Thank you all for being here today to celebrate the life of Bill Gartner. I’m Tricia, his step-daughter, But to Bill I was his daughter. And he may have been my step Father, but to me he was my dad. As my sister, Theresa said, when he married our mom, we became his kids. That’s the kind of generous and loving man he was. Having already raised two sons with his first wife, Trudy, he was going to do it all again, and he welcomed us with open arms.  Not to say the transition didn’t have its challenges. My brother Frank, 12 at the time wasn’t ready for a second dad, but as he said later, what I got wasn’t a second dad, but A dad, a part of our family that had been missing. He made us feel loved and safe, and added a richness to our lives that hadn’t been there before. So thank you, Fred and Ivan, for sharing your dad with us. He is one of the greatest blessings in our lives.

 

As a child, I was fascinated with Bill. He had lived all over the world; his 22 year career in the Army had given him the opportunity to live in Germany, Italy, and Japan, and he has such beautiful things from all those places.  Not long after he married my mom, he gave me an intricately carved wooden jewelry box he had gotten in Okinawa; it was the most beautiful thing I had ever owned. He listened to music I had never heard before: Mozart, Bach, Schubert, Wagner…and the operas-he introduced me to Puccini. I was also fascinated, and sometimes grossed out by the strange food he ate. Head cheese, pickled herring and pickled lamb’s tongue, which I am convinced he consumed the latter purely for the shock factor. His limburger cheese had the aroma of smelly socks, so he was made to eat that in the garage.

I think he was excited to finally have daughters. When I turned thirteen, I wanted to have a slumber party, something which my mom wanted no part of. But Bill said he’d take care of everything, and bless his heart, he put great effort into it. The party was a success, and went off without a hitch, almost.  He had a little trouble baking the frozen mini pizzas, baking them cheese side down.  Bill was an extremely smart man, however sometimes things would get the best of him. I’ll always remember the time the garbage disposal got the best of him. It was clogged, and after tinkering with it for a while, he turned it on, convinced it was fixed. As bits of food and water exploded out of the sink, my mom became a bit frantic. But Bill kept his cool, proclaiming he had it all under control.

But, in all honesty, he was very smart.  His grandson Stefan said he’ll always remember his grandfathers’ extensive knowledge about what seemed like everything. He was an educated man, and earned both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, but was also very well-read. He was always reading something.  And he was always up for a great discussion about anything, asked a lot of questions, and was great for playing devil’s advocate. His grand-daughter Christine said that he brought our family closer together with his outrageous dinner discussion and his ability to make us think outside the box.

Bill also believed in hard work, a lesson he wanted to instill in his children. And as much as he valued hard work, he also loved a lush, green lawn. When he bought his first house in Aurora, CO, he had 14 tons of cow manure delivered. Fred and I van were in charge of spreading and rote-tilling this into the hard clay. Bill then planted the grass seeds.  This was also how they meth their neighbors when they all came out to complain about the smell. It ended well, as they all became life-long friends. After the grass was in, Fred and Ivan were given the job of digging a well, which they did with a manual post-hole digger and lots of extensions. They dug a 22 ft well, and hit lots of water. It turned out so well that Bill offered their well-digging serviced to all the neighbors. From what I was told, Bill’s lawn was the envy of the neighborhood.

 

Bill was also an army man through and through. That house with the great lawn was located right by Fitzsimmons Army Medical center, and he required Fred and Ivan to salute the flag each day as it was raised in the morning and lowered in the evening. And like any army man, he was meticulously neat and tidy. Fred and Ivan had the responsibility of shining his army shoes and brass every Saturday.  Bill would always tip the barber an extra quarter before his boys got their haircut, telling the barber that no matter what he boys asked for they were to get crew cuts or flat tops. His attention to detail wasn’t missed on packing for family trips either. Whether it was the annual trip to Yosemite with Fred and Ivan, or a cross- country trip to Colorado from Vermont with Theresa, Frankie and I , he always loaded and unloaded the trunk at least 4 times to get it just right. And Bill was a punctual man…to an extreme. If we weren’t 15 minutes early, we were late.

Most of all, Bill was a very Kind, thoughtful and caring man. I have gotten countless compliments throughout my life that attest to this.  Most recently, Fred told me that Concordia, the retirement community where he lived, used his apartment as a show apartment. Bill said it would cost them a quarter every time they showed it.  At the end of every month, he would use those quarters to buy ice cream for the staff and residents.  When Bill was stationed in Germany, he met his first wife and helped her family relocate to West Germany when the wall between East and West Germany was being built. This goes beyond kindness…it also showed tremendous courage.

As you all know Bill had a passion for travel. He shared this passion with my mother and gave her the world, literally and figuratively.  They travelled the world extensively, and especially loved travelling by boat. I can’t even tell you how many cruises they went on.  As my sister Theresa said, most people can count on 2 hands the placed they’ve been; they could count on two hands, maybe even one, the placed they hadn’t been.  Even after my mom’s passing, he continued to travel. He passed away on the last day of his favorite cruise, on his favorite boat, on the open sea, his favorite place. He couldn’t have planned a more appropriate exit.

 

We’ll miss you so much, but find peace that you lived your life so well.