At a time during which we contemplate in excess of 140,000 deaths from a tsunami and 175 from a fire in an Argentine night club, it might seem a bit odd to dwell on the death of one elderly American. But hey, it’s my blog. Besides, he was one of my heroes and most significantly, he was my dad. Below is the eulogy delivered at his funeral on December 23, 2004.
Good morning and thank you for braving the weather and joining us during this busy Christmas season as we celebrate the life and morn the passing of a father, a brother, a grandpa and great grandpa, an uncle and a friend.
Dad was born to immigrant parents on May 26, 1917 in Columbus, Ohio. His sister Anna and brother Tony preceded him into life. His younger brother Henry followed him into life.
To put that into perspective for us younger ones, in 1917 aviation, which influenced much of dad’s life, had been born just 14 years earlier in 1903 with the Wright brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk, Woodrow Wilson was the President of the United States and gasoline cost a whopping $.14 a gallon.
His youth was marked by a confident and strong nation fresh from victory in WWI, a period of American history know as the roaring 20s.
America was the nation his parents knew it would be when they left everything that was familiar to them to make a better life in this great nation.
Dad grew up on the south side of Columbus in German Village, where we learned of several physical and astronomical phenomenons. According to dad, life on the South side was tough, his walk to and from school, where he played football and basketball, was all up hill…in both directions. It snowed every day and no matter which way you turned, the wind was in your face.
But as it is in life where challenges often follow good times so it is for great nations, the Great Depression and WWII followed the roaring 20s.
These two great events marked not only dad’s character but also the character of his entire generation, many of whom are with us here today.
Like his two brothers, dad answered his country’s call to duty and served in the Army Air Corps during WWII, flying B-29s in the Pacific.
On June 20, 1943 dad married mom in Mexico City and began their near 60-year journey together, a journey which ended just a little over two years ago when we met here for mom’s passing.
After the war mom and dad raised six children, ran a painting business, then an independent advertising business. It wasn’t until late in life that they began the business that was dad’s true calling, the recreation of WWI and WWII aviation memorabilia.
Everything about my dad to me seemed larger than life. To start with he was 6 feet 4 inches tall with that booming voice and personality to match.
But it was more than that, everything he did - he did in some grand way.
We didn’t have a swing set that came from some local hardware store. No, Dad made ours from pipes he found on some job site. And it wasn’t 6 feet high. It was 10 or 12 feet high.
In addition to ordinary snow sleds, which we had by the dozen, we had a 10’ wood bobsled that dad and Rick built in the garage and which dad would tow around the neighborhood behind an ancient red station wagon affectionately known as “the bomb” while a dozen or so thrilled kids from the neighborhood would scream in delight from the sled tied to the back.
I don’t think we ever had one of those little kites from the dime store. No, ours came from Dad’s imagination and were built in the basement. They were four or five or even six foot box kites hand painted by dad in a bright colorful manner with really cool designs.
In summer, a slip and slide wasn’t some cheesy 4x6 piece of plastic that fell apart after two turns. It was a 6 foot by 20 foot piece of heavy duty plastic with two hoses turned on it so that the entire neighborhood could use it all day and it would still be good enough to be used again.
For dad, building a snowman wasn’t a matter of stacking three large balls of snow one atop the other. No, we piled the snow, then packed it and dad sculpted the snow to form the body and the arms. The head and face weren’t just a ball with carrot stuck in where the nose went, rather they too were sculpted and the hat didn’t come from the closet, it also had to be sculpted from snow. After all, as dad pointed out the obvious, “It’s called a SNOW-man.” Then just when I thought the whole thing was done, dad disappeared and retuned with paints and somehow he painted that snowman to look just like Santa Clause.
When we had a yard party, it wasn’t good enough to just mow the grass. Noooo, the grass had to be cut twice, once the long way and once the cross way. This demand, as you might guess, further endeared him to my brothers and me.
But when I think of how dad did things, I always recall ice – yeah, the ice spectacular he created in front of the house on Elburn Ave. One cold night about this time of the year the weather was below zero. I remember looking out the front window with my brothers and sisters watching dad throw ropes over the limbs of one of the big trees in the front yard and then turning the hose on them full force. I remember asking, “What’s he doing?” I don’t recall any of the answers, just a lot of laughing, but in the morning there was a ton of ice in our front yard frozen to the tree and those ropes. Over the next several days the hose remained turned on day and night. He’d get up at three o’clock in the morning, and even leave Christmas parties to move the hose until he had a perfect curtain of ice from the ground up about 20 feet. Then he backlit the whole thing with colored floodlights and dad even turned the hose onto three stepladders, then made a crown and gift for each to represent the three wise men. I don’t recall when all of the ice melted away, but I do remember being in a t-shirt with little patches of ice still in the front yard.
Even getting sick for dad had to be big. A cold or flu wouldn’t do. No he got lung cancer, and smoked his last Chesterfield the morning they operated to remove the effected lung.
For dad, a vacation in Mexico didn’t last a week, it lasted for a year.
Taking the camper out didn’t mean a weekend at the local park, it meant leaving Southern California for an 18 month odyssey driving up and down the AlCan Hiway, across Canada, down into the East coast of the US, half way across the US toward California then back to Ohio when Anna had an accident, before finally returning to California.
