Thoughts About My Dad
Leon Clifton Twombly, Jr. was born on July 20, 1942, in Milford, CT in the middle of World War II and in the shadow of the Great Depression.
The family eventually settled in Manchester, CT, and his father, Lee Twombly Sr., known by his friends as ‘Pete’ worked tirelessly in the restaurant business and his children often worked with him in that business when they came of age. Both the Twombly home and profession included many people, and it was not uncommon for the dinner table to have unexpected guests. This mindset of relationships and hospitality has continued in the Twombly family to this day.
Having graduated high school in 1960, Lee left a chaotic home life to enroll far away at Michigan State, and would soon be ‘cordially invited not to return’ and enlist in the Navy soon afterwards. After an accelerated engagement, Lee married Jan in 1963, I was born later that year, and the new Twombly family was on its way. Two daughters, Kristin and Beth, and seven years later, Lee left the Navy and entered civilian life back in Manchester, CT.
Working and going to college full time was not the most significant adjustment of this time. Mom’s close friend from high school, Peggy Hutchins, and her husband Larry, invited us to Trinity Covenant Church in Manchester. It was here that Lee and Jan and our whole family heard the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ and surrendered our hearts and lives to Him.
Eight years later, in 1978, we moved to New Jersey to work with the Navigators ministry at Rutgers University, and in 1983, in the middle of my college years at Rutgers, to work full time with the Navigators in Pittsburgh.
Those years in Pittsburgh were perhaps the most lifechanging for Lee and our whole family, particularly between 1986-1991. From the depths of Mom’s cancer diagnosis came the heights of their faith in God and love for one another. With Kris and I newly married and starting families, and Beth still in college, it seemed the timing couldn’t be worse. Yet, out of that time came both tremendous pain and explosive growth in character and resilience. God sustained us in ways we could not have imagined. Dad asked out loud, ‘how am I supposed to live?’ God made known to him the path of life (Psalm 16:11) and provided yet another perfect companion for Lee in Mary Keaney. It was all very fast and very surreal. The Lord established in our hearts and in marriage that He indeed is our first love, and that apart from Him we can do nothing.
From there to Colorado in 1999, and from there to Michigan in 2003, with an expanding family and expanding set of joy-filled relationships, the journey is really about God’s faithfulness in transforming and sustaining a life!
“In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.” (John 1:4, John the Baptist, describing Jesus)
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” (Jesus, John 5:24)
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