John Verleun

Thankyou so very much for the pictures and your lovely response. John was always sad to have so little contact with his extended family. Im really touched that you reach out to us now. He lead a good life. Very busy with his commercial heating and air-conditioning company. He raised two amazing adult sons. In his last few years, his health suffered and his death is really a blessing for him. Thankyou again for reaching out. Lots of love.

Dear familiy at the other side of the ocean, I'm very sorry to hear your husband and father has passed away. I hope you don’t mind me expressing my condolences. I'm a second cousin of John, daughter of one of Ton's younger sisters, Lies (Elisabeth, no. 11). I do know Ton, but I have never had the pleasure of meeting John. However, my mother told us stories. If I remember well, she babysitted John when Ton and Fiet still lived in Amsterdam at the Noordermarkt. I use my father's name, but the Verleuns also are my family. That family bond, unfortunately, is dearly marked by the sufferings in World War II, like you refer to in the beautiful memorial text. We received this message via Karen, John's little sister, who I hope to meet again end of May/early June. I wish you all the strength you need and hope you find support in your beliefs. With respect, Monique

More heartfelt love to you.

Layla, Thank-you for being such a good partner for Joshua. Thankyou for loving and caring for John. Thankyou for all the work you put in on the obituary and this site. Thankyou for so very many things.

No words, just no words for whst you meant to John and what you and Diane mean to me. Inexpressible. Where would we be without you both?

Lizzy, What a wonderful childhood you and Chris and Noah and Josh had with our wonderfully close families. I cherish our times together. I love that we still love each other. John was certainly a character, wasn't he?

Thankyou for loving John so very much. He loved seeing you and talking about the spiritual world and all things esoteric

Ahhhh, Beverly, you knew him at his best and really appreciated him. Im grateful for that

Dan, you are so eloquent. You always had a special place in John's heart and he valued you dearly. Thankyou for being his good friend.

I will miss John dearly, not only for his technical prowess but also his many hours of conversation while we worked on one project or another. I first got to know John well when I was in the process of designing a remodel of our home in 2001. I had done a lot of research on radiant floor heating and thought I understood how best to design and control a system. Fortunately, I ran into John while he was working at the Waldorf School and asked whether I was missing anything with the approach that I had decided on. He quickly disabused me of my misunderstanding of the technology and offered to help me do it correctly. The next several weeks of working together on the installation were a lesson not only in the technology of all things heating and cooling, but also in John's view of the world. I continued to have many such discussions with him while working together on other projects over the next many years. Some years later while I was chair of the Waldorf School board, the School faced an existential crisis when the boiler in the school sprung a major leak over the Christmas holiday. Without the heat provided by the boiler and without the enormous funds necessary to replace it, the School would have had to shut down. After a weeklong effort of isolating and welding shut the faulty boiler tubes, John saved the day and the School reopened on time after the holiday. John was one of a kind, and may he rest in peace. And now that he's "up there", knowing John, he will find a way to be useful--perhaps fiddling with the cooling controls to mitigate global warming.