About the Author
Clifford Joseph Stueck was born at home in Queens Village, New York in 1932. He was brought into the world by Arthur and Florence Keenan Stueck, and immediately created a controversy. Family lore has it that he truly was born on the 29th day of February but his mother wanted him to have as many birthdays as possible. In addition, she never agreed to naming him Clifford after his paternal step-grandfather, and called him Buddie (later amended to Buddy) in his early years. Buddie/Buddy/Cliff was the eldest of five, followed by his fellow Queens-born siblings: Arthur, Patricia, George, and Francis.
He loved spending time as a youngster with his maternal grandparents, George Benedict and Anastacia Cummings Keenan, and paternal grandparents, Clifford and Lina Schmidt Stueck Blanchard at their home, Idlehour, on the shores of Oakdale, Long Island. After his first job shoveling snow for a buffalo head nickel, Buddy developed his skills riding a temperamental motorcycle purchased from an NYC cop, learning to yodel and play the harmonica, and stirring icing for cupcakes on the night shift at Dugan’s Bakery. Feeling that he needed to throw his life upside-down, Buddy enlisted in the United States Army.
After graduating from Officers’ Candidate School, friends convinced him to attend the birthday party of a fascinating beauty named Lois Elaine Hillicke. (He says that if he had known it was her 16th birthday, he never would have gone!) A date followed to watch a football game played by the semi-pro team, the Jets, where Cliff had played both offensive tight end and defensive tackle. He also coached a team called The Morticians. (Rumor has it that he was even recruited by Al Davis, then coach of Adelphi University, later the longtime owner/coach of the Oakland Raiders).
After a brief courtship with Lois, Cliff shipped out to Korea, leading a combat platoon for the 25th Infantry Division, where he fought bravely and unreservedly for his country. He was a combat army airborne paratrooper (the first plane he ever flew in he jumped out of), qualified as Expert as a marksman, and was a detonation specialist. As a decorated veteran, 1st Lieutenant Clifford J. Stueck was awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge, two Purple Hearts, and the Bronze Star Medal with “V” for Valor, for significant bravery during combat actions against an enemy force.
Lois wrote to the young lieutenant every single day while he was in combat, and it was through those letters that they came to know each other and fall in love. They were married in 1956 and had six children, Eileen (Ken Leech), Clifford (deceased), Kathleen, John (Jill Feinberg), Paul (Peggy Harlow), and Flo (Jen Chotiner), and five grandchildren, Catherine (Nicolas Dovetta), Stephen, Clifford III, John Jr., and Kieran. Cliff and Lois also have had three canine companions, the original family dog Duke, the Maltipoo Moose, and the current one-eyed pirate princess Bon-Bon.
Cliff worked for IBM, the Edwards Company, Bridgeport Brass, and spent more than 30 years as a senior executive in information systems with Emery Worldwide, concluding with the title of Senior Vice President, North America. While at Emery, Cliff was an innovator in computer programming, developing a talking computer and a package tracking system that pre-dated those used by the airlines and Federal Express. He was famous at the office for being the only man who ever made coffee for the assistants and for promoting women to senior positions. Cliff was a world traveler, visiting Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, and other exotic locales to check on package deliveries. Always an advocate for education (ensuring that all of his children attended and graduated from college), Cliff took advantage of the GI Bill to get a degree from St. John’s University and later, at night, an MBA from the University of Connecticut. Early in his life he attended Our Lady of Lourdes and the Brooklyn Technical High School.
He was an avid gardener and arborist, and tended faithfully to apple, apricot, and peach trees, peonies, and roses, on the family property in Easton, Connecticut. Somewhat unusually for a father of his generation, Cliff took an active role in childrearing, and enjoyed many evenings reading aloud, teaching poker skills, and advising his children on how to weather life’s many trials and tribulations (builds character!). He was no stranger to the kitchen and whipped up killer margaritas and nachos, an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink turkey soup, anything with rhubarb, and was the initiator of all of his teenagers eating full-blown dinners for breakfast before school accompanied by the theme from Star Wars played at top volume, much to the continuing amusement of their high school friends. Cliff and Lois’s dedication to family parties was legendary, and for years they hosted dozens of Thanksgivings and summer pool parties for huge groups of assorted cousins and friends, and even nuns from the school where Lois taught.
While in Easton, Cliff enjoyed his role as a political husband during the time Lois was elected and served as the town’s first woman First Selectman. Later, Cliff and Lois moved to Ridgefield, Connecticut and then to Sierra Madre, California. For many years, Lois and Cliff followed their bliss and drove a small RV many times back and forth across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Lois and Cliff were captivated by the US Virgin Islands and spent as many happy vacation times there as possible. Many of those happy times are memorialized in the thousands of photographs and slide shows he curated.