Yeah, he did things in a big way, but dad also did all of the little things. I’ve often wondered how many years of their lives and how much of their fortunes mom and dad and my aunts and uncles spent:
Going to little league games
Dance and music recitals
Brownie and Girl Scout meetings
Cub and Boy Scout meetings
Building pine wood derby cars
PTA meetings
Trips to the circus
Trips to the fair
Camping trips to Michigan
Columbus Jets baseball games
Columbus Owls hockey games
OSU football and basketball games
Parent teacher conferences – some of them not all that – shall we say - encouraging
Synchronized swim meets
Prom and wedding dresses
High school football and basketball games in every kind of weather
Nights spent awake waiting to hear the car pull into the driveway
Graduations
Weddings
Baptisms
First communions
Confirmations
And yes funerals
But all of our parents did it all, didn’t they, and they did it with enthusiasm, grace and hardly a complaint because they were from “that generation” and that’s just what you did. They did it all many times over and with too little gratitude from those of us who reaped the benefits.
Every holiday seemed to mark a large family gathering with aunts, uncles and cousins where dad told funny stories, sure they were often the same ones but with some new and funny twist. Mother’s Day he planted geraniums in the garden for mom. Easter was picture time with everyone in brand new Easter clothes - before they got covered in chocolate. Memorial Day was a trip to the pool and a backyard cook out. The 4th of July dad took us to the parades and the fire works and decorated our bikes. Labor Day it was soup or a ham slow cooked in the pit in the back yard. At every gathering he argued politics where back in the 1950s, I think it was, I heard he once even conceded that a certain Democrat wasn’t quite as bad as he had first thought.
Many families mark their children’s passage into adulthood at a graduation or with a driver’s license or the ability to buy their first beer – uhmm legally. The Schumick’s marked adulthood when a child was invited into Aunt Anna and Uncle T’s basement for the Christmas party. At my first Christmas party, an argument raged over who would win the Super Bowl. Before long dad had the pool organized was taking the money, writing down the winning team and point spread. Instead of asking for a pencil and paper, dad whipped out his fountain pen, one of the kind that you actually had to draw ink from a well, and wrote it all down in his unmistakable large print on the paper table clothe then tore it off and taped it to the wall.
As in every life and worthwhile endeavor there were of course a few rough spots.
Enough wrecked cars to enable General Motors to stay in business.
For sure, enough spilled milk to start a dairy.
Enough broken toys for Mattel to turn a profit through about 1968.
Enough broken hearts and disappointments to sustain a Dear Abby column.
The unbelievable tragedy of the death of babies and then of their first-born adult child.
Through it all, with help of the people here today, and many who have already left us, mom and dad got through it, remained strong and set a good example for the rest of us. And that is how we will get through this.
Dad was a complex individual. He could establish a quick rapport with children; ask any of the grand kids or his great grand son. He could talk to a teenager, a 20, 30, 40 or 50 year old as easily as he talked to those of his own generation. He was a patriot, a soldier, an airman, a businessman, an author, historian, artist, sportsman and sports enthusiast, master of ceremonies, gardener, mechanic, bicycle repairman, plumber, electrician, carpenter, mason, painter, paper hanger and has even written a 1,000 page manuscript on Ohio history. Yet if you could ask him today what he was proudest of, after his family and friends, he just might quip, “Well, I had a valid drivers license until the day I died by golly.”
Dad seemed to have one of those one-liners for every occasion:
If one of the kids called and asked what he and mom were up to, he would likely respond with, “Spending your inheritance.”
If I called and said, “Dad, this is Doug.” He’d either say, “Doug? Doug who?” or “Doug, how much is it going to cost me this time?”
I was watching him dig in the back yard once, he gave me that, “Why don’t you get off your duff and help me look.” Then he walked over, gave me the shovel and said, “Do you know what the nice thing about a shovel is, Doug? It will fit just about anybody’s hands.”
If you called recently and asked how he was doing you likely heard, “Hey, old age isn’t for sissies.”
In an 87year life as full and rich as dad’s was there are, of course, a million stories and memories. These were just a few from the perspective of John and Katie’s youngest. I’m sure the older kids, who blazed a trail wide and deep enough for me to manage to stay within for the most part, along with dad’s family and his friends all have their own stories of “barrowed” cars and beer, late dates, parties, Notre Dame football trips, Rose Bowl games, OSU Michigan games, weddings, 7:30 on a Saturday morning yard cleaning detail, Christmas eve trips downtown to see the Nationwide Building and Lazarus window and even setting the house on fire once. These stories will continue as long as dad lives in our memories.
But sadly, for this time and for this place, even though we’re not quite ready for him to go, I think the time has come to say goodbye so that dad may go to meet his beloved Katie, Johnine, Erin and all of the family and friends who are waiting for him. Thank you dad for the wisdom, for the inspiration, for the discipline and for the joy you brought to each of us.
We thank each of you for being with us today. We know at this time of the year your time is often your most valuable commodity and you have honored dad and us by spending some of it here today.
Oh, and one last thing, OK mom, the break's over. He’s on his way home to you.
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