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During the 1990s, a few years before my father, Dave, passed away in December of 2000, he wrote a 35-page autobiography. Excerpts from it will be published here, as companions to the diaries my mother, Dorothy, kept in 1945 and 1946—the year she met Dave. My dad was born in 1927, in Hamilton, Ohio. The family eventually moved to the south side of Chicago.
Part 25
Life Goes On
The years after Dorothy's death in March of 1964 were, in the main, good ones, from a business standpoint, but a disaster on the personal side.
By this time, and after over 100 hours in the air with an instructor, I'd finally gotten my private pilot's license, and an airplane of my own, a little Piper Cub. I soon began flying solo. All was going well, until one night over Joliet, when the plane's engine quit and oil began blowing back onto the windshield. Having poor or no visibility, and losing what little altitude I had, I stuck my head out the side window. Much to my dismay, and just ahead of me, were tall towers and high-voltage cables. “I don't want to fry on those wires,” I recall saying to myself, along with wondering who would get supper for my son, who was waiting for me at home, and who would tell him what happened?
I pushed the nose of the plane straight down, as my will to live took over. Just before impact with the ground, I pulled the stick hard back, bringing the nose up again, and braced myself. Impact. The plane flipped over, and right away I could smell fuel. Fearing fire or an explosion, I quickly turned off the ignition, released my straps, kicked open the door, and sprinted a safe distance away from the aircraft. The plane was a goner, but I was OK, requiring only a few band-aids as luck would have it. My flying days were over. Or so I thought. Years later, at age 65, I'd find myself piloting a “powered parachute” over the hills and valleys of southern Indiana.
In September of 1965, I remarried. My primary reason was because the woman I'd met over the summer, a divorcée, had two daughters and a son, all three teenagers. A ready-made family. What I wanted.
Unfortunately, our marriage was rocky right from the start, and never got much better. I'm not inclined to detail the years, except to say that the difficulties fractured the relationship I had with my son, David, for many years. Success in business only made the marriage worse, as my new wife could never have enough money, big enough house, nice enough car, or rise to her desired standing within our community.
We did, however, do a good bit of traveling. Europe, a month-long tour of Israel, and a road trip of Ireland that, after four weeks, was over too soon.
I testified for over a year in the Rico extortion case that happened within the Chicago electrical inspection department. Having bribed and passed bribes for years to inspectors, I knew I could be facing a possible prison term, and so I became a government witness. Of some 50 indictments, 43 were eventually convicted. The head of the department—the biggest crook of all—went free. Meanwhile, I received death threats, but the government brushed those concerns aside. “You're on your own,” they said.
By the mid-1970s, our marriage was over, but I didn't give up until about 1980, when I moved out of the house. Mom had just passed away, and David came to the wake–the first time I'd seen him in nearly ten years. That made me feel that perhaps it was time to shed a bad situation. I'd left the bulk of everything behind with my wife. Money, businesses, furnishings—knowing that those things had little value if your life had to be the currency for which they would be paid.
Dave, right, with his older brother Oregon, 1979
My sister Dolores was kind enough to take me in and provide at least a temporary home for me. Dolores was single, and hadn't been dating. One evening, I persuaded her to come with me to a Parents Without Partners meeting, where I thought she could possibly meet someone. She did, and not long after, she and John tied the knot, although the marriage, unfortunately, did not last long.
As it happens, I met someone, too. Mary was a widow with two children, Robert and Maria. She and I immediately developed a good relationship. Not to say that it didn't have its stormy moments. We had to adjust, one to the other. Although I'd moved out, I was still married, and my wife was not above hounding me and Mary.
Mary and I began traveling together. Lengthy trips thru California, Florida, Canada, and the east coast. We liked the same things. Camping, nature, visiting new places, working around the house, and, most of all, each other's company.
Mary and Dave, 1984
In 1986, Mary sold her Elmhurst home and relocated to Brown County, Indiana, an uncharacteristically woodsy and hilly part of the Hoosier state, near the university town of Bloomington. I followed shortly thereafter. We purchased a nice, vacant lake property hidden away in the hills, and—despite having no experience—proceeded to design a permanent residence for ourselves from nothing but sheer courage.
The process of planning and building our house by the lake was a very exciting and satisfying time for the two of us. Although we were both a bit intimidated by the thought, we had the combined self-confidence to move ahead and weather our inevitable mistakes. After many months of trials and tribulations, sore muscles, and on-the-job training in home construction, we finished it. It was a commendable job, by all accounts. In a sense, we never finished, because we continued to add landscaping, out-buildings, gardens, and trails around the beautiful lake.
The completed house, about 1990
In 1991, I discovered that my WWII OSS-101 group had formed an association, and shortly thereafter, at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, I was present for the fiftieth anniversary celebration, hosted by the army's Special Forces, which considered the OSS its parent organization. Meeting with the old Burma gang was quite a shock. “Who are all these old guys?!” Bill Martin had been wounded in Korea, and ended up marrying his nurse.
I'd become a pretty good golfer at this point and, in fact, won the OSS golf tournament. It was also confirmed for me that I'd been the youngest member of the OSS. At the conclusion of the event, we laid markers and wreaths for our comrades who didn't return home. I cried. Many were friends of mine.
My old buddies Chuck and Bud, who I'd grown up with on the streets of Chicago, got together for a little reunion. “We shouldn't be such old men,” we said. Kids we were, and kids we should remain.
Dave, at the controls of his powered parachute, around 1997.
In 1993, I was diagnosed with cancer. Doctors advised me that it had progressed to the point beyond a cure, and that I'd have just one or two years to live. I decided to carry on as best as possible, not wasting any moments in self-pity. Mary, with her practical philosophy, found a doctor to give us a second opinion and a new course of treatment. Could it be that the first diagnosis was incorrect? Eventually, it came to be that it was, indeed, a wrong evaluation, and that I would be all right after all.
The benefit of facing my mortality was that it renewed my faith in religion. I now felt that when the time came, I'd be reunited with all who had gone before. I learned to look ahead not to death, but to a joyous meeting with those I knew well or only a little, and that gave me a great deal of comfort. To leave life is difficult. Not the experience of dying, but the final being in life is the hard blow to deal with. One's place, awareness, the interaction we have with others, the sights we absorb—these are the definition of life, and the hardest to imagine being gone forever.
I can only speak from my perspective, but these years with Mary are some of the best of my life. She has an ability to accept, to muddle through, and the sense to know the real importance of things. My outlook on life was expanded, and I learned to be happy. To her, I am most grateful. It was an unreal time when Maria, her very young daughter and, like me, a military veteran, passed away from an illness. She and I, along with her son Robert, did our best to cope with that loss.
I feel that I have lived a full life. Of course, there are many things I wish I had been able to do. Some regrets. Some unfinished and unkept promises. I lived during exciting times. Lindbergh flew the Atlantic in 1927, the year I was born. Men landed on the moon. We sat around crystal radios when I was a boy. Television, satellites, computers, and all the other wonderful inventions. I'd read in awe about the infamous “Big Bertha” gun when I was a kid. Now, we have Star Wars, the atomic age, lasers, supersonic jets. The wonders of this age. Supermarkets, video cameras, and the atomic submarine all had their birth during my lifetime. We used to crank our phones. Now we carry them around in our cars.
Life is no doubt easier, but I wonder if it is quite as much fun as the fun I've had.
* * *
Dave passed away in December of 2000 at age 73, at the home he and Mary built in southern Indiana.
* * *
End of Part 25 of 25
Thank you to everyone who followed along with me on this journey thru my father's life, as told in his own words. —his son, David
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