Pop Pop.

Our dear "Pop Pop" and, my father-in-law, Joe Buran passed away on November 19. On this day of Thanksgiving, I am thankful to have known such a person as Joe. One Thanksgiving, he sent to Joey a recipe for the $50,000 winning turkey recipe he found in a magazine and wanted to know if it was truly a winning turkey. Joey prepared this turkey recipe and it was served at our table....we agreed it was a winner.
I have included the eulogys prepared by the family and his grandchildren so you too can know about his life. He had a strong faith and we know that he now looks upon us from Heaven.
Family Eulogy Through his stories and ability to “talk your ear off”, there’s much more to say about Joe’s 90 years and zest for life than we can fit into our time today. Here’s just a sampling of his life’s story. Joe was born December 15, 1917 on Rogers Avenue, Endicott, NY and was the oldest of six children.
Joe loved to read and soaked up everything he could by reading book after book. He read and retained details and facts. He even read 3 books during his last month before he died. He enjoyed telling a story or giving history. If you sat long enough, you would hear detail after detail of things like history of Kodak, Ektachrome; History of car industry; Selecting appliances, magic chef vs. GE, etc. If you went to check the facts of anything he told you, you’d find out that after 90 years, he remembered and repeated it all quite accurately. As you know, he was a hard of hearing and always told these stories loudly----there wasn’t much of a chance you’d miss his message.
Joe always treated family first, he sacrificed by leaving school after the 8th grade to support the family business. He was always proud of that fact that although he only completed the 8th grade, when he took an evaluation test for attending a photography school, his test scores where that of a 2nd year college student.
During prohibition, Joe helped his Father by taking his sister, Amelia in the baby carriage for a walk up to a house on the North Side. On his return from the North Side, the carriage would have not just the baby but moonshine as well. One time he was supposed to be babysitting Amelia and instead took her on a rollercoaster ride.
Joe worked in the family business at “Buran’s Bar & Restaurant”. He prepared such delicacies as pickled eggs, pigs feet, swiss steak, liver & onions. The IBM’ers loved his cooking. Over the years he was very proud of the fact that patrons would call him up and ask for his recipes.
Joe was a man ahead of the times by decades….Joe knew the meaning of reduce-reuse-recycle far before it was “fashionable”. He would find and recycle hundreds of feet of phone cables, wires, papers, nails, even cutting notepaper from old IBM keypunch cards (still used today). Nothing ever went to waste until its time.
Joe was very involved in St Joseph’s Church as a charter member. When the church was being built he helped bring stones from PA to build the shrine. He photographed and filmed events including silver teas for the nuns, communions and children’s processions to the shrine; did the music and was emcee for the bazaar (American, Italian, Czechoslovakian) for many years. Always one to speak his mind, he was vocal in his disappointment when the marble railing was removed from the church.
Joe finally gave up the single life at 43 and married Helen. He acquired an instant family of three young girls, Helen, Judy and Marilyn. He always treated and loved them as his own. The girls have many fond memories of taking long Sunday drives and picnicking in places like Cayuga Lake.
Joey was born in April 1962 and as his sisters say “he was the golden child”. As a baby, Joe would ride Joey on his tractor to help him fall asleep. Once the tractor would stop, the crying would begin and the process would repeat itself. Joey was always guaranteed a long tractor ride on the big red tractor Joe was so proud of. This continued with his grandchildren as well.
Joe and Helen were constant companions - - visiting everyone, attending church together, Moravian club, enjoyed long trips to South Dakota to visit Helen’s relatives, to Texas to visit Marylyn and our family, and even to my parents in Illinois.
Joe was a jack of all trades and completely built their home at 509 N. McKinley Avenue. He could fix and improvise a solution to anything. He decided one time that he couldn’t eat a whole candy cane but small amounts of peppermint candy were fine …so he invented his own candy cane cutter. Constantly finding creative ways to solve problems and then he would build it from whatever scraps he had around, that was Joe.
Joe definitely had a technical aptitude, after coming back from the war he started a TV repair business with his good friend Charley Thomas. In fact, Joe lived with Charley and Betty Thomas for several years. He always enjoyed going to the Jersey shore with the Thomas’s.
