Tag Archives: James H. Wolfgang

James H. Wolfgang (August 13, 1922 — March 20, 2015)

Posted on by • Posted in Commentary, Family, Personal • Tagged , , , , , , • 1 Comment

Today, I’m thinking of my father on what would have been his 93rd birthday. It is the first of his birthday anniversaries since he passed earlier this year — and the first time we can’t celebrate with him. The Blessed Hope of the resurrection in Christ tempers our loss, as we anticipate the more sublime celebration after awhile. In the meantime, I am posting some comments by my brother John, which he read at Dad’s funeral on March 28, 2015. Well said, John!

MORE IS CAUGHT THAN TAUGHT

My Dad taught us many things. He taught me how to ride a bike and how to drive a car. When I was in Cub Scouts, he tried to teach me how to climb a tree, but that didn’t work. When I was in 7th grade, he tried to teach me the rules of football, but that didn’t stick. But there were many things we learned from him just by being around him and by observing, because “more is caught than taught”.

When I was cleaning out Mom and Dad’s house a few months ago, I came across Dad’s office– that’s not the room with the computer and file cabinet, etc. It was the dining room table. That was his “office”. That’s where he did his “book work”–church finances, home finances, correspondence, etc. And in these last few years, when it became more difficult for him to get around, he “nested”, gathering the things around him that he needed. What I found among these “office” things was 4 books. For some reason, I laid them out and took a picture of them and later came understand that each one represented something about Dad. And that’s what I want to share with you.

The first book was a recent gift to him from Steve called, “Lost Indianapolis”. There wasn’t anything about Indianapolis that was lost to Dad. He knew everything about the city, having lived here for all of his 92 years (except for his years in the service). He could tell you where anything was or where it used to be i.e., “oh that’s on Capitol Ave….” or …”that’s where the RCA plant used to be” or whatever. And he knew the state of Indiana, too. You could ask him anything about any town or county and he could get you there…”take State Road # whatever and go up through such & such town”. And if for some reason he was stumped, he would get his map and a magnifying glass and find it for you and then report back to you when he talked to you the next time.

And he was mentally sharp to the end. He knew who some distant relative was that I had never heard of, and without missing a beat could tell me her name and the relationship to the family.

And Dad was the first GOOGLE. The only difference was that it was all in his pocket. He wrote down everything that was important to him. And he could give all kinds of information from the notes in his pocket…like, when Lesley was born, or what Liam’s middle name is. And that was one of the important things I learned, ASK DAD.

The second book was a book about Song Leading. It had things in it like, “what to do with a rogue singer” etc. I found it amusing and thought he would enjoy it. Dad had a really nice voice. At the Care Center, when I would play the piano for him, he would sing along. And one of the residents commented, “Your Dad sure has a nice voice. He must have been in the choir.” If he was in the right mood, you might get him to sing the Wheaties song, or his a high “a,” believe it or not, in La Golandrina, or maybe even the Tech Fight Song. He loved to lead the songs at church and he was good at it. He learned from older men when he was young and he taught the younger men when he was older…how to use the pitch pipe and beat the time, etc. And, I think most importantly, he wanted to do it well. So he would practice at home, in front of a mirror, to get it right. And if he needed a little help with a melody, Mom would help him. He would work hard at it, just as he did at everything else–his job, the yard, the house, the church jobs–all done with HARD WORK–another thing I “caught” from my Dad–WORK HARD.

The third book was from Tech HS, called “400 Words Everyone Should Be Able To Spell”. Doing things RIGHT, mattered to Dad. How it looked. He had very neat handwriting even into his last years. Small numbers, tiny print, etc. And he kept this ready reference book handy (I believe) so he could check his spelling. And if he needed some help, he ASKED MOM. I have a picture in my mind of him sitting at the office table, and summoning Mom from the kitchen, he would seek her assistance. She would be there in her apron, dish towel and dish hand, looking over his shoulder, checking his work and giving her help or approval. What was caught, more than taught? If you need something done right… ASK MOM! (she was the first Spell Check, by the way).

