Final Years
In May 2004, Dan Fogelberg was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. He underwent therapy and achieved a partial remission. On August 13, 2005, his 54th birthday, he announced the success of his cancer treatments. He said that he had no immediate plans to return to making music but was keeping his options open. He succumbed to the disease at the age of 56, on December 16, 2007, at his home in Deer Isle, Maine with wife Jean by his side.
His widow announced that a song written and recorded by Fogelberg for her Valentine's Day 2005, "Sometimes a Song", would be sold on the Internet and that all proceeds would go to the Prostate Cancer Foundation. The song was released Valentine's Day 2008 and was also included on a CD released in September 2009 titled Love In Time, a collection of eleven previously unpublished songs.
In tribute to Fogelberg and the entire Fogelberg family, the city of Peoria renamed Abington in the city's East Bluff neighborhood "Fogelberg Parkway". The street runs along the east side of Woodruff High School, Dan's alma mater, and where his father was a teacher and bandleader. "Fogelberg Parkway" ends at the intersection of N. Prospect and Frye, which is the location of the convenience store where Fogelberg ran into his old high school sweetheart one Christmas Eve---a chance encounter made famous in the song "Same Old Lang Syne"
In the fall of 2009, the Peoria City Council granted permission to a group of Dan Fogelberg fans to begin fund-raising efforts to create a permanent memorial. The memorial garden, placed in Riverfront Park, was dedicated in a ceremony held on August 28, 2010.
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Famous quotes containing the words final and/or years:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969)
“Self-esteem evolves in kids primarily through the quality of our relationships with them. Because they can’t see themselves directly, children know themselves by reflection. For the first several years of their lives, you are their major influence. Later on, teachers and friends come into the picture. But especially at the beginning, you’re it with a capital I.”
—Stephanie Martson (20th century)