Good evening and welcome to this special gathering!

His Excellency, Most Rev. Joseph Mar Thomas, Faculty member, Dr. M. Anirudhan, colleagues, and dear friends,

We are gathered here today to celebrate the life and times of a dear member of AMICOS who departed unexpectedly and untimely on January 23^rd, 2012 – Mr. Mathew George, a strong gentleman, and a good supporter of AMICOS who always wore a smile.

The greatest play writer of all time, Sir William Shakespeare, once wrote that this world is a big stage and all the men and women are actors and actresses.  Each and every one of us is meant to play by admiring the role, an actor or actress played in it.  The role Mr. Mathew George played in the Chicago Malayalee stage was superb and deserves the maximum recognition.  He has somehow profoundly touched all our lives during his short life span.

Mr. Mathew George, known to his loved ones and friends as Mohan, was born in the Plamoottil family of Chengannur.  His parents are the late Mr. Mathai and Annamma George.  Even from his early childhood days, he recognized the fact that only through hard work can he survive; a trait he practiced and preached throughout his life.

He studied PDC at Mar Ivanios College and completed BSc – Chemistry at Christian College Chengannur. Subsequently, he came to the United States in the mid-’70s. He attended Roosevelt University and earned his master’s degree in chemistry.

He worked as a chemist at Sherman Williams for a few yrs and then moved to Cargill, which was sold to Eastman by the time he retired in 2003, as a technical director. He worked there for close to 25 years. After taking early retirement, he went to Dubai to start a business about 7 yrs ago.

He got married in 1978 to Dr. Rita George, from a Malayalee family settled in Madras. They have one daughter Anita who has been married to Roby Geevarghese and they have 2 kids (Joshua – 2 yrs & Isaac – 11 weeks).

To me personally, I have known him since I came to this country in 1983. Since we used to go to the same church, I had a chance to interact with him every Sunday. Mohanchayan, his brother Mottichayan and I were the first 3 alter servers at church for many years during those times. We always talked about starting an AMICOS chapter in the ’90s, especially when Panicker achen was visiting here – but we were unable to materialize our dream at that time. When we started this association a few years back, he was in Dubai and could not attend any of our meetings in Chicago. But he was always in communication, checked with me on updates and its activities, and provided his support on a regular basis. In fact, he promised me that he was planning to attend our next function.

His untimely demise is a huge loss to his immediate family and a great loss to our AMICOS community. Although we lost one of our own, he left us with a great legacy.  He completed his mission and we are proud. We want to thank him for his many contributions. Let us thank him by giving him a great, big, thunderous round of applause that he could hear from all the way up in the heavens.

Thank you.
Sabu Thomas