Book number 4 was car book–a Ward’s mileage book, where he kept a record of every trip, every gas fill (to check mpg) and every maintenance done on the car. And it really was a record of their life. Where they went travelling, what they did and who they visited. And he had a brand new one for this year, ready to use. He loved his cars and could tell you every single one he had, beginning with 1941 Chevy Coupe (?). He was a Chevy man, then digressed for a few years to Plymouth and Dodge, and then returned to General Motors. And then I guess they had a sale on red Cadillacs, that was their favorite. It was his pride and joy to drive and to take care of. Washed, cleaned, swept out regularly with a whisk broom, and always looking brand new. And that was the lesson observed, TAKE CARE OF WHAT YOU HAVE. And that, of course, extended to us, and so it wasn’t surprising that during my last visit with him, he said, “Take care of your Mother.” Take care of what you have and those around you.

And so, thanks Dad, for the many lessons you taught us; not just these 4, but so many more. Rest now, from you labors, and know that your work was not in vain.

James Harold Wolfgang (1922-2015) – A Remembrance

Posted on by • Posted in Family, Personal • Tagged , , , , • Leave a comment

James Harold Wolfgang (1922-2015) – A Remembrance by James Stephen Wolfgang

Remarks read at my father’s funeral, which included hymns, selected by the family from a list of those Dad often led, sung by the audience: Soldiers of Christ, Arise! — There Is a Habitation — In the Morning of Joy

Many thanks to my friend David Malcomson, a deacon at the church of Christ in Downers Grove, who has come down from the western suburbs of Chicago to lead us in song today; and to Josh Coles for his remarks. My brother John also has some comments to follow after I finish. Josh’s remarks reminded me in part of the inscription on the grave marker of the original Wolfgang ancestor, Johann Nicolaus Wolfgang (1711-1790), nine generations before me, who came through the port of Philadelphia in 1732 and settled in the Pennsylvania “Dutch” (Deutsch) area near Lancaster and York, PA – where he lived and farmed when the Continental Congress fled when chased out of Philadelphia by the British Army during the American Revolution. If you were to go to the old Stone Church in southern Pennsylvania, near the Mason-Dixon line, you would read on his marker the sobering admonition, in German, roughly translated as: “Take heed, all who pass by – this too shall be your end.”

And thank you all for coming so that we might pay proper respect to my father, and remember his life’s work. I want to share, briefly, some memories of my Dad, distilled to two pages. While it is my intent to praise him with recollections of fond memories, I know well that my father was not perfect, and he would have no wish to make him so. To repeat a phrase, I would not enlarge him in death beyond what he was in life, but rather remember him simply as a good and decent man. In many ways, he was an ordinary guy who, with the help of the Lord and my mother, accomplished some extra-ordinary things – chiefly through his diligent devotion to Christ, and to Christ’s church.

Upon reading my father’s obituary, my good friend Matt Bassford wrote, “May the Lord feature as prominently in all our obituaries!” Another old friend, Mike Willis, remarked, “This world no longer held anything for him.” Due respect to Mike, that is true – with one major exception: my mother, Jean, the apple of his eye, the love of his life, his bride of 68 years, whom I heard him praise frequently to us, his children, and others, as the source of much of whatever good our family experienced and accomplished. When Dad was leaving Community Hospital 6 months ago, recovering from the pneumonia which dictated his move to Westminster Village, one of the nurses who had cared for him for a week murmured to my mother, “Not many people can say they have been married to the same person for 68 years!” Indeed.

He was a good Daddy to me – and to my siblings. Despite what my sister Janet may claim about me being the “favorite child,” the truth is that, while as the firstborn “rank doth have its privileges,” they too were treated well (and I note for the record that I WAS outnumbered 2-1)! Dad worked hard to provide his kids with numerous advantages – working overtime to pay for field trips, summer camps and study abroad as far away as Israel; paying private college tuitions because he wished his children to have a spiritual dimension to our education which was not available in less expensive state universities; and providing musical instruments including piano, organ, and various stringed instruments so that our lives could be enriched through the magic of music. In the file of digital photos you will find a picture of John and me standing in front of the shop of William Moening & Sons in Philadelphia – makers and importers of fine, classical musical instruments, which Dad bought for us. I played one of those expensive instruments for several years, and John then took over and performed on it in international competitions as a member of Bruce B. Fowler’s outstanding orchestras in Chicago and elsewhere.

