James Anthony was born on December 8, 1949 in Long Branch, NJ the eldest child of Marguerite and Walter Tuzeneu. He had that standing for nearly one and half years until Stephen Edward was born. An interesting note about his early childhood is that he was born on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, baptized on Christmas Day, and received his first holy communion on Holy Thursday at the Mass of the last supper. It was more of a mere coincidence than a divine happening of the timing of these holy events. It just happened that he had to receive his first communion a month early as his Dad had to go to Las Vegas in May for a travel duty assignment with the government and was able to take the family along.

Growing up James Anthony was blessed with being a part of a loving and close knit family. He enjoyed many moments of happiness and family fun together. It was with Stephen Edward and Kenard Joseph along with their cousin, Richard Kennedy deSante, Ricky as they called him, who lived next door, as well as a very good friend, Roger Thorne that they enjoyed many hours of fun, childhood play. There was a huge vacant lot behind their house that used to be a cow farm and had some apple orchard trees. They used to play football and baseball in that lot. Besides dividing up between the five of them into teams, usually it was Stephen Edward and Roger on one team and James Anthony, Kenard Joseph, and Ricky on the other team, sometimes they would just pretend to be major league baseball teams and create an imaginary World Series between the two teams. They usually picked the Houston Astros and New York Mets because back then they were in the ‘cellar’ of the major league baseball standing.

While being a part of this loving and close knit family, James Anthony was still a bit of a shy and quiet child who kept to himself. He was creative and had some interesting habits. It was as a teenager that he developed the habit of wrapping his family Christmas gifts in some disguised and unusual wrapping. Also, as a teenager, there were the times that he would come home from high school, and part of his after school relaxation routine from his school work, he would create imaginary pool tournaments with the family’s pool table in the basement of the house. It was also in his junior and senior years in high school, it was he, who started the family tradition of mowing lawns, which Kenard Joseph and Paul Leon took up later, to earn extra money for college savings. Another interesting job that he had was as a school bus driver for the Ranney School, a private school in Tinton Falls, NJ. It was different kind of school bus service for these private school students as it was a door to door service. His route was the Pt. Pleasant – Brick route which was about a two and half hour run. The students he drove affectionately called him ‘Mr. T’ undoubtedly because ‘Tuzeneu’ was such a difficult name to pronounce. Also, another unusual aside of this job was that at Christmas time, he decorated the inside of the bus with beautiful Christmas decorations.

James Anthony, as the eldest child, started the tradition of all the Tuzeneu children attending Monmouth College, now Monmouth University. Back then when he started attending, Brookdale Community College was just starting. As a result, he was able to attend Monmouth on a three-fourth scholarship for his freshman and sophomore years as a recipient of being a county resident that could have gone to Brookdale. This scholarship along with a New Jersey state scholarship allowed him to attend the first two years tuition free. He received a BS in elementary education in December of 1972. As the teaching market back then was tight, he was unable to find a full time teaching job. This along with the philosophy that he acquired from his education pedagogy classes, which was an open classroom approach, were the reasons it was hard for him to find a teaching job. He did some substitute teaching for three or four years trying to get some experience. Finally, in 1979, about the time his Mom died, he looked into Montessori education. He was initially going to pursue the early childhood approach not realizing the Montessori education extended into elementary school and even into high school. Then in 1980 – 1981 he took a year’s course in elementary Montessori training. He received his AMI (Association of Montessori International) Montessori education certificate in June 1981 from Washington Montessori Institute in Washington DC. This Montessori certification was kind of equivalent to a Masters degree in education. As a result of this training, he had a Montessori teaching career spanning sixteen years teaching in Montessori private schools in New Jersey, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and lastly Michigan. All told the Montessori training was probably the best fit for James Anthony’s teaching career.

It was not until James Anthony retired from Montessori teaching in 1997 that he switched careers to study computer programming. He received his AAS in computer information systems in Michigan then moved back to New Jersey unable to quickly find a job in computer programming in Michigan partly because he only had an associates in computers and partly for lack of any viable programming experience. As computers and programming became a new passion for him, he continued to study all he could about programming as he was looking for a computer job. After a brief two year stint as a computer operator with a firm in Lakewood, NJ, which he loved, until it closed and while working part time as teller with TD Bank, he received a web design certificate from Ocean County Community College in 2011. It was with this web design training that he decided to pursue a desire of his to start his own business. So he created a web design business to develop his new and unique concept of a family website.

Besides being a quiet person who kept to himself as well as an unique and creative individual, keeping with the tradition of relating funny family stories, there are a couple of incidences that come to mind.

First, however, here is a little run down on James Anthony’s physical abilities. He ran, walked, rode his bike, played outdoor activities, and played sports, mostly ‘sandlot’ games, like most children, but all that being said he really wasn’t that athletic. Part of that was due to his heart murmur condition that was discovered later on in about 2000. It was discovered then, but most likely it was something that he had all of his life. Well, in about second grade he was attempting to climb one of the locust trees that grew in the family’s yard. The Tuzeneu’s yard originally had 24 locust trees. Locust trees are hard to climb in that the branches to hold onto are higher up on the tree. Well, he was trying to climb or more precisely shimmy this one locust tree. His right arm got caught on a jagged branch that jutted out from the tree. He tore the underside of his right arm and went screaming into the house. His Mom quickly applied some gauze to try to stop the bleeding and called Dr. deRosa, the family doctor. Back then emergency rooms were not as prevalent as today so the family doctor or general practitioner filled the bill. He did everything. They went to his office where he cleaned and proceeded to stitch the torn arm with eleven stitches.

Well, back to the funny story which also kind of attests to his physical prowess. One summer afternoon when he was a young teenager they were playing in the backyard. It was something like ‘wiffle’ ball baseball or badminton. Anyway he was running in the backyard. There were these pieces of ropes tied between two or three of the trees so that the sleeping bags could be draped over them to air them out. At the time there was not anything hanging over the ropes; it was just the ropes. He was running out back when all of a sudden his neck got caught on one of the ropes and he received a nasty rope burn. Fortunately, it wasn’t anything more serious, but for two weeks or so he had that raw rope burn mark on his neck. Looking back on it, the family kind of jokes him about running into the rope.

Another funny story has nothing to do with James Anthony’s physical statute or his athletic abilities. On a camping trip, probably in the early 1970’s on a trip to Quebec Canada, James Anthony had recently gotten his driving license a few years back but did not have much freeway driving experience. His Dad wanted to lie down in the back of the van to take a short nap and let him drive the van. It was a windy day and James Anthony had trouble keeping the van straight in the highway lanes with all that wind and the freeway speed. Several times during his napping, Dad would state, “You’re swaying the van. Stop swaying the van.” His Dad did not realize how windy it was until he got up from his nap and resumed driving.