Sahin died in the fall of 2006.
You know, it might be worthwhile to confirm all SIGNA Life Memberships.
When I was handling membership for AIS I decided to confirm the status of each AIS Life Membership, and was well I did because we were sending Bulletins to people who had been dead for years. Families don't always let you know about this sort of thing, especially if someone is enjoying the magazine.
There were not that many Overseas AIS Life Members, maybe ten or fifteen, so I simply wrote each one with whom I had not recently dealt personally a letter, saying I was sure they would agree that we should spend AIS' money in the most constructive way possible, and to that end I was seeking to validate the mailing list. I asked them please to let me know they were well and receiving their mailings in a timely manner.
Now, if I received no response to this letter, I sent another, advising that I must hear from them or I'd be obliged to stop sending the Bulletin until I could confirm it was going to the correct recipient. If there was still no response, I stopped the Bulletin, and wrote a third letter telling them I'd done so.
As it happens, everyone overseas who responded at all responded immediately and cheerfully. In fact, the Overseas Life Members were more cooperative than some of the USA LIfe Members, who appeared to have thought that becoming a Life Member was sort of like buying one's way into an elite country club, so that the very suggestion that they might actually have up and died without telling AIS was somehow grossly insulting---really, I'm not kidding, too bizarre and too funny-- anyway, I touched base with the Overseas Life Members personally, and I think there were two, perhaps three, whom I struck from the rolls-- and they were the ones I thought looked problematical going into the survey. A lot of money was subsequently saved on postage, I can assure you,
Never take anyone else's word that someone else is alive.
AMW
-----Original Message-----
From: Rodney Barton <rbartontx@yahoo.com>
To: iris-species <iris-species@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Fri, Sep 30, 2011 8:44 am
Subject: Re: [iris-species] SIGNA member passing
Thanks Jim and Liselotte! It's nice to know a little about him. The email I received said the house and that he had he died in 09, but that may have been a typo. Tom Gormley tells me he had received notice that Kees died in 06. That timing would make sense considering what Liselotte said.
Rod
From: Liselotte Hirsbrunner <l*@mac.com>
To: i*@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2011 5:28 PM
Subject: Re: [iris-species] SIGNA member passing
Rodney,
I am so sorry to hear that Kees Sahin passed away. I did not know him personally but he contacted me some years ago about a peony I had just registered. He said he was growing 700 peonies and that he saw my name listed in the Hosta membership roster. He absolutely wanted this peony, but I had given most of it to the Horticultural College in WÃdenswil ZH for growing in their nursery. I promised him to send him a piece as soon as my plant would be large enough. He wrote to me several times about plants, He was also growing Iris ensata. He never mentioned he was a SIGNA member. I wrote to him twice when the plant was ready but did not get any response, a third letter came back. That must have been around 2005.
Liselotte
On Sep 29, 2011, at 3:27 PM, Rodney Barton wrote:
I just received word that SIGNA life member Kees Sahin of The Netherlands died in 2009. Did anyone know him?
Rodney
