Altogether<br/>4307 Vineland Road, Suite H-17-19, Orlando, FL 32811<br/>For more information, visit our website at <a href='www.altogetherfuneral.com'>www.altogetherfuneral.com</a><br/>Copyright © 2025 FPG Intermediate Holdco, LLC

Obituary for Gary Walter Aardappel       

November 17, 2019:  a dreaded day and a glorious day

What wife wants to write her husband’s obituary?  It is the most heartbreaking task. But I will write Gary’s, because this brave and honorable man deserves final good words.

November is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month.  How ironic that this deadly, relentless disease claimed the life of my sweetheart on November 17, 2019.  He died peacefully in his sleep, around 5:30A, at Life Care Center of Puyallup, WA, where he’d been a resident for three weeks.  In this merciful manner, God in His love ended almost three years of Gary’s suffering.  Thank You, Jesus!

Gary was a true Cali guy, born in Los Angeles, February 26, 1944, and lived in Fillmore, Ventura County, until our marriage, June 14, 1964.  He was a 1961 Fillmore High School graduate (the “Flashes”), attended both Ventura and Long Beach Community Colleges, and graduated as a Cal State Long Beach “Forty-Niner,” ultimately with two degrees. 

Growing up in Fillmore, CA, a small, rural, citrus-growing town, Gary loved to recount his memorable experiences.  A few:  playing in the wildness of Pole Creek; making mischief at Halloween time’s “gate night.”  (Apparently fence gates disappeared; not sure how owners reclaimed them.) Pulling a wagon loaded with avocado-filled paper sacks through the neighborhood, hoping to earn spending money from kindly purchasers.  If I recall correctly, his sister Carol was his sales buddy. There exists in my memory some tale of being on top of a water tower (star gazing? stacking gates?) and eventually being rounded up (or down) by a town police officer.  Wish I’d listened more carefully.

Gary’s introduction to working with wood, especially, came from Mr. Jerry Garrison, Fillmore High School industrial education (“shop”) teacher.  Soft-spoken and meticulous, Jerry became Gary’s mentor, as well as his inspiration to begin on the path leading to a thirty-three-year career teaching various industrial arts/tech ed. classes.  But woodworking would remain Gary’s favorite subject throughout his career and personal life.

Throughout his teaching career, Gary was respected for his kindness and ability to adapt the industrial arts curriculum to students of all abilities.  While another teacher might have been overwhelmed by a number of special needs students in one woodworking class, Gary taught every kid with patience.  And no one ever cut off a finger in Aardappel’s classes!

I would be remiss, though, if I didn’t share some of Mr. Gary’s shenanigans, especially those of his Anacapa Junior High School, Ventura, CA, days. He would ask for a volunteer to lay atop a woodworking table.  Being junior high boys, he never lacked a subject. As he went through this particular prank, he’d announce that he was going to measure the student for his “coffin” (quite poignant when we think of that now.)  Out came the tape measure:  length of sleeve, height, circumference of waist.  Then came the moment:  the measurement for length of pants, which included raising the kid’s leg and pouring a (hidden) cup of cold water down his pants’ leg.  Yelling and laughter.  (Remember, we’re talking about the 1970s.)

When teaching for twenty-two years at Bethel High School, Spanaway, WA, he (often with other teachers’ cooperation) would send a student (with a proper hall pass, mind you) from class to class.  The unsuspecting student would ask each teacher, in turn, if Mr. Aardappel could borrow:  the left-handed monkey wrench; the sky hook; the board stretcher.  Our Gary.

Gary often told of his joy in attending church youth group at Fillmore First Presbyterian Church.  Youth mission trips were highlights of his teen years, including a work trip to the interestingly-named Tuba City.  He relished “laying a brick for Jesus.”

And he loved to sing choruses from the little red/white/blue, wire-bound song book Youth Sings.  To him, the best choruses, songs, hymns still are the historical, traditional ones telling stories of sinners finding grace and mercy at the foot of the Cross, where Jesus Christ died for each of us.  Two days before he died, I sang to him from that little book, at least I sang the ones I knew.  Our faces almost were touching.  I could tell he was listening to his old favorites.  That copy of Youth Sings is tucked into his coffin; I don’t need it any more without him.

While at junior high camp (Forest Home Christian Conference Center, Forest Falls, CA), at the age of thirteen, Gary accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Savior.  He “had decided to follow Jesus.  No turning back, no turning back!” He repeated to me throughout our marriage that this life-changing spiritual decision was the very best he ever made.