Dad was not naturally musically gifted, but when the opportunity arose to learn how to serve the Lord’s people by leading a congregation in hymn worship, he devoted countless hours to learning and mastering the skill sets necessary to properly sound the pitch of a hymn and then direct it – LEAD! – with the correct beat pattern, thus uniting a congregation in melodious harmony. Under the instruction of several Christians who were also graduates of the renowned Indiana University School of Music, Dad became, in the words of one Christian who sang under his direction, “a great song leader.” While I too have learned about music from similarly-gifted music teachers, much of what I know about leading a congregation in song I learned first from James H. Wolfgang.

Dad inherited from his father, James O. Wolfgang, a love of intricate and interrelated machinery of many kinds, from the small-but-complex single-lens reflex camera he used often and cared for lovingly, to the huge multi-color web presses at the Indianapolis Star – huge machines which drank ink by the barrel and were fed forests of pulp so that Hoosiers could “read all about it” –which Dad took his son to observe and instruct in the chemistry of proper ink-and-water balance and other matters. In childhood I became fascinated with the marriage of man and machine, watching James H. Wolfgang, master of his craft, operate the one-man letter-press which resided in the basement of our house on Eustis Drive – each page carefully (and dangerously) hand-fed between speedy revolutions of cast-iron heavy metal. A careless person could easily mangle a hand – but Dad was not careless. While I never came close to mastering type-setting from a California job case, it was fascinating and challenging to try to learn it under his expert tutelage.

When the time came – dictated by changes which produced the transition of the printing craft from mechanical to digital, mandating the passing of a technological era – and led to his press being broken in pieces (an event I think I may have experienced more as a tragedy than did he), he said, simply, “I have no need of it any longer.” My Dad’s press was “rescued” and, in a sense immortalized, by a photo taken by Don Distel, my cousin Janet Jane’s husband – a photo which evermore graces the cover of a Howard Sams textbook, ironically, about HTML.

Dad’s love of fine machinery extended to his automobiles (lately, red Cadillacs), which he treated with lovingkindness. I can recall many a time when, as the oldest child, I was “privileged” to help him wash and wax our cars, with the help of his beloved chamois (a “Shammy” to us Hoosiers!) and a “whisk broom” – terms and items likely unknown to younger generations. He taught me the basics of how an automobile works, what is the use of a timing gun, or the importance of little things like installing a running light in 1961 to make the family car more visible and thus safer. One of my favorite memories was the winter we spent significant time together while constructing and assembling a 1/8-size, moving-parts model of an internal combustion engine.

Dad was a teacher of other things as well. Together, he and another Little League coach stayed late to help me overcome my petrification of being hit by a pitch hurled with all the precision of a 9-year-old’s arm. Imagine my joy to discover that I could actually hit the ball before it hit me – and could become a pretty fair hitter. Much more significantly, my first glimmer of the profundity of the concept of “justification by faith” came in a teenage class he taught on the book of Romans. Try doing that with a class of rowdy teens and you will not only discover the difficulty, but test patience and endurance as well!

In class teaching, functioning first as a deacon and then as an elder in two congregations, and serving as trusted treasurer of two churches, Dad did, as someone put it recently, “much of the unseen ‘grunt work’” which is necessary for any organization to function properly. He thus provided services and opportunities for others to worship God – including those who too often show up only to observe and criticize. Dad did this not because he craved the limelight, but because he knew that “a servant is not greater than his Master.” In the digital video, John included a photo of him working at his “desk” – the dining room table – where he sat to write out the monthly checks for evangelists supported by the church. Anyone who has preached, or was raised in a minister’s household, well understands the importance of maintaining that lifeline as Dad did – timely and regularly. I can recall him sitting us down, map of the world in hand, to show us where those checks went: “this one goes to Leslie Diestelkamp in Nigeria” or one “to Gordon Pennock in North Dakota,” or “that one to Piet Joubert in South Africa” or men in Japan or the Philippines or “parts unknown.” Talk about a powerful lesson in enabling others to evangelize overseas!

