Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for coming today to the memorial service for Sally Scheppner. My name is …
If Sally could see you all here to honor her, she would be humbled. She always said she didn’t want a sad funeral, but a party with a rock band!

Sally was a good-hearted person. She never took anything too seriously. She loved working for the phone company, back in the days of the old plug-in switchboards. She later became a bank teller in Rochester and here in Jacksonville. Even later she worked as an adjunct instructor in English Composition and Literature for several universities in town. But oh, how she used to hate grading all those papers!

Sally loved dogs, especially her dogs over the years: Fritz, Grendel, Coogie, Max and Katie. One weekend, Sally was out of town for her brother’s retirement party. Kathy was watching Coogie at her house. Coogie was playing in the backyard, and somehow got out from behind the fence. They searched everywhere in the neighborhood for him. On a hunch, Kathy drove the 3 miles to Sally’s apartment. Lo and behold, Coogie was waiting at the bottom of the stairs to Sally’s apartment! Somehow, he had walked there alone and knew how to get there. We never told Sally about this!

Sally liked to draw and paint. Her kids often got to see the caricatures she drew of the various people she came across in daily life. These will be staying in the family!

Sally loved horses, horseraces, and the Triple Crown. Every spring she would let her granddaughter, Abrianna, choose a horse to bet on for a few dollars. Once, when she was babysitting Abrianna, it was during one of the races. They would pretend they were actually at the race and would dress up in their fancy hats.

Sally was not a strict parent by any means. Her laissez-faire style of parenting was loved by the neighbor kids because they could get away with more childhood mischief with the Carruba kids than they could at their own homes. They felt comfortable to be themselves.

Sally loved baking and often made pizza dough from scratch. Sunday was homemade pizza night and the children’s friends always wanted to stay for dinner that night. Sally’s specialties were homemade bread, cinnamon kuchen, German pretzels, and cinnamon rolls. At Christmas time, we would help her make tons of cookies: gingerbread men, cut out cookies, spritz butter cookies, and date bars.

At Christmas time, Sally would take the kids downtown in Rochester to see all the department store animated window displays. There was a new indoor mall downtown and the kids would ride the monorail that would be installed there every holiday season.

Sally planned all the family vacations – one spring break, the family drove to Washington DC and Sally made Kathy and Bonnie matching pastel plaid ponchos to wear over their Easter dresses. The family also made trips to see family in Cape Cod and Rhode Island, and the St. Louis area. They also made several trips to Florida.

Sally liked a lot of different kind of music, and when she heard a song she liked, she wanted to buy the 45 record. One time she wanted to buy the song, “Telephone Line” by E.L.O. Instead, by mistake, she got “Telephone Man” by Meri Wilson. Imagine everyone’s reaction when this risqué song starts playing.

Sally wrote many letters to the editor over the years. She wrote one protesting the time David Bowie was arrested at the Rochester airport when he arrived with a small amount of pot in his possession. His mugshot is now a famous meme. Another time, she wrote in support of the Benny Hill show when others were writing in to complain about his risqué TV show.

Sally taught Kathy and Bonnie how to sew and cook. She taught Joe how to drive. However, she was “no June Cleaver” as Bonnie said when telling her now-husband Dave about what to expect when meeting her mother. Dave responded, “That’s OK, my mom is June Cleaver.”