December 3, 1947 - June 21, 1989

                  Jeffrey Wayne Sherman died in 1989 of complications from AIDS.  The story of his struggle with his illness was told in a very moving account by his widow Michelle published in The Sunday Courier News, Bridgewater, NJ newspaper (April 15, 1990 edition, page A-12).   Michelle had decided to make a panel honoring Jeff for the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.  At that time the quilt had 12,000 names of men, women and children who’d been struck down by the AIDS disease. 

                  The panel Michelle created contains red stars on a black background, each star bearing the name of one of Jeff’s family members.  As she described in the Courier News, Jeffrey loved lying on the beach looking for shooting stars in the nighttime sky.  “He was a big kid … He was wonderful and being with him was the happiest time of my life.”

                  Scattered throughout the panel are small images of other things Jeff enjoyed in life. They include a N.Y. Mets logo, music notes, a Porsche, fisherman, and a caricature of a distressed golfer - the last because “he loved to golf, but he wasn’t very good at it.”

That quilt, with Jeff’s panel, is now part of the National Aids Memorial.