Page created by: Beth Wertz

My dad passed away in August of 2017 when he was 85, ten years after his diagnosis of Parkinson's disease, the disease that also took his father many years before. I think that was the hardest part for my dad, knowing how the disease would progress because he watched his father die of it. He worried so much that we'd only remember him as sick but I won't let Parkinson's do that; I won't let it win. I remember my dad as a wonderful, caring man; would give you the shirt off his back even if it was freezing outside because he thought you needed it more. He served in the army during the Korean war as a Cartographer. I remember he said the first night he was there, he was up near the DMZ and there was a lot of bombing. He said he hid under the bed. Luckily, he served down south in Korea in Teagu far from active fighting. He was a printed circuit board designer by trade and I had the honor of working for him for a few years after I graduated from high school. I loved learning his trade along side of him. He was such a talented artist; I have a few of his painting still. He even kept painting during his illness because he loved it so. Besides his children and his grandchildren, his biggest passion was model trains. He had a model train board of some sort ever since I was born and many years before. His model trains gave him so much joy and he became a kid again when he was at his train board.
He and my mom married in the 1950's and had my brother in 1957, my sister in 1959, and me in 1969 (hmm, who do you think was an accident?!). He and my mom were married for 19 years and then divorced when I was 5. He married my step mom 3 years later and they were together, happily until she passed away from lung cancer in 2013. Her death really took at toll on him and his Parkinson's got worse, especially Parkinson's dementia. He was really worried about us seeing him like that; sick with dementia. The saving grace was that when Parkinson's dementia took his mind, he no longer knew that it did.