By Dorothy Pence, grandmother
Jared will always be in my memories. He had such a kind spirit and a contagious laugh. He lived five minutes from us and he would show up with his readiness to help or just to visit.
I remember when I brought corn home to freeze, Jared knew about this and he came to help me. I remember when Patti, Jared, and I all went to pick peaches. What a fun day that was. I never asked for help, but Jared came over to help me freeze peaches. I made the remark that I had never made a fresh peach pie; the next day, here comes Jared with a pie he made. I was amazed and it was delicious.
One day I decided to clean out the pantry and who should show up but Jared. We laughed a lot that day. Jared heard that I was painting our house so that we could sell it. Yes, here comes Jared to help me paint. Jared stayed with us one weekend and we thought we would have a picnic at the beach. I made tortellini salad with pesto and he enjoyed that so much that he talked about it for a long time.
Before we knew it, Jared grew up and we didn’t see a lot of him after that. Then Jared brought a friend home, and her name was Kelley. They were married and we went to the wedding. It was a beautiful wedding. The bride was so beautiful, but the groom, Jared, was so handsome. He deserved such a happy life.
I can hardly wait to see Jared again and I know I will see him again. His life was a life of giving. I thank Jesus for giving Jared to us and we know we are all going to be together again sometime.
May God bless all of you.
Hang on to all of your wonderful memories of our dear Jared.
Jared F. Carr 
There is another side to that peach pie story. . .
When I was about 15 and Jared was about 12 we had gone to pick peaches (it may have been the same time that Dorothy mentioned). I decided that I wanted to make a peach pie for my boyfriend’s grandparents. At the time I wasn’t much of a cook. In fact my dad had told me I needed to marry a cook because I couldn’t cook and didn’t show any signs of learning. So I’m sure my mom was elated that I even wanted to bake a pie.
I took special care to follow the exact measurements in the recipe asking my mom for help along the way. I was always known for saying “Is this right mom? Does this texture feel right?” Well, at some point during this process Jared decided that if I could make a pie for someone he needed to make a peach pie for our grandpa & grandma.
So the bake off was on! I carefully prepared my pie and put it in the oven. As it was baking much to my disgust and frustration the carefully rolled & pinched outer crust fell off of the pie! I had also missed the step of putting cinnamon sugar on the top pie crust so just it didn’t look quite like it should. While this was going on Jared was carefully putting his pie together and when mine was done baking his went into the oven. After a while of being in the oven either my mom or Jared (I’m not sure which one) realized that Jared had put the oven on broil instead of bake. He had remembered the cinnamon sugar on the top pie crust though. When his pie came out of the oven his pie looked PERFECT! Of course mine didn’t look perfect at all, but it did taste good.
What’s funny is rather than just trying again (which I know Jared would have done if he’d been in my place) I gave up. I didn’t bake another pie until about 5 or 6 years ago after I had moved to be closer to Jared & Kelley. I can remember showing Jared pictures of the peach pie I made that second time and we laughed about that day long ago when he proved he was the better baker!