeping and his outsized presence and effect on our Moms' side of the family. In reading the online tribute wall last night though, I was happy to see it wasn’t only our side of the family he played this role for. On his Dad’s side, his Uncle George and Aunt Lisa Groff wrote, as part of their wonderful tribute: “Ric was our nephew, and he was the ultimate communicator. He was the one that kept the Family informed.”
Finally
In one of his last texts to me, Ric said “I feel very strongly about maintaining family ties”. I say that as further evidence of his kinkeeping. But I also want to use it as a bit of a springboard to make a quick plug :-). Through a series of circumstances, I’m the one that somehow ended up with all the family history and genealogy artifacts: photographs of all sorts, newspaper articles, family trees, letters, scrapbooks, reaching back to the early 1900's and even the mid-late 1800's. I don’t have kids, but by my reckoning there are about 10-15 people in this very audience I could leave these effects to. So please get in touch if you’re interested in being the next kinkeeper, and keep Ric’s legacy alive. I will definitely be reaching out at some point ☺️.
When thinking about Ric and his legacy, and thinking about all our other family members who are gone, and all our family members who are here, and all our family members who couldn’t be there, I’m reminded that family will always be there. Wherever we are, whenever we are, family is with us. And Ric truly paid honor to that and so he also paid honor to us, throughout his whole life
Ric Habbersett Groff Eulogy by Lee Melton - July 16, 2024 (part 2)
him and your Mom. His light hearted "winning dance", and the laughing and gloating which followed were all even more humiliating. We looked forward to those evenings and always had a great time. … I look forward to seeing him again in the next realm. I will have the [playing] cards with me.”
Ric was also a big swimmer in high school (and likely other sports that I’m not aware of). I have no doubt that he was just as fiercely competitive at those
Ric was also a hard worker. In Kentmore Park, Ric often seemed to be in a competition with himself to see how much yardwork and house maintenance he could get done for our grandparents. Whenever he visited us in Ocean City NJ, he would be pulling weeds or trimming the landscaping, or helping us decorate our house for the city’s annual summer Night In Venice celebration.
Kinkeeping
Now on to how Ric was such a great Kinkeeper for our family. First, genealogy. Ric and I shared an interest in our family history and genealogy. He was proud that we were descended from a signer of the Declaration of Independence, John Morton of Pennsylvania, known for casting the deciding vote to declare independence from Britain. He was also proud that we were descended from the founder of the Philadelphia region’s pork products empire, Habbersett’s (which is where he got his middle name, Ric Habbersett Groff). Our Nana was a Habbersett, sister to the owner of the company. Ric was proud of this legacy and proud to sometimes be jokingly called “The Sausage Prince” or “The Sausage Heir” by his friends.
There were several people in the extended family that were particular objects of Ric's kinkeeping. My sister Debbi was one of them. The aforementioned Johnson’s Baby Oil tanning sessions on the floating dock only scratched the surface of the great relationship Ric and my sister Debbi had. They were the same age, meaning that they were a bit of co-conspirators growing up. When they got older, they would have lengthy phone calls that went late into the night that would last hours, reminiscing about family and honestly I don’t know what else… But in one of his texts to me after my sister passed, Ric said “I miss my late night conversations with Debbi, she’s one of the ONLY people I could pee my pants with laughter with. I’m smiling just thinking about Debbi”. When Debbi passed away, Ric and Linda flew up from Charlotte to Atlantic City under difficult circumstance to attend Debbi’s services.
Another person in our extended family that Ric was close to was my mother, Margie. Ric was a frequent visitor to our house on the bay in Ocean City NJ. Hopefully I’m not offending anyone here, but Ric was known to claim that my mom and dad were his favorite aunt and uncle, although I'm sure he may have had other favorites :-). As with my sister and our grandmother, Ric was very close with my mom (his aunt). When my mother became terminally ill, it was Ric who suspected it and basically jolted my father, who was in denial, into action, so that we were able to provide my mom with the best care possible at the end of her life.
As far as myself, Ric always kept a special eye out for me, and when I graduated college, Ric and his then-fiancée Linda came all the way out to California to my college graduation in 1985 and endured, along with my father and sister, a very hot day watching me get my diploma and celebrating with me.
