Some of what I posted on Facebook this past Monday, November 13, which is my Dad’s feast day, I repost here with additional stories, photos, and music which I composed for my Dad over the years. Living in a head/chest cold induced fog prevented me from doing this earlier.
Today, is the feast day of my Dad, Walter Wagner. He is the greatest man I have ever known. Extremely intelligent, he was also extremely humble. He never sought to be first, but always served others first. He did not seek great honors or prestige, though many honored him. He created important math formulas still used in the railroad industry today to determine the stopping distance of a train that are accurate to + or – five feet, especially important in cases when a train has struck a vehicle on the train tracks. Though he copyrighted these formulas, he never made a dime from them, attributing them all to the Holy Spirit who was the real author of those formulas to be used for the common good of all humanity. Incredibly honest, living a life of service to all, especially to my Mom, myself and my siblings, Dad rarely thought about himself.
Dad is the second child of Polish immigrants to the United States. His father, Andrew Wojnar, immigrated from Poland when he was 16 years old, having enough money to travel in the steerage of a ship. His mom, Katherine, immigrated to the United States at, I believe, the age of three years with her family. The marriage between my paternal grandparents was, as was the custom at the time, arranged between my grandfather and my great-grandfather.
They initially lived in Harrisburg, PA, but later, my grandfather built the brick home in which they lived on top of a hill (we would call it a mountain in Minnesota) in Turtle Creek, PA. The house overlooked a valley and the Westinghouse Air Brake Factory at which my grandfather worked, and later, my Dad worked. In order to make ends meet, my grandmother would walk down the hill to scrub the floors of the bars in Turtle Creek after closing. Dad would often go down and help her so that she could get home earlier. While in high school, Dad would set up pins at the local bowling alley. He always kept a bowling pin at the ready to kill the cat size rats that use to gather back around the pins. He said when a bowling ball would hit a particular spot in the alley, the rats would go scurrying.
Dad was a star fullback on the high school football team, good enough to be offered a semester tuition at Ohio Northern University. However, he worked alongside his father at the Air Brake factory for three years after graduating from high school to earn enough money to pay for the second semester of college. He initially wanted to be a doctor, but found his niche in mechanical engineering. He played one semester of football at Ohio Northern, but thought the coach had no concern for the safety of his fellow teammates. He was an excellent baseball player and for the remainder of his years at Ohio Northern was the catcher for the baseball team. Catchers mitts back then, are not the mitts of today, so after many games he would have to ice his left hand to get the swelling down. The fingers of his right hand were sprained so often that he was not able to straighten some of the fingers out. To earn extra money on the weekends, he would help do chores for a local farmer, we knew as Pop Cronbaugh.
Pop was a faithful, church going Methodist. At that time, there was a lot of animosity between the different Christian denominations still living the horrific wars from the Reformation. Contrary to that inter-religious hate were Pop and Dad, who had great respect for one another and for their respective religious faith traditions. Pop would pick Dad up on a Friday night, Dad would work all day Saturday for Pop doing whatever chores needed to be done. Pop would drive Dad to Mass on Sunday mornings and then go to his own Church services. He would pick Dad up from Mass, they would go back to the farm, and a wonderful meal and then Pop would drive Dad back to Ohio Northern.
Dad graduated from Ohio Northern with a degree in mechanical engineering. However, the hurdle he had to get over at that time, was extreme religious prejudice in American industry toward Catholics. Many Catholics, especially Polish Catholics, would never get jobs like being a mechanical engineer in American industry because of their religious. There was a prejudice against Polish immigrants in Pennsylvania at that time, which made matters all the more difficult for Dad to get a mechanical engineering job. My grandfather Andrew had a solution for my Dad. He said to Dad in Polish, “Don’t be a damn fool. Change your last name to sound more Protestant and German.” So Dad has his last name legally changed from Wojnar to Wagner. I don’t think corporate knew he was Catholic until 1960 when it was published in the St Paul Pioneer Press that Dad and Mom were head of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine in the Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis. They were great friends of Father Raymond Lucker, who would later be bishop of the New Ulm Diocese.
When World War II began, like many men, Dad tried to enlist in the armed forces. He was rejected because of his eyesight. However, as a mechanical engineer, the Coast Guard and Navy used his expertise as a civilian mechanical engineer in testing mine sweepers in the harbors on the East Coast. Dad was also active in the Civil Defense Corps.
