Gem - passenger passes away from heart attack

**Ally** · 02-10-2008, 06:36 AM

Quote:

NEW MILFORD, Pa. -- Lee Warren couldn't give his wife diamonds and jewels. Instead, he gave her stars and sunrises.

"It seems like I'd have blinders on, and he'd show me what he noticed in nature," said his widow, Sharon Warren. Mr. Warren, of New Milford, Pa., died of a heart attack on board a cruise ship last Tuesday. He was 66.

A farmer born of farmers, Mr. Warren's love of the land shows in the earliest memory of his 20-year-old grandson, James "Jimmer" Warren Jr. From the time he took his first steps, he'd ride on the tractor behind his "Papa," he says.

The family sold its dairy cows years ago and sliced off chucks of acreage for those wanting to own second homes in rustic Pennsylvania -- but Mr. Warren never stopped being a farmer at heart.

He set his life by the rhythms of nature, haying when the time was right and trusting his maples to surge their sap so he could make his candy products every year.

Whenever that sap chose to run, his woods came alive with neighbors pitching in to accomplish what one man couldn't do alone.

Mr. Warren died as he lived: surrounded by loved ones.

He and Sharon were on the Norwegian Cruise Line's Norwegian Gem, basking in the Caribbean sun with 12 longtime friends from Susquehanna County.

"Lee wanted a red shirt with parrots on it," said friend Linda Kays, who shopped with his wife and found just such a garment on one of the islands.

A photo of Mr. Warren wearing that prized shirt was among the dozens of pictures at the Tuttle-Yeisley Funeral Home in Hallstead on Saturday.

Their close-knit group had traveled good times together; the same friends accompanied Sharon back home in her grief.

The Warrens had enjoyed two previous cruises with friends, but the longest journey Sharon ever took was the steps from the mortuary door to Lee's casket, she said.

She knows loved ones' dependable support will follow her all her days. And every time she sees a star or a sunrise, she'll be freshly reminded of her husband's many gifts of the heart.

A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Monday at the Lakeview Mennonite Church in Susquehanna, Pa.

New Milford farmer dies on cruise ship