Ric had a very special relationship with our Nana. Ric went to (continued)
Ric Habbersett Groff Eulogy by Lee Melton - July 16, 2024 (part 1)
Hi, I’m Ric’s cousin on his mom’s side, Lee Melton. Some of you know me by my nickname Buck that I picked up in college, but most of the family calls me Lee
I’m up here because I’m probably one of the few people here that knew Ric before he met Linda. I wanted to share with you memories of Ric from that time in his life, and also give you an idea of the kind of person he was.I do this as a tribute to Ric and because I feel like those of you who knew him would enjoy hearing about the “young” Ric Groff ☺️
I do want to put some caveats around what I’m saying. Ric was 7 years older than me, and so we didn’t hang out a lot individually – a 7 year age gap is forever when you’re a kid. Don’t get me wrong – we did have plenty of interaction over the years, some of which I’ll share with you – but as I was writing up these thoughts, I realized I didn’t know him on a daily basis.
Which led me back to the question: well if my interactions with him were somewhat limited, what am I doing here? I mean, in today’s mobile America, with families flung across the US or even the world, how many of us would feel compelled to give a eulogy for a *cousin*. And what I realized is: that in addition to the interactions I had with Ric individually, Ric had an outsized effect on, and outsized presence in, our extended family. Ric was a Connector in the family. Ric was a Kinkeeper – a term I’ve recently learned but which describes him perfectly. Kinkeeping is a term coined rather recently by sociologists and is defined as “the act of maintaining and strengthening familial ties. It is a form of emotional labor done both out of a sense of obligation and because of emotional attachment Kinkeeping activities help extended family members of differing households stay in touch with one another and strengthen intergenerational bonds.”
I’m gonna start out with some individual memories and then move into the kinkeeping stuff, but there’ll be some mixing.
Memories
My mom Margie and his mom Doris were sisters, born a year apart 1928 and 1929. They were the only 2 children of Bud and Nellie Black. Margie, Doris, and their mother Nellie were very very tight. When my father Calvert married Margie and Ric’s father Dick married Doris, I’m not sure they realized how much of a package deal they had gotten themselves into. Anyway, the point of this is that our families, and the 6 children between them (3 in my family, 3 in Ric’s family), spent a lot of time together while we were all growing up.
The Groffs lived in Swarthmore, while my family the Meltons, lived in the neighboring town Media, only 5 miles apart. We alternated hosting Thanksgiving and Christmas every year. Our grandparents, Nana and Pop-pop to us, bought a small vacation cottage on the Sassafras River off the Chesapeake in Maryland, and the extended family often spent vacations and holidays there, overlooking the river. It seemed like every few months, the entire extended family would gather at one house or another.
At the cottage in Kentmore Park on the Sassafras River was where our families had some of their happiest times. I remember Ric loving to take out the Sailfish sailboat, and I remember him and my sister lying out tanning on the floating dock on the river after slathering themselves slippery with Johnson’s Baby Oil.
Ric was a fierce competitor, including at cards. At many of these gatherings our extended family loved to play cards. Continental Rummy was a favorite game. Ric was one of the most ardent participants. It could at times be a challenge for him to accept a loss graciously ☺️.I was worried it was a little mean-spirited to mention this last part, and maybe it was just my personal experience, but then last night I read a tribute on his online obituary (and my apologies to Lauri for quoting without permission):
“Your Dad was a wicked Spades player and we spent many evenings being beaten by (continued)
Linda was just so sorry to read that Ric had passed away. I will never forget our times together as friends and families here in Charleston. Will be praying for you and the children.
Our condolences to all, Linda, Jackie, Devin, Andrew, John, Zachary and Mattie, (and grandchildren). We regretfully cannot attend, but hope to catch up with you soon. We have so many memories of your Dad. Your Dad was a wicked Spades player and we spent many evenings being beaten by him and your Mom. The light hearted "winning dance", and the laughing and gloating which followed were all even more humiliating. We looked forward to those evenings and always had a great time. Your Dad will be missed. I look forward to seeing him again in the next realm. I will have the cards with me. ---Love, Lauri Huss (and Richard).
Ric was our nephew, and he was the ultimate communicator. He was the one that kept the Family informed. As a father of five grown children, he instilled in each of them a love for reading, a sense of curiosity, and a thirst for adventure. His influence shaped their values, their sense of humor, and their approach to life His words gave voice to his children's joys, sorrows, and triumphs, making them feel seen, heard, and understood. We'll always cherish the time we had with him, and his wonderful family and will continue to remember all the good memories of him. Linda and Family, we are so sorry we cannot be with you at this difficult time due to medical issues.
In Sympathy and Love,
Uncle George and Aunt Lisa
