Gail Disney, Tom’s wife of twenty-nine years, passed away in 2004 from breast cancer.  She was well-loved in the area and known for her artistry and weaving.  Each May Day she would lead the May Day Dance around the May Pole.  The cloth strips that she dyed and fashioned were woven around the pole as the girls and women in attendance danced two intertwining circles.

Tom’s brother, Larry Hoey, passed away in 2000.  His ashes were placed in the orchard.  Tom’s gift with words is certainly obvious in the beautiful poem that he wrote and which was posted online by Myra Hirschberg, a good friend of  Larry Hoey:

                                           For Larry

Larry, we're putting you here under the oaks.

Remember when we planted the one behind the house? It came from here, here where the thrushes will sing to you from the deep wood.

And the woodpeckers will tap their staccato in precise rhythm.

Do not heed the mourning doves.

Listen rather to the swishing pines, the loons laughing.

Not one meteor will you miss on the cold clear nights.

The deer will bed down with you in the snow.

Do not be sad when they leave in the spring

For the eye of the osprey will watch this spot.

Then the nighthawk will whirr,

The mosquitoes will hum,

The chokeberries here will ripen,

Until at full circle the leaves fall on you and in you.

In the end we all become that earth from which we came.

Tom Hoey

September 17, 2000

Brooksville, Maine

Still cider (courtesy photo)

Rack and cloth press (courtesy photo)