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We lost me father Sunday morning after a long fight with MSA at the age of 90. Only a few here knew him, but he had a lifelong love of all things firearms, and in particular quality firearms. A cops salary and 5 kids put some limits on his hobby, but he knew and appreciated a fine gun like nobody I have ever known. I spent many a saturday morning with him traveling around Illinois headed to some small gunshow in the barn at some small county fairground searching for that one treasure. I will share just one story of him. Several years ago a friend sent me a text that he had a custom target rifle for sale and wanted to know if I was interested. At this time dad was just starting to suffer some dementia from the MSA but it had yet to be diagnosed. Dad stopped by the shop and I showed him the pictures on my phone. He immediately said "I've seen that rifle before". He left and came back about 20 minutes later carrying the 1962 gun digest which had one small picture about a custom benchrest rifle that John Amber had built for him by John Warren. Dad has every gun digest since 1944, but in that short time he was able to lay his hands on the one that had that one small picture of that rifle. He couldn't remember our names half the time, but he knew where to find that rifle.

While he would never admit it, I think he got some enjoyment out of it when I sent Michael Petrov a picture of a couple of dads rifles and Michael included them in Volume 2 of his book.

He will be sorely missed.

John Holliger

Very nice story. I pray that God give you and your family peace and comfort for your loss.