Tag Archives: Wavada/Wisor, Cathy

2011 Jim Wavada’s Funeral and Estate

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The last of the Mohicans. Continue reading →

My dad died at Hartford Hospital on Tuesday, September 13, 2011. At the time he had been living in Connecticut for almost six years. That period has been described in some detail here. After his death it fell to me to make all of the arrangements for his funeral, disposition of his estate, and other such tasks.

My wife Sue definitely helped, and my dad made it easy for me by making a lot of preparations. He had written a carefully worded will, and he made me its executor. He had also added me as a signatory on his bank accounts and beneficiary of his investments.

The first thing that I did was to call my sister Jamie and notify her that he had died. I asked her to attend the funeral and told her that there was enough money in his accounts to pay for her and her five children to come to the funeral that I planned to schedule in Leawood, KS, where my dad had spent the bulk of his adult life. This was the first time that I had talked with Jamie for several years, as explained here. She thanked me for taking care of him, but she would not consider coming to the funeral. She said that he would have hated her being there, which I am quite certain was not true. None of her five children attended either. I don’t have any evidence that she had anything to do with their decisions, but …

Monsignor McGlinn.

My dad and mom had been active members of Curé of Ars church. I called the pastor, Monsignor Charles McGlinn1, to arrange the funeral mass. Somehow the subject of Boy Scouts came up. I told him that shortly after my family moved to Leawood back in 1962 I had joined Troop 395 and was the troop’s first Eagle Scout. I had spent most of my scouting days in Troop 295 at Queen of the Holy Rosary. He had also been the pastor there, but well after my time.

He remembered my dad and mom, and he scheduled the funeral mass for 10AM on Friday, September 23. I told him that my dad wished to be cremated. He said that that would be fine. In fact, it was the usual practice for deaths in distant locations. This surprised me quite a bit. I had been taught that the resurrection of the bodies would occur on Judgment Day. I supposed that if you believed that, you could imagine some way that the body could be reconstituted from ashes.

I had been composing dad’s obituary in my head while he had been in palliative care at the hospital. Since newspapers charged by the word for obituaries, dad would have appreciated that I kept it short and to the point. I sent this to the Kansas City Star.

James E. Wavada, 87, died on September 13, 2011, in Hartford, CT. Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 10 a.m. Friday, Sept. 23, at Curé of Ars Church, 9401 Mission Rd., Leawood. Jim grew up in Rosedale, matriculated at Maur Hill, and served in the Army in WWII. He worked at BMA for almost four decades, starting in the mail room and ending as a vice-president of public relations. He had a great love of words, except for “I,” which he almost never used. His astounding memory could produce an apt literary quote for any occasion. After he retired, he wrote Yup the Organization, a tongue-in-cheek guide to climbing the corporate ladder. The best day of Jim’s life was when he married Dolores Cernech. The worst was when she died more than 50 years later. Jim is survived by his son, Mike, daughter, Jamie, five grandchildren, and innumerable friends and admirers.

Four decades? Where did I get that? Well, as usual, nobody checked my work. I was very proud of this little essay at the time, but given another chance I would at least remove the commas after “son” and “daughter”.

I am sure that there was some sort of reception. I think that my dad’s friends had set up something in the vestibule, and there was a reception line there before mass. I don’t remember going to a funeral home there.

I don’t remember calling anyone else about the funeral. Sue might have called the Raffertys. They probably notified their friends and others who knew dad. Two of my cousins lived in KC. One of them probably saw the obituary and notified the others. Charlie, Vic, and Cathy were certainly there. I am not so sure about Margaret Anne.

Somehow dad’s old army buddy, Jake Jacobson2, heard about it and came down by himself from Milwaukee. I think that he might have called me to say that he was coming.

I was thrilled that he was able to make the trip. I knew that he was five years older than my dad, but he seemed to be quite vigorous. However, he confessed to me that whenever he changed locations, he made sure that he knew where the nearest bathroom was located.

The other surprise was Joan Dobel3, the mother of Pat Dobel, my friend and classmate at Rockhurst High School and my very first debate partner. I had never met her, but evidently she had been A friend of my parents.

Sue and I made arrangements with Leete-Stephens Funeral Home in Enfield. We decided not to hold any gatherings in Enfield. The people at L-S took care of the cremation privately. They gave me an urn containing the ashes. I was shocked to learn that I was required to carry them on the airplane as carry-on luggage.

