Gail Onel Sirrine

On March 1, 2009 Mike's father Gail Onel Sirrine passed away at a hospice center in Mesa Arizona. He was 80 years old and had been battling Alzheimer's Disease for the past 2 years. He was a wonderful man who touched many lives.

Dad was born on October 20, 1928 in Mesa Arizona. He was the great-grandson of one of Mesa's founding fathers George Warren Sirrine and was raised with a strong sense of family and responsibility. He had 1 older brother (Keith) and 1 older sister (Nadine). His younger brother Ronnie was born 10 years after him. They were all raised in a two bedroom house off of Country Club Drive in Mesa. Dad met mom at a dance just after Christmas in 1950 at Mesa High School. It was a dance for alumni members held every year. Mom was engaged to someone else at the time and she just went to the dance to give her sisters a ride. Dad ended up asking her to dance and she accepted. They dated and two weeks later, they were engaged to each other. They were married in March of 1951.

They had 6 children, 4 boys (Dennis, Steven, Michael and Robert) and 2 girls (Linda and Diane). Dad worked as a Landscape and Building Contractor his entire life. He loved all things having to do with nature and took a great amount of pride in making things green and planting beautiful flowers and plants in the hot desert landscape. He was perfectionist and everything he touched turned beautiful. He built all of the homes that Mike grew up in with his pride and joy being the home he built for them on Fairfield.

Mike lived in this home most of his life and it was truly beautiful on both the inside and outside. Dad taught all of his boys to work hard and to do their best and Mike spent many hours working with his dad on his landscaping jobs. They spent a lot of time landscaping the gas stations and business offices around Mesa. The boys used to wonder why their dad never rented an auger to do some of the work for them as they dug big holes in the hard ground to plant trees. Dad's response was "why do I need an auger when I have you"? They never complained though and each and every one of them took a great deal of pride in doing a good job and working hard. Those who know Mike know that dad's green thumb has rubbed off on him. Mike loves to work in our yard and make it beautiful. At the funeral Mike reminisced about that and said that one of the reason he does that is because if his dad every came to visit, he wanted his dad to know which house belonged to him. Our yard is always beautiful and I think dad most definitely would know. Mike takes a great deal of pride in that. I am so grateful for the kind of dad he was to Mike. He made him the man that he is and I could not ask for a better husband or father to our children. Dad continued to work hard all of his life. He was a great example to all of us. He was a man of great faith, of great service, of great love for his wife and most of all as a great dad to his children. I am honored to have known and love him.

He now has a total of 30 grand-children and 20 great grandchildren with more to come. What a beautiful posterity! Dad never hesitated to tell all of us how much he loved us and he would always show it in his actions and example.

We love him very much and will certainly miss him. We are so grateful for the knowledge that we have to know that we will be reunited with him someday.