This is a very tough loss for me.  Tres was like no other woman I've ever known.  She was simply the BEST. She had the patience that I so needed when she entered my life.  She was the first person I met when I started my first day at Kroger V-410.  I was so scared and naïve, and there was Tres, willing to help me in any way she could.  She worked part-time but did the work of two full-timers.  We went through so much together.  She made me feel so special when every year she would send me a Christmas card separate from the one everyone else signed, and she always spoiled me with an undeserving but much appreciated gift.  We laughed about the darndest things and that was always a blessing.  But it was the love she had for you Jerry that inspired me so much.  You were her "manly man."  The girls were her reason for being and then the grands came along.  What a beautiful legacy you two created.  I once read something that went something like this..."Act in such a way, that if anyone said something negative about you, no one would believe it."  I though to myself that's Tres!! I will miss her so much, but will do my best to honor her in my life.

Sending Love and Light - Kim Wood

Tres by Alene Scoblete

(Spoken at Tres’s memorial on November 12, 2023)

Tres had a way about her…a way of handling people and situations.

Tres understood human nature probably as well as any of the great philosophers in history, and at the same time, she was a down-to-earth person with whom you could do the laundry. I mention laundry because she and I did laundry together in far flung places like Alaska and Hawaii.

Tres not only understood people, but she actually, genuinely liked them. She listened, she was kind, she was delicately helpful.

She wasn’t a saint. I know that because historians have provided empirical evidence that that no one ever invited Joan of Arc or Mother Teresa, or any other saint for that matter, to go on a cruise. And plenty of people, including my husband Scobe and me, loved traveling with Tres and Jerry.

Tres understood life…its vicissitudes...its irony. Tres narrated the following story to Scobe and me: Long ago through some goof up that Tres said was nobody’s fault, she and the family ended up checking into a fleabag motel in the middle of the night. It was impossibly late and the room was horribly disgusting. You and I would have stomped, yelled, demanded—said and done anything to get ourselves into a decent room for the night.

But Tres, so as not to lay her head on a pillow possibly inhabited by creepy crawlies, simply slept with her head inside her suitcase. Tres reiterated to us that this incident was no one’s fault. But, I can assure you… Jerry never made that mistake again.

Tres told me that growing up, her greatest desire was to be a wife and a mother. She filled both roles spectacularly, no doubt through a combination of her Zen-like approach to life and her great sense of humor.

But back to the laundry…one question remains unanswered, and that is: why did Tres do laundry on vacation when she carried at least five suitcases for a trip and never wore the same outfit twice?

For me, this remains one of life’s great mysteries.

Tres, you did a stellar job with your life and all of us here are better people for having known you. 

May you be full of light and at peace, Tres. My heart is with you all as you celebrate Tres’s life and mourn her death. 

I will always remember going to the house on long lake as a kid  - tubing, learning to water ski, and playing water volleyball, with sweet chats with Tres as I got snacks.  She was a lovely grown-up to my kid self.  Sending you all hugs!