Sue and I flew to KCI a day or two before the day of the funeral. We certainly rented a car from Avis.

I am pretty sure that we stayed at the Hampton Inn that was near I-435 in Overland Park. We may have made arrangements for Jake to stay there, too.

I have a vague recollection that Sue and I picked up Jake at the airport, but I am not positive. If I did not, I have trouble imagining how he got around. I don’t remember him taking taxis.

The funeral mass itself was well attended. My parents had a lot of friends in the area. One of the ladies that had worked closely with him at BMA was also there. Dad sometimes talked about her when I was still living in Leawood many years earlier, but I cannot remember her name.

I did not take an active roll in the ceremony. I don’t think that anyone spoke about my dad, but I could be wrong. This was a marked contrast with my mom’s funeral as posted here.

I remember that Sue and I rode in one of the funeral home’s cars out to the cemetery. It seemed like a long drive. We were in the same care as Monsignor McGlinn. I felt uncomfortable, but he did nothing to cause me to feel that way.

By far the highlight of the entire trip was supper at RC’s in the Martin City neighborhood of KC MO. My dad and I frequented this restaurant on my visits to KC (documented here). All my cousins and some of their kids joined Sue, me, and Jake. Cathy’s future husband, Patrick Wisor, was also there. My dad’s estate picked up the tab.

I don’t know what about the atmosphere at RC’s4 made this such an enjoyable evening for me. I don’t remember any of the details of the conversation, but I do recall that everyone seemed relaxed and having a good time. It helped to cement some relationships between me and my cousins. We had known each other for decades, but we had spent very little time together.

Disposition of the estate: This was a surprisingly easy job. My dad left his financial records in remarkably good condition. He had previously added my name to his accounts, and his will was straightforward. I was the executor. The will left everything to me, but in private conversations he told me that he also wanted to take care of Jamie’s children.

I made one or two visits to the office of Richard Tatoian, a probate attorney in Enfield. I told him that I was worried that my sister might give me some trouble about the will. He advised me that my dad made his intentions very clear, and he did not think that anyone could contest it. The total estate was worth about $180,000. I sent checks for $9,000 each to Cadie and Kelly Mapes and Gina, Anne, and Joey Lisella. After the first of the year I sent a second check for the same amount to each of them.

After Sue and I had taken the few things that we wanted (electronic equipment and mementos) from dad’s apartment Sue contacted Golden Gavel Auctions in East Windsor to pick up all of the rest of dad’s stuff at Bigelow Commons. They were able to sell some of it, but it barely covered the cost of carting away the rest of it.

Dealing with Bigelow Commons was a pleasure. They waived the right to the rent for the rest of the term of dad’s lease. They also told me how much they enjoyed having my dad as a tenant.

They didn’t even call it the Super Bow!

Many years later I discovered in my dad’s papers two very interesting tickets: one for Super Bowl III (the Joe Namath game) and one for the 1970 Rose Bowl, Bo Schembechler’s first.

1. Monsignor McGlinn was the pastor of Curé of Ars from 1986 until his retirement in 2015. Before that he had been the pastor at Queen of the Holy Rosary, our parish for eight years. He died in 2020 at the age of 78. His very revealing obituary has been posted here.

2. Jake died in 2023 at the age of 103 and a half! His truly fabulous obituary is posted here. It is by far the best that I have ever seen. The obituary contains a story written by his son Paul (introduced here). It mentioned, among many other things, that Jake was in counter-intelligence in Europe in WW II. This surprised me greatly. My dad was in the infantry in the Pacific. I wondered how the two of them met and managed to develop a relationship that lasted for so long. I could not figure out a way to contact Paul to see if he knew the answer.

3. Joan died in 2013. Her obituary has been posted here.

4. RC’s changed hands in 2023. Its history is documented here.

2007 & 2009 Jim and Mike at Funerals in Trenton, MO

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A journey to Trenton, MO. Continue reading →

Aunt Margaret’s funeral: In March of 2007 my dad, Jim Wavada, was living in Enfield near our house. This situation has been explained here. He learned in a telephone call from either his brother Vic or one of Vic’s children that Vic’s wife Margaret had died on Tuesday, March 27. Vic and Margaret had resided in Trenton, MO, for as long as I had known them,. The services were scheduled for Saturday at St. Joseph’s church in Trenton.