Following the war, through the matchmaking schemes of mutual friends, Dad and Mom met. By this time, Dad had been transferred to the Chicago office of Westinghouse Air Brake, so it was a long distanced courtship. He knew she was his soul mate. It would write her constantly from Chicago, sending her little poems from time to time. It was when he wrote in a letter that he had gone to Mass on some particular Marian feast day, that Mom knew for sure that he would be her husband. Mom’s faith was very special to her.
Since both her mom and her dad had died, Mom’s parish priest, Father Conglin, on a promise to Mom’s dad, took it upon himself to screen potential husbands for my Mom. Dad passed the stern scrutiny of Father Conglin, and so they married on June 11, 1949. Of course, Mom had to pass the scrutiny of my paternal grandmother, Katherine. She knew that Mom was the one, because he brought Mom home to meet his parents. Dad never brought dates home to meet his parents.
With Dad working in Chicago, Mom and Dad relocated to an apartment on South Shore Drive in Chicago following their wedding. Soon, Mom was pregnant with my brother, Bill. It was a very tough birth at which my Mom nearly died giving birth to Bill. Dad never left the hospital, spending a great deal of time in the hospital chapel praying for both his wife and his unborn son. Bill was born, and Mom recovered from the birth.
Two years later, I was born. I have very distinct memories as an infant coming home to the apartment on South Shore Drive. I remember a number of people gathering in the Burress’ apartment below my folks, and being passed around from adult to adult. I was not very pleased about it all, especially when I was passed to Harold Buress, who reeked of cigarette smoke and stale beer. Mom came to my rescue and calmed me down. As a small child, I got to know Harold Burress very well. He was a very kind and gentle man. I guess that I just could not stand the smell of cigarettes and stale beer (come to think of it, I still don’t like the smells of either to this day).
One other infant memory was my Dad getting up and lulling me back to sleep in the middle of the night. As he softly patted me on the back, he would hum this little melody over and over and over again. I remember that little two measure motif, and made it into a song for Dad. Dad also loved to Polka, so I composed it into a dance called a Galop, the predecessor of the Polka in memory of my Dad.
The picture above was rather prophetic. What I lacked in mathematical ability I excelled at in music. In the second grade I started to learn how to play the piano. It was the one thing I loved to do. Dad was there at all the piano recitals, and when I started to play French Horn, he was there for all the band concerts. He supported me pursuing a degree in music, whether it seemed like a good career move or not (my guidance counselor in high school tried his very most to talk me out of pursuing music). Dad loved to listen to me and my sister, Mary Ruth, play piano.
It was during the days that I had the wonderful opportunity to accompany Dad on one of his business trips in the Northern part of Minnesota. Dad’s company provided air brakes for the trains bringing iron ore to the docks in Duluth and Silver Bay. It was on this trip that I witnessed the respect Dad showed those he served. In the morning, we met with the President of a railroad company, enjoyed lunch with him, and in the afternoon, Dad took off his business suit, put on coveralls and crawled under trains with mechanics maintaining the trains. He treated everyone from the president of the company to the mechanics covered in grease and dirt with the same dignity and respect.
For the first two years of college, one of the most major music classes I had was Music theory. In that class we not only analyzed music scores, but we were also required to compose music. The song, below, is one of the very first songs I composed back in 1970. I composed it and gave it to my Dad as a present on his birthday.
Upon meeting Ruthie, the only thing on my bucket list for life was to marry Ruthie. Composing music as a living quickly went away. Dreams of living in an unheated garret, dying from consumption, and my music finally being recognized as genius was something only reserved for a Puccini opera. As a result, I started to take classes in education so I graduated with a teaching degree. This added another semester on to college, so instead of graduating in June, I graduated in December. And two weeks after graduation, Ruthie and I were married at St Bridget of Sweden Catholic Church in Lindstrom, Minnesota.
Ruthie and I got married on December 27th so the church was bedecked in Christmas decorations. I composed a special song for our wedding, and arranged all the rest of the music for the wedding. Dad was in the front row recording the music of the wedding on a cassette recorder. Over the years, the cassette of music from our wedding was lost. I lost the original score for the song I composed, but I never forgot the melody. In 2016, I recomposed the song just for piano.
