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Bob and his late wife, Pat, purchased their property on Grand Lake in Presque Isle, Michigan in 1989.

There was a 1964 double-wide trailer and a garage. They made do with that with embellishments until 2000, when they disposed of the trailer and built a 3-bedroom, 2-bath summer home with a deck 30 feet from the Grand Lake shore and trees everywhere.

The trees and the family grew. There’s daughter Judith and son Steven and Judith’s daughter and Steven’s three daughters and a son, all adopted and living in Michigan.

Bob’s sister, Evelyn Kasper Boggess, Class of 1953, lives with husband Okey Boggess, a retired coal miner, in the childhood Kasper home in Frogtown.

Frogtown is off U.S. 19 just before you head south up Swisher Hill. Bob (“Satch” in his Monongah High days) lives in South Lyon and Presque Isle, Michigan, depending on the time of year.

John visits Bob on Grand Lake every summer and Bob visits John in Tallmadge, Ohio for their journey to Mountaineer Field every autumn for a West Virginia University  football game, which Oct. 10 will be Oklahoma State.

Bob and John have been friends since first grade at Sts. Peter and Paul School in Monongah. They graduated from Monongah High together and attended Fairmont State together till John left for WVU for his final three years. Bob was a manager in Ford Motor Company’s training program and served in the Army in Germany.

Bob and John have exchanged the same two Christmas cards since 1955. The cards reveal the two families’ histories – births, marriages, deaths – because the names of all family members for each year are listed. It’s almost like a two-family Bible.