Mr. William Greco

Mr. William Dominic Greco, 67, of Old Emmitsburg Road, Emmitsburg, died Wednesday, May 26, 2004 at his residence.

Born March 17, 1937, in Thurmont, he was a son of the late Dominic G. and Laura Bond Pauff Greco. Surviving is his wife of 42 years, Mary Lou Dukehart Greco.

He was a member of St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church, Emmitsburg; a graduate of St. Euphemia's Elementary School, Emmitsburg; St. Joseph's High School, Emmitsburg; and Mount St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg, Class of 1959. He taught at Mount St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg, Department of Education, 10 years. He was a member of the Teachers Association and the Knights of Columbus, Brute Council 1860, Emmitsburg.

Surviving in addition to his wife, are three children, William James Greco of Emmitsburg, Amy Heilig of Westminster; and Christopher Greco of Walkersville; eight grandchildren, Josie Greco, Abigail Greco, Mary Greco, William Heilig, Laura Heilig, Kate Heilig, Hannah Greco and Gabrielle Greco; two stepgrandsons, Andrew Topper and Chad Topper; one brother, Dr. George Greco and wife, Sue, of Chapel Hill, N.C.

A Mass of Christian burial will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, May 29, from Mount St. Mary's College Chapel of the Immaculate Conception with Dr. David W. Shaum as the principal celebrant.  Interment will be in Mount St. Mary's Cemetery, Emmitsburg.

Friends may call from noon to 9 p.m. Friday, May 28, at Skiles Funeral Home, 210 W. Main St., Emmitsburg, where the family will receive friends from 7 to 9 p.m. and rosary at 8 p.m.

Pallbearers will be Pat Warthen, Jim Dukehart, Joe Dukehart, Tony Greco, John Firor and Michael Greco.

My Father's Garden
                        for Bill Greco, son and father

he could grow anything, my father
beast or fowl, fruit or root
 
his father's father had planted the family
firmly in a new land, new to him and to itself
found a job mining the black gold and settled down
to raise a son as he worked to raise his household out of poverty
where digging in the dirt would no longer be a necessary chore
but a luxury, bespeaking sunlight, time and energy enough
to plan, plant, tend and enjoy the plot
for the pure pleasure of its glory that fed his appetite for beauty
which had grown huge, insatiable after a lifetime underground
 
his son attended college where he himself
being but a poor hard-working laborer had not
this second-generation immigrant took his father?s industry
to an unheard of level of abstraction
when he earned a master's degree in biology
and was called professor, an honorific title well deserved
 
his son, my father, became in turn himself a teacher
but never became uprooted from the ground
the unforgiving rock-filled soil of central Maryland that took
half a generation of composting stunted, withered crops
finally to bear the long-imagined plenty
of my dad's ancestral dreams
when he died last spring too soon
and too much rent by pain
we split open the mountainside on his behalf
once having laid him in the earth he loved
it seemed only fitting that I
his first-born son would plant
a vine of thick-fleshed tomatoes at his grave
Borgo Cellano
a sturdy heirloom variety of blood-red Roma
in honor of our heritage
 
Katherine Fishburn
September 2004