Dad could not have undertaken the journey by himself. I retained only the vaguest memory of Aunt Margaret1, but I agreed to accompany him to pay his respects. I have absolutely no recollection of staying in or near Trenton on that occasion. I therefore have deduced that we flew to KCI airport on Friday and stayed overnight at the Hampton Inn near the airport. I have a pretty vivid memory of staying with my dad at that hotel, and I cannot imagine any other occasion on which we might have done so.

Why did we not fly out earlier and spend some time with the family? I can think of two possible reasons. Either I had business commitments that I could not get out of, or my dad wanted to minimize his time there. I strongly suspect that it was the latter. My last trip for the last major installation that I did (Macy’s South, as explained here) was in January of 2007. I don’t have any notes about major trips in March or April. Furthermore, I know from several conversations with him that my dad did not have much respect for his oldest brother.

I am pretty sure that we arrived at KCI on Friday afternoon. I rented a car from Avis. After we checked in at the Hampton, we treated ourselves to fried chicken at the Strouds restaurant near the airport.1

The next morning we ate an early breakfast at the hotel and then drove to Trenton. The drive took about an hour and forty-five minutes. I remember nothing about it.

In Trenton I got to see my Uncle Vic, and my cousins Charlie, Vic Jr., Margaret Anne Deaver, and Cathy. I also got to meet their spouses and children. Some of these people were probably at my mom’s funeral eight years earlier. The others I had not seen for at least thirty-seven years. Many I had never met at all.

St. Joseph church in Trenton.

I have very few memories of this occasion. I remember that my Uncle Vic had recently purchased a car. For some reason this upset my dad, who thought that it was a waste of money. I could not understand why my dad would care about this.

I am pretty sure that we stopped at Uncle Vic’s apartment before going to the church. I can visualize it, but I am not sure that I can trust the details.

The other memory that I have was a disparaging comment that Uncle Vic made about me. It was something to the effect that I thought that I was too good for them.

Since he was eighty-eight years old and did not know me at all, I did not get angry or embarrassed. My only mental reaction was to consider this a very strange thing to say about someone who had just paid to fly halfway across the country for services for someone whom he barely knew. At any rate one of my cousins, Margaret Anne or Cathy, reprimanded him for the comment, and he attempted to make a joke out of it.

In retrospect I surmise that the comment was really directed at my dad. I had not consciously done anything (or, for that matter, failed to do anything) that would provoke enmity with Uncle Vic.

I was happy to establish a little bit of communication with my cousins even though I am almost certain that we left shortly after the funeral and drove back to the Hampton Inn. It must have been during this drive that my dad vented about Uncle Vic’s car.

I surmise that we then flew back to Connecticut on Sunday.

Uncle Vic’s funeral: My dad and I returned to Trenton in October of 2009 for Uncle Vic’s funeral. He was ninety years old, which, unless I have miscalculated, tied him with his mother Hazel for the family’s longevity record. I have much more numerous and vivid memories of the second trip, but it is definitely possible that some of the events that I associate with it actually occurred in 2007.

On the second trip my dad and I shared a room at the luxurious Knights Inn3 just outside of Trenton. We spent at least two nights at the Knights. It made quite an impression on both of us. Our room contained an old light green rag that was covered with stains. A sign near it implored the temporary residents to use this rag to clean their firearms as opposed to the towels or sheets. This admonition was unnecessary for dad and me, as we both carried our own cleaning equipment whenever we brought our rifles on trips.

All of my cousins were again present. I am pretty sure that this time we went to the rosary and wake on Sunday evening. We also ate supper with them and some friends of Uncle Vic’s at what Vic Jr. called “a pizza joint”4 in Trenton. The atmosphere was fairly lively. My cousins lived in St. Louis, KC, and Denver. I had the impression that most of them were happy that they need never come to Trenton again. There was very little reminiscing about good old days with “Pop”.

I remember talking with an optometrist who was, I guess, Uncle Vic’s friend. I told him that I had been taking the PreserVision vitamins to try to stave off macular degeneration. He validated that this was probably a good idea.

I met Charlie’s wife Mary and Vic Jr.’s wife Theresa5. Margaret Anne’s husband was probably there, too, but I do not remember his name. John maybe? I don’t remember anyone asking about my sister Jamie.

On Monday we attended the funeral and burial. Afterwards there was a lunch at the church hosted by the Ladies Club. I sat near some of my cousins. I remember Vic Jr. remarking about his mastery of texting. He said that recently he and his son Matt had texted one another while they were in the same store. Theresa worried that people would become overly dependent on them and stop planning.