Always fascinated with the weather. Whenever he talked with someone long distance (whether Texas or Maryland), you’d better be prepared by knowing the current weather so you could talk with him knowledgeably. Joe never met a stranger. He would strike up a conversation with anyone he met even with an attendant at a gas station.
He also liked dogs. Blackie was the family black lab. Blackie was the perfect pet who could do no wrong. He could scratch up the back of the front door and it was okay. Joe liked to watch such shows such as “Murder She Wrote” while sharing an apple with Blackie. He was always proud how he had Blacky trained to patiently wait for his treat until Joe was done eating.
Joe was very proud of his military service and talked about it frequently. Joe served his country during world war II entering the Army in 1942 and completed his service near the end of 1945. During this time he was in Japan, New Guinea and the Philippines.
One of Joe’s military assignments was to be a driver for Father Desmond. This included driving the Priest when he went out to do things like administer last rites. When they were at the convent, he secretly took food rations to the Maryknoll convent in Bagiuo Philippines and helped with many things at their facility. One day a Captain called him in and Joe thought he was being reprimanded, Instead, the captain told him to take whatever was needed….so he did and provided more rations, gasoline stove and coleman lamp. There were letters sent by the nuns to Joe after the war where they expressed their gratitude over and over…and true to Joe’s nature, he saved every one of these letters.
On one visit to take food to the nuns the jeep behind Joe hit a land mine and the soldier was killed. Joe always said he had a guardian angel. At a midnight mass, a Jewish soldier painted nativity scene on a white sheet. This was used at the altar on Christmas eve in the Philippines. Joe brought this to the U.S. and displays in his bay window every Christmas.
Joe was a contributor to help build the WWII National Memorial in Washington from the beginning. It scheduled to complete in the Spring of 2004 and officially open May 7. Joe and Helen came to our home in Gaithersburg to attend Grandparents day and we thought he might not be able to see it as it would open only days after they were scheduled to return home. We learned the Friday before they arrived, on April 29, that the memorial was open to the public a week early . With obvious help from above, we were privileged to take Joe Buran, World War II Vet, to visit this beautiful memorial. At one point, a group of teenagers hearing of a “world war II” vet, gathered around him to get their picture taken. He beamed proudly.
The family learned he’d been awarded a bronze star but had never received it. With Marilyn’s help from a newspaper article, she helped lead Joey to the right resources to request the commendations for his Father. When Joey wrote in, the army records facility had burned down and there was no record. But, true to Joe’s nature (again), he’d saved all papers related to the awards. So, paperwork submitted, we waited and waited for months and he finally called and urged them to please get these commendations in the mail and reminding them that his father was old and in ill health and they should not wait. Only 48 hours later, the Fed Ex truck arrived at McKinley Avenue and Joe Buran was in the front yard working. He exclaimed to the truck driver that “I’ve been waiting 60 years for these.” At nearly 90 years old, he was recognized fully for his service to our country.
Joe loved to show his pictures and movies of family and community events. I fondly remember many a Christmas Eve Joe showing old movies to a captive family audience.
Joe and I shared the passion for photography. He remained traditional film and we talked about digital technology often. He was a founding member and builder of the Owego Camera Club and kept this club going for 65 years. He has thousands of photos and hours of film footage. His film and photos of the Triple Cities and the family started in the 1930s. His film footage of the “flood of ‘35” was sought out when PBS was preparing a documentary on this Triple Cities flood and Joe’s historical footage was included in this NY State award winning PBS documentary.
One of Joe’s favorite photography stories was when he stopped over in Hawaii on the way back from the war. He had taken many photos of the beautiful Hawaiian scenery and dropped the film off to be developed. When he picked up his pictures, all he had were a bunch of pictures obviously taken by a drunken sailor. His Hawaiian photos lost forever but leaving him with a story he would tell over and over.