Gary’s decision to follow Jesus undergirded all aspects of his life, both in sunshine and in shadow. Little did he realize that his faith would be tested severely and at great length when our daughter Julie was profoundly head injured, September 28, 1988. She lived for 22-1/2 years in a state of low consciousness, dying peacefully in her sleep, March 3, 2011, just as her dad did eight years later.  But his faith never wavered, although he did have his wonders.  Didn’t we all?

Sunshine in Gary’s life took the form of our son John’s service to our country, both in the Army and currently as a Federal Agent with the Department of State. We were able to visit John during his Army days, attending several special Army ceremonies, including promotions, during the 1990s—some of the happiest, proudest times in our lives.

Gary and I got off to a rocky start in 1962, when we both worked summer up in those mountains above Redlands, CA, at Forest Home.  After a bodacious water fight between a handful of guys (Gary and?) and gals (me and?), plus that bucket of water thrown into our cabin, I went out of my way to avoid him.  My cabin mate Linda and I marched down to the camp administration office and reported this watery incident.  And Gary did not make a wise decision afterwards by whispering “Fink” to me every time he passed by.  Which he made sure was often.  In the staff lounge, if there were an empty chair next to him at mealtime, I would continue walking right past and out the exit door.  Did not like that boy!  He constantly stared at me whenever I worked in the camp linen room, unfortunately located straight across from his maintenance shed.  He said he could tell I had arrived for my shift by the overwhelming smell of Tabu perfume. 

But Gary’s persistence and God’s perfect will won out, and by the end of that working summer, we were engaged.  On Flag Day,1964, we married and actually did live happily ever after for fifty-five+ years.  My friend Diane told me decades ago, “You guys make me sick.  You’re just like two peas in a pod.” So true, my friend.  In sunshine and in shadow, Gary’s faith never wavered.  And he never threw water at me again.

Gary was a prankster at home sometimes, and I once was the target of “Operation Mel Gibson.”  During the 1990s, I really, really liked that actor.  Whatever inspired Gary’s “fool you,” I never knew.  Somehow, somewhere, he copied a thumbnail-size, colored photo of Mel Gibson.  How he accomplished this next part, I also never knew.  He removed photos of the two of us from the frames, stuck Mel’s head over his own in the photo, put the doctored photos back in their frames.  We’re talking photos of us in multiple rooms of our old house.  After about two weeks’ ignorance on my part, Gary—probably exasperated—asked me if I noticed anything different about our pictures.  That would be an everlasting “Duh!” you heard.  What a creative, sweet fooler.

You may have guessed that the “dreaded day” in the title of Gary’s obituary was the discovery in March, 2017, of pancreatic cancer.  But far more blessed was the “glorious day” of his peaceful entrance into Heaven and his Savior’s presence.  Gary would want me to ask you if you have considered what happens to you when you die.  Jesus said He is the only way to the Father.  Gary chose the path to eternal life at the age of thirteen.  How old will you be when you make up your mind about eternity?  Because that kind, patient, sweet man named Gary Walter Aardappel wants to see you again.  God bless the boy.

 

“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith…” II Timothy 4:7.

When words can't fully express what we want to say, sometimes a small gift can. Visit our Memorial Store for personalized gifts, keepsake jewelry and to plant a memorial tree.

We use cookies to improve your browsing experience and analyze site traffic.
<privacyLink>Privacy Policy</privacyLink>.

<firstParagraph>We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze how you use this website, store your preferences, and provide the content and advertisements that are relevant to you. These cookies will only be stored in your browser with your prior consent.</firstParagraph><secondParagraph>You can choose to enable or disable some or all of these cookies but disabling some of them may affect your browsing experience.</secondParagraph>

<firstParagraph>We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.</firstParagraph><secondParagraph>The cookies that are categorized as 'Necessary' are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site.</secondParagraph>

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

Analytics

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

Functional

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

Necessary

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

Performance

Customize Cookie Preferences

Verification Successful!

New Message

The following files could not be uploaded

Ways you can honor {memorialName}'s memory:

Donation Link

Upcoming Event

Featured Mementos

Welcome Message

Select an item to highlight

Add a highlighted item

Customize which items you’d like to highlight on the memorial

Create Account

Become a Keeper

As a free {brandName} user, you will only be able to make 5 photos and videos public.

As a free {brandName} user, only the first five (5) Mementos are visible to page visitors. You can change which Mementos are public by dragging and dropping a photo or video to one of the first five positions. Upgrading to {brandName} Plus will make all 10 Mementos selected visible to the public.

All Mementos

This option is only available to Keeper Plus users.

To allow yourself and the rest of the community to view all images and videos, and to enable everyone to download their own copy of these mementos, upgrade your account to Keeper Plus.

