Uncle Gene
My uncle Gene called me recently from his home in Sun City, Florida, where he lives with his lovely wife Pat pictured above. It was a beautiful night here in SW Florida, so he called just as the sun was setting. Uncle Gene is 92 years young and is my mother’s younger brother. He's the little guy on the right side of the bench in this 1937 family photo. My mother is in the back row, third from the left. Mom was 20 and Gene was 8.
Gene is in good health and as always, was in great spirits. He is the only family member in the photo still living, so he represents the last connection to my mother. I really enjoy the stories he tells about growing up on the farm in St. Patrick's. He told me his nickname for my mother was Mom, Jr. as she was the designated baby sitter for Gene and his younger brother Pat seated on the left end of the bench.
Here they are riding a horse drawn sled in 1943. The two youngsters would be given their weekly bath by my mother, and Gene recalls always imploring my mother that he really wasn’t that dirty and could hold off on the bath for another week. But Mom, Jr did not relent so into the tub he went.
One of my fondest memories of Gene was at his wedding to his first wife Liz from Coldwater as documented in this previous blogpost. Before marrying Liz, Gene graduated from the University of Dayton with a chemistry degree and also served in the Army during the Korean War. He and his six brothers are all honored at the Sun City War Memorial with a commemorative brick.
After their marriage, Gene and Liz moved to Chicago where he was in the perfume business where he could apply his chemistry degree; however, his gift of gab quickly got him promoted to the marketing department. Mom and my sisters loved the perfume samples (and the stories) he would bring home every time he visited.
On one of his visits, he also brought back his golf clubs, which us kids enjoyed whacking the ball around the farm yard. I was hooked on golf from that moment on as described in this blog. Years later, after retiring and moving to Sun City, Gene would host an annual golf outing for any relatives visiting Florida over the winter. He’d meticulously plan every phase of the weekend-long event, including the grand finale at the local Sun City German restaurant to celebrate a fun-filled weekend and our German heritage. Any of his nieces attending would be given special treatment, as literally he told every one of them multiple times, and still does to this day, that each was his favorite. Nephews not so much, especially when it came to golf competition!
Gene’s team always seemed to win as evidenced by these photos. What a ringer!
There was one year when I did take Gene's money, fortunately having been paired up with his wife Pat.
As the old saying goes, gambling money has no home - except in Gene’s pocket. Now you get some sense of why dad’s nickname for Gene was Slick!
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