I recall quite a few kids, a few of whom were a little rambunctious. I can’t say that I tried very hard to assign names to all of them.

The return trip: My dad, who at this point began referring to himself as the last of the Mohicans6 was unusually talkative. He told me about a problem that he had had with Vic Jr.’s son, Matt. I don’t remember the details.

I think that it was either in the car ride or the airplane that he talked about Vic. It may have occurred at another time; I am not certain. He said that his mother, Hazel Wavada, had negotiated a deal with the Benedictines to provide a good high school education for her three sons at Maur Hill in Atchison, KS. One of them had to become a priest. Vic, thee oldest actually took the name Brother Hildebrand, O.S.B., before he quit the order. That, my dad said, was why his other brother, Joe, became a Benedictine priest.

He also told me that Vic had been married before he met Margaret to a woman in Birmingham, AL, of all places.

1. Her very brief obituary, which was posted here, says that “Mrs. Wavada retired from the Jewitt Library in Trenton after 28 years.” This was news to me. I also did not know where my Uncle Vic had been employed. His even briefer obituary, which was posted here, was no help. I have a vague recollection that he worked for a company known as Trenton Foods, which may have been purchased by a conglomerate.

2. My recollection was that the restaurant was near the airport. The closest Strouds that was open in 2023 was located in Oak Ridge Manor, sixteen miles southwest of the Hampton Inn. That is farther than I remembered, but we would have thought nothing about driving such a distance for real fried chicken, which is unknown in New England.

3. The building that housed the Knights Inn still existed in 2023. It was renamed the Cobblestone Inn and Suites. Its website is here. The exterior does not appear changed much, but the photos of the rooms did not seem familiar.

4. I don’t think that the joint survived until 2023. The only pizza places in town in 2023 that Google knew about were Pizza Hut, Godfather’s Pizza Express, and Casey’s, a “convenience store known for fuel and pizza.”

5. Theresa died in 2017. Her obituary has been posted here.

6. He only held this title for two years before passing it on to me. As of 2023 I have now been the most senior of the KC branch of the Wavadas for twelve years, almost 1/6 of my total life.

7. The original Brother Hildebrand of the eleventh century eventually became the famous Pope Gregory VII. I have written an entire chapter about his influence and posted it here. I also included him as a character in the historical novel, Ben 9, that I posted here.

1948-1954 Kansas City, KS Part 3: My Father’s Family

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My dad’s side of the family. Continue reading →

1001 Southwest Blvd. is Holy Name. I think that the Wavada house was where the point of the red arrow is. I could be wrong.
1001 Southwest Blvd. is Holy Name. I think that the Wavada house was where the point of the red arrow is.

I spent less time in my younger years with my dad’s side of the family. My dad’s parents were Henry and Hazel Wavada. Henry was born in 1884 or 1885; Hazel was born on December 1, 1899. In the early fifties they lived in the house at the end of S. Cherokee St. in the Rosedale section of Kansas City, KS, in which my dad and his two brothers grew up. It was only a few blocks away from Holy Name church. The Ursuline nuns who taught there lived right next to the Wavadas. I remember seeing their wash hanging outside. It was the first time that I internalized the fact that nuns were humans.

We went there a few times, and I can sort of visualize it. I think that the house was yellowish at that time, and it had a porch. You had to walk up steps to get to the porch. I don’t remember the inside much because I was fascinated by the yard. In back was a stone wall about two feet high, and beyond that was an honest-to-goodness woods right in Kansas City, KS.

My best guess is that my granddad died in 1961. He was in his late seventies, but I thought that he must be much younger than that. It never occurred to me that he could be as much as fifteen years older than his wife.

It was not this bad.
It was not this bad.

My memories of Henry are scant. I recall that on the one occasion that he fixed breakfast for me he put way too much pepper on the eggs. I can visualize his face, but I cannot picture him doing anything except sitting in a chair.

My guess is that Henry had two brothers and two sisters. For as long as I knew them Mike, Mary, and Helen lived together in a house in KC KS. My parents made it clear to me that I was not named after this Mike, whom my dad considered a layabout. Maybe that is why they called me Mickey. The other brother Vic lived in Nevada (neh VAY dah), MO. I think that we drove down to visit with him once.

I think that both of my grandparents at one time worked in the meat packing industry. Henry might have been a meat inspector.