This memento is not visible to visitors

Your community has posted {itemCount} more pictures and videos that honor {firstName}'s memory. To view them all, and to enable everyone to download their own copy of each, this account will need to upgrade to Keeper Plus.

View all images and videos with Keeper Plus

Our Obituary Assistant helps you craft a meaningful life story in minutes. Review and edit every detail, and unlock more features with Keeper Plus.

Obituary Assistant

Spend as much time as you need working on your Memorial page before it is visible to the public, and much more, when you upgrade to Keeper Plus.

Save Page as Draft

Create unlimited event pages and unlock a suite of powerful features to help you seamlessly coordinate event details, invites, and more when you upgrade to Keeper Plus.

Event

Create a full picture of your loved one’s community and add unlimited family and friends to Loved Ones when you upgrade to Keeper Plus.

Loved One

Create unlimited Memorials — and unlock unlimited images and videos, event pages, and advanced privacy settings — to help you keep memories alive when you upgrade to Keeper Plus.

Memorial Page

Add unlimited Stories to highlight the all the things that made your loved one unique, from milestones, images, albums, documents, locations, and much more.

Highlight Stories

Upgrading to Keeper Plus means you can add additional Keepers to help you gather Mementos and tributes, approve content, build out a family tree, and tell {firstName}' story on Keeper.

Invite Keepers with Keeper Plus

Upload and display unlimited photos and videos, use unlimited Story templates to highlight key moments, and allow friends and family to download their own copies when you upgrade to Keeper Plus. 

Better Mementos with Keeper Plus

To access memorial related configurations that control the display of the banner upgrade to Keeper Plus.

This configuration  is not available on your current plan

Create a meaningful link path to add a personal touch to {firstName}'s memorial.

Custom Memorial link

Gift Messages

SENDING AS A GIFT?

Cart

About 1-800 Flowers

"Flowers were beautiful and they arrived in time before the funeral. Thank you and will purchase more in the future.!"

Hearing Tears

"Beautiful flowers, I've always enjoyed sending them to my love ones for sympathy and they have always love them very much Thanks for making people feel good when receiving them."

Sympathy

"This was true to the photo and good to know family took arrangement after the service."

Beautiful arrangement.  Perfect size for service.

Some of the great things our customers say about us

We're here to make it a little easier, with thoughtful gifts for the services & home, along with expert advice on how to be there during a difficult time.

Flowers

Gift Baskets

Express Your Deepest Sympathy

About Us

Perfect Condolence Gift

No one is meant to grieve alone

Peace and love

Product is made, packaged, and sent with love

Keepsakes

How to add your gift message

Packaging Information

Shipping information

Add a Personalized Charm to the Ornament:

Other Keepsakes

Install KeeperQR onto any headstone, urn, or other memorial in minutes.

Install

Use your phone or tablet to scan the unique code — no other tools required!

Scan

All three of our elegant KeeperQR designs are printed using durable, weather-resistant aluminum designed for indoors and outdoor use on headstones and urns, memorial benches and trees, or other monuments to your loved one’s life

Built to Last

Get <discount>50% off</discount> Keeper Plus with your KeeperQR purchase

Keeper Basic

Learn About Our Plans

Connect the physical and digital worlds to share your loved one’s life story with friends and family, no matter where they are.

KeeperQR Memorial QR Code Plaques

Planting a memorial tree or bereavement tree is a unique, environmentally conscious way to pay tribute and honor the memory of your loved one. Keeper Memorials is supporting American Forests to plant whitebark pine trees as well as thornscrub trees in select regions of the US and Canada.

Memorial Trees

KeeperQR is designed to pair seamlessly with a Keeper digital memorial. Use our FREE intuitive tools to create biographies, maps, and timelines, share photos and videos, and more with customizable features built to commemorate your loved one’s life’s story.

Powered by Keeper

Lifetime without any hidden costs or subscription traps

One time payment

Keeper is SOC2 compliant, keeping your memories safe and secure.

Data protection guaranteed

We bring your QR Codes to any corner of the globe

Worldwide Shipping

Our durable and beautiful QR code plaques create seamless connection between your loved one’s physical memorial and their digital memorial, allowing visitors to their final resting place instant access to their life legacy.

Memorial.

Honor their memory, share their story

A KeeperQR is a weather-resistant plaque with a custom QR code that links directly to your loved one’s digital memorial. When placed on a headstone, urn, bench, or tree, it allows friends and family to scan and view their life story instantly

What is a KeeperQR?

They’re built to withstand outdoor elements and adhere to most surfaces.

Where can I place the KeeperQR?

How does it work?