His most famous photograph is of Musti Huba was taken at Buran‘s Bar. Joe got this picture by continuing to give shots of liquor to Musti and continuing to retake photo after photo. Musti alluded the photo by drinking the shot quickly. So, Joe substituted ginger ale and when Musti took the shot of gingerale, his expression was captured forever. The photos were sold and people would stop in from all over the East Coast to purchase copies of this photo.
If there was any doubt of the importance of Musti to Joe, it was certain this week when Helen opened Joe’s wallet to find his social security number and out popped two pictures…not of family…but of Musti
Joe was an adventurer in his early years taking airplane lessons in the 30s. He kept this adventuresome spirit. Just a few years ago he got into a small airplane flown by my Father, Lyle Rockwell, and flew over the Triple Cities area. He regaled my Dad with stories of his early flying lessons over and over.
Joes certainly had a passion in life for photography, we should all be so lucky to find a calling like his. As I look out into the crowd today, I would bet that somewhere in Joe’s vast collection of pictures he has a picture of you. Joe is gone, but as we leave today he continues to live on with us through his pictures.
Those of us who knew him well will have no trouble imagining his paradise. Talking for hours about the weather, WW II, and photography. Finding ingenious ways to fix household problems. Watching reruns of Matlock, Gun smoke, old John Wayne Movies, and listening to Al Grebneck polkas. Growing tomatoes, driving his red tractor, painting his bridge, and playing with Blackie. Talking with great friends and relatives that passed before him; He will rest in his rocking chair.
He lived a good, long life. The kind of life we could all hope to lead. How he lived his life was an example for all of us of how to live your life as a Christian. Always kind, always caring, always willing to help. He was the most plainly decent man you could ever hope to meet. But I guess I'm just telling you what you already know.
The final thought that we should all take as we leave today and is his words of advice at his 90th birthday party in his speech. He said that every day you wake up and the sun is shining, you realize the Lord has given you another day and you just have to get up and “keep on moving”. He lived this true until his last breath.

Our Pop Pop

I don’t think I have ever learned so much history or facts from any book I had to read, than I did from Poppy-O. First of all, he built his house from scratch by himself. But there were also the World War II stories, or facts about how air circulation works, to learning all about the price of copper wire these days. He was the one with all the answers. When I think of him, I picture him and I standing on the bridge in his backyard wearing our shirts that said “Poppy-O” and “Poppy-O’s Girl”. When I was a little girl, I followed him everywhere. We would go to his Camera Club meetings on Friday nights where we’d partake in the Dutch Auctions. I was often found riding in the wagon behind him on his lawnmower. Even if it was us puttering around in his backyard, or washing his car, we were always doing something.
Then as I got older I got to watch Adam and Mason do the same thing I did. They had the opportunity to learn from him too. Adam and Mason know all about how their Pop Pop served in World War II. They knew of his great experiences and even asked him if he was in the “Silver War”, meaning Civil War. Pop Pop even built them their own wagon to ride in behind his tractor, with their names etched on the side to make it extra special. They also puttered in their Pop Pop’s yard for hours, building cities outside under the trees to have him come out and take a picture with his old trusty camera.
There were also times they spent working endless hours in the darkroom on photos, playing with and learning about the numerous train sets that he built for them, and sitting around watching loud war movies on a TV set played at a volume which sometimes made them feel as if they were in the war. They especially remember following him around pondering how he did things and trying to understand many of Pop Pop’s nifty inventions. Another thing they valued greatly was Grammy and Pop Pop’s annual trips to Maryland to be at St. Martin’s Grandparents day and for thanksgiving. Adam and Mason would spend countless days at Grammy and Pop Pop’s over the summer, and they always remember the rides with them down to the same McDonalds to meet their mom and dad half way home.
They too saw that unique gift that he didn’t even know he was giving us all. I think that gift was the gift of learning through our life experiences. He wasn’t some scholar with a million degrees, but you wouldn’t know that. If you had a question, he could find the answer, not from a book, but in what he had experienced in his lifetime.
Anyone who knew him saw this special gift in our Pop Pop, he had quite the life, and he showed his love for life to us all. His effect on all of our lives can not be put into words and will not be forgotten. He will be missed immensely.