That dining room table was also an instrument of hospitality, another important lesson taught us by both my Dad and Mom. To be able to sit at table and share conversation – and the delicious food that Mom prepared! – with the likes of a James R. Cope, or Franklin T. Puckett, or a Robert F. Turner – preachers of renown in bygone days who are now largely forgotten by successive generations; men of wit and verbal skill and Godly devotion – made a lasting impression on me. And my parents’ “hospitality” extended outside the home: a recent visitor to Eastside described for me how meaningful it was to see both of my aged parents “wobble,” as she put it, “on their walkers, all the way across the building to greet me.” Small acts of kindnesses do live on in the memory of others. Thank you, Daddy!

“Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us” (Sirach 44:1).

Footnote 21 – Father’s Day Note on Rick Atkinson’s Liberation Trilogy III

Posted on by • Posted in Footnotes, History, World War 2 • Tagged , , , , , , • Leave a comment

Footnote 21 – Father’s Day Note

On this Father’s Day of 2013, I am thinking of course of my father, James H. Wolfgang, now nearing his 91st birthday.  His only trip to Europe occurred at age 21 – via Omaha Beach.  His unit, the 654th Engineering Battalion, was responsible for producing the millions of maps with which Steven Ambrose, fifteen years ago, opened his book Citizen Soldiers.

Today I began reading the most recent version of the war in the European theatre, Rick Atkinson’s third volume of his Liberation Trilogy. A testament to the engineers who translated hard-won intelligence-gathering information into usable maps and models, Atkinson’s Prologue includes an account of the mammoth plaster-cast model of the beaches of Normandy, constructed under armed guard by the 654th Engineering Battalion in a small village in the Cotswalds during the spring of 1944, and then transported to London.  The massive model is featured in the orientation film at the D-Day Museum in the old Higgins Boat factory in New Orleans.  Here part of Atkinson’s Prologue:

“Nowhere were the uniforms more impressive on Monday morning, May 15, than along Hammersmith Row in west London.  Here the greatest Anglo-American military conclave of World War II gathered the 1,720th day of the war to rehearse the death blow intended to destroy Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich.  Admirals, generals, field marshals, logisticians, and staff wizards by the score climbed from their limousines and marched … into the Model room … [formerly an auditorium] at St. Paul’s School … Top secret charts and maps now lined the Model Room …Behind [Eisenhower] in the cockpit of the Model Room lay an immense plaster relief map of the Normandy coast where the River Seine spilled into the Atlantic.  Thirty feet wide and set on a tilted platform…[it] depicted, in bright colors and a scale six inches to the mile, the rivers, villages, beaches and uplands of what would become the world’s most famous battlefield.”

Early in his life, my father was a part of that vast enterprise by the millions of “the greatest generation” who played various roles, in ending oppressively tyrannical regimes across the globe, remaking the world (for good – or ill – in varying circumstances), and indirectly allowing the gospel to be heard in many new places around the globe.  Returning home to marry his high school sweetheart, he raised his family to obey God, honor their country, and be of service to others.  From his Bible class on Romans I (and others) first learned the foundational gospel truths anchored in the concept of “justification by faith,” and through him I developed my earliest love for hymns by observing him develop his abilities in leading hymns for public worship, thus enabling other Christians to worship God in song. And that is merely the beginning of the “short list” of important things he taught and modeled.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad – and thanks for all those things you did, in war and peace – and still do! I love you!

Footnote 21 – Father’s Day Note Rick Atkinson, The Guns At Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945 (New York Henry Holt and Company, 2013), Kindle edition, Locations 157, 172, 223.