Frequently asked questions

KeeperQR

E-Certificate Design

Plant Memorial Trees as a Living Tribute

BRAZIL

CANADA

FLORIDA

OREGON

Memorial Project Reach

Memorial trees start at {price} per tree, with discounts for multiple trees

Our Commitment

Gift Baskets & Food

Keeper Plus

QR Plaques

Keepers Featured Products

A Greener Way to Remember

Learn about our Partners:

Help Us Complete Your Order

Remembrance Store

Through your unique link, your client can sign up for Keeper and create a Memorial for a loved one. When the Memorial page is completed by the family, it will appear on your microsite and website. You will be the main Keeper Administrator of the Memorial, along with the family member that created the page.

Invite Your Clients to Create a Memorial

Invite Families

Your Email Notifications

Notifications

Email Unsubscribe Settings

Other Settings

With your active Keeper PLUS subscription, you get unlimited access to a suite of powerful features:

Allow visitors to download a local copy of all images and videos.

Download Media

Create a custom and meaningful URL, unique to your loved one, for each Memorial page.

Editable URL

Plan public or private events and invite your loved ones.

Event Pages

Add images and create profile pages to illustrate the history and genealogy of your loved one.

Family Tree

Invite unlimited administrators to help you manage every Memorial page you have.

Keeper Administrators

Visitors enjoy unrestricted access to all uploaded images and videos.

Unlimited Media

Create unlimited Memorial pages for your loved ones.

Memorial Pages

You will be able to upload Full HD videos instead of embedded links.

Video Uploading

Your Profile

Add a business user

Edit a business user

Are you sure you want to delete these users from these brands? You will need to manually add these users again.

If the user is a part of multiple brands, you will have to delete the user from each one individually

Delete Users from Brands?

Users Settings & Notifications

Users

Are you sure you want to delete these users? This action will revoke their privileges across all brands.

Are you sure you want to delete this user? This action will revoke their privileges across all brands.

Delete Users from all Brands?

Delete User from Brand?

Are you sure you want to delete {totalDeletes} from this user?

Delete Roles from this User?

Are you sure you want to delete this user from this brand? You will need to manually add this user again.

Delete User from this Brand?

Requires users to confirm their email every time they would like to share a tribute on a Memorial page.

When Email Tribute Validation is turned OFF, Guest users do not need to confirm their email address before their tribute is published.

When Email Tribute Validation is turned ON, Guest users will need to confirm their email address before their tribute is published. They will receive an email with a confirmation link they must click.

Requires users to confirm their email only the first time they would like to share a tribute on a Memorial page.

Email Tribute Validation

If Flagged Content is turned OFF, content that has been flagged will remain public until they have been Approved or Removed from the Requests Center.

If Flagged Content is turned ON, content that has been flagged will be hidden until they have been Approved or Removed from the Requests Center.

Hide Flagged Content

Language

Email Notifications

Are you sure you want to delete the Memorial for {name}? This action will permanently remove the memorial from the system.

Delete Memorial?

When Memorial Request Moderation is turned OFF, Memorials will automatically be published.

When Memorial Request Moderation is turned ON, Memorials will only be published if and when you approve them. Memorials can be published or deleted in the Requests center.

Memorial Request Moderation

Moderation Settings

This will permanently delete your account. The business account, and business page will not be deleted. To deactivate your account, there must be another admin user assigned to your organization.

Are you sure you want to deactivate this account?

When Override Tribute Moderation is turned OFF, the tribute moderation settings on Memorial pages will be hidden and other Keepers cannot override the tribute moderation settings specified by your organization.

When Override Tribute Moderation is turned ON, other Keepers can view and change the tribute moderation settings of the Memorial pages they manage. (Each Memorial page will default to the organization’s tribute moderation setting upon creation.) 

Override Tribute Moderation

If the AI Content Moderation is OFF, text areas containing profane language will be published.  Tributes can however be flagged and removed at any time.

If the AI Content Moderation is ON, text areas containing profane language will not be published and the user will receive an error message.

AI Content Moderation

When Tribute Moderation is turned OFF, Tributes will automatically be published. Once published, users can flag inappropriate or spam content. You can instantly delete any Tributes published on a Memorial that you administer.

When Tribute Moderation is turned ON, Tributes will only be published if and when you approve them. Tributes can be approved or rejected in the Requests center.

Tribute Moderation

When Tribute Validation is turned OFF, Tributes will automatically be published. Once published, users can flag inappropriate or spam content. You can instantly delete any Tributes published on a Memorial that you administer.

When Tribute Validation is turned ON, Tributes will only be published if and when you approve them. Tributes can be approved or rejected in the Requests center.

Gary Aardappel Obituary | Altogether