My dad told me only three anecdotes about his father. He said that his mother would often need to go the tavern and drag him home for dinner. I never saw him drunk, but he was apparently an alcoholic.

Not many Eskimos in Albert Lea.
Not many Eskimos in Albert Lea.

The second story concerned Henry’s job. He was apparently offered a big promotion at a time during the depression that the family really needed the money. It would require him to move to Albert Lea, MN. He declined the offer immediately because he was “no g.d. Eskimo”.

The last one involved our family’s legendary mechanical prowess. The (coal?) burner in the basement was on the fritz. Henry got a big wrench and went down to fix it. The next hour or so was filled with curses wafting up from the basement. Then there were repeated loud crashes of metal on metal. Henry came upstairs and sat down. The burner was in shambles.

I know almost nothing about the Wavada family tree, but someone in Spokane has researched it. There are two Wavada enclaves that I know of. One is in Wichita, the other in Spokane. They both pronounce the name WAVE-uh-day. I tell people that the name is probably French. My dad told me that the family came to the U.S. from Alsace via Marseilles.

WH I and II fought for the US. WH III (above) fought for white supremacy (and won).
WH I and II fought for the US. WH III (above) fought for white supremacy (and won).

I know even less about Hazel’s family. Her maiden name was Cox. My dad told me that they were Scots-Irish who had been in America for generations. Grandmom informed me that we were related to Wade Hampton I, II, and III. I also heard that we were related to Mad Anthony Wayne, but I am pretty sure that that was a mixup. In any case if I am ever a guest on Finding Your Roots, Henry Louis Gates Jr. will let me know exactly how many slaves they owned. It was a lot!

We did visit some of Hazel’s relatives once in, I think, Lawrence, KS. I spent most of the time playing with their big dog. I remember that one of the daughters, who was a few years older than I was, showed us a painting that she had done. It just looked like globs of paint, but I make no claim to even average artistic judgment.

When Henry died, Hazel moved to an apartment in KC MO. We went to visit her fairly often. She always had hard candy for the kids and offered us a Coke. Our excitement diminished when we found out that “Coke” actually meant 7-Up. To people in KC “coke” is (or at least was) is a generic word for carbonated soft drink.

She somehow got a dachshund named Tippy. His breeding name was Donnys Perry von Kirsch. She eventually gave him to us.

Hazel did not drive. She liked to come visit us. She would usually persuade my dad to “go snooping”, which meant to drive to specific addresses of people whom she knew in order to see what kind of house they lived in.

My dad informed me long after the fact that when Hazel was in her eighties, she disappeared for a while. My cousin Margaret Anne tracked her down. That is all that I know about this incident.

Vic Jr. his wife Theresa (who died in 2017), and two of their kids.
Vic Jr. his wife Theresa (who died in 2017), and two of their kids.

My dad had two brothers. The oldest brother, Vic, and his wife Margaret lived in Trenton, MO. They had four kids, all younger than I am: Charlie, Margaret Anne (Deaver), Vic Jr., and Cathy (Wisor). I probably spent more time with them at their dad’s funeral in 2009 and my dad’s funeral than I did during the twenty-two years that I lived in Kansas City. I did not know Cathy, who is much younger than I am, at all.

The other brother, whose baptismal name was Henry, was also older than my dad. Everyone called him Joe. He was a Benedictine monk, who monastic name was Fr. Vincent. We all called him Father Joe. He died in 1990.

He was a major influence on my life. I will devote at least one blog entry to him and link it here when it is done.

All three brothers went to high school at Maur Hill, a Benedictine school in Atchison, KS. This is how my dad explained to me how three boys from Rosedale attended a private high school during the depression. Hazel somehow struck an agreement with the Benedictines that, if one of the boys became a Benedictine priest, the monks will educate all three. Vic got as far as selecting a monastic name (Hildebrand, the birth name of Pope Gregory VII, a canonized saint who, although not a monk himself, led the monastic “reform” movement in its seizure of the papacy in the eleventh century). However, Vic somehow got out of this obligation, and Joe was ordained as a Benedictine priest. I don’t know any details.

I had a jacket just like the one that Fr. Edwin is wearing.
I had a jacket just like the one that Fr. Edwin is wearing.

My dad worked with Fr. Edwin Watson (who died in 1999) for many years on promotional materials and funding campaigns for Maur Hill. In 2003 Maur Hill merged with Mount St. Scholastica Academy. The new school is called Maur Hill-Mount Academy.