As always, Dad was always there if Ruthie and I needed him. Both Ruthie’s and my family gave us a place to live when we were homeless. They assisted us to cover closing fees on our house. Babysat the kids when Ruthie was giving birth to Meg and Beth. In fact, I remember Dad watching Andy, Luke, and Meg when Ruthie gave birth to Beth. Dad liked very strong coffee. To stretch our food budget, I had a habit of making weaker coffee. I remember making some in the morning for Dad, and after taking a sip, he said, “Just what is this piss? Let me make us some real coffee.” Then he made coffee so strong you could stand a fork up in it.
How can a son ever give back to a parent for everything the parent has done for them? I remember asking Dad what he wanted as a gift on his birthday. His answer was always, “Good kids.”
There was one time I deeply disappointed my Dad. He made me promise that I would not start smoking until I was 21 years old. I agreed. Through weakness, peer pressure, a work environment in which everyone smoked, I started smoking. Dad caught me smoking and the look of disappointment on his face almost crushed me. All he said was that I betrayed his trust in me. I would have far rather him hitting me with a baseball bat than saying that to me. The next day I begged him to forgive me and I promised I would, from that time forward, be true to my word. He did forgave me and I made sure never to ever disappointment him every again.
So again, what do you give somebody like my Mom and Dad who sacrificed so much for me? All I could do was compose a song to express my gratitude. I composed this song for my Mom and Dad, initially as a Psalm setting for them, but later I turned that psalm setting into a piano song.
I think one of the greatest sorrows in Dad’s life was the death of my sister, Mary Ruth, in 1997. At the age of 16 years, Mary began to have trouble with her health. Doctors struggled to figure out what it was ailing her. There were plenty of misdiagnoses until they discovered she suffered from Crohn’s disease. There was not treatment for Crohn’s at that time, except to surgically remove parts of the small intestine that were diseased. Up to the time when Mary died at the age of 42 years, she had countless surgeries. Since the disease prevented her from digesting the food she ate, she had to find nourishment through hyperalimentation, essentially broken down food fed through a catheter. Dad would prepare the equipment every night, prepare the bags of food every night and ready to assist my sister whenever she had a need. We all spent long hours in surgery waiting rooms, sometimes six hours, as they did surgery on Mary. But Dad often stayed with Mary all the way through the night to be present to her whenever she would awaken. I think a part of Dad died when Mary died. Mom and Dad, Ruthie, Meg, Beth, Luke and I were there with her at her death. I remember him mentioning that when she took her last breath, the pain on her face was replaced by a smile. I thought of Dad at that moment when I composed this song.
The well-being of others was always more important to Dad. Is it any wonder that all the relatives would talk to Dad when they sought out wisdom? He was the seat of wisdom in our family. When I think of myself in comparison to Dad, the quote of John the Baptist in John’s Gospel comes to mind. When John was asked his relationship with Jesus, John responded that he was not even worthy to tie the laces on Jesus’ sandals. I have struggled my whole life through to live the values that Dad lived so fully. As I have recounted a number of times, when I was sitting next to Dad’s lifeless body, I thought the Wisdom figure of the family had died, and that torch was passed to me. Followed by the thought, “If people come to me for wisdom, they are shit out of luck.” Years later, I was extremely moved by words Dad spoken to my cousin, Kathy. He told her, “Bob is a copy of me.” In spite of what I might think of myself, Dad apparently believed I am his copy.
When Dad died, I preached his funeral, as I did my sister’s funeral, my Mom’s funeral, and my brother’s funeral. It was my last act of love for these important people who loved and shaped me. There is a beautiful poem written by Edwina Gately that I think best describes Dad’s passing from this life to the fullness of God’s love in Heaven.
It is time to go.
I can smell it.
Breathe it
Touch it.
And something in me
Trembles.
I will not cry.
Only sit bewildered.
Brave and helpless
That it is time.
Time to go.
Time to step out
Of the world
I shaped and watched
Become.
Time to let go
Of the status and
The admiration.
Time to go.
To turn my back
On a life that throbs
With my vigor
And a spirit
That soared
Through my tears.
Time to go
From all I am
To all I have
Not yet become.
“Letting Go” From Edwina Gateley, There Was No Path So I Trod One (1996, 2013)
I always thought the best song that could describe my Dad and his life of service to others would have to be heroic in song and in structure. As I was composing songs for the song cycle, Songs of the Servant, I composed this song Fantasia in B Major as that song.
While I miss my Dad greatly, I don’t miss him because he has never left me. I haven’t visited his grave site in years, not out of disrespect or laziness, but because my Dad remains by my side as much as he did when he was alive in a body. So Happy Feast Day, Dad! You will always remain the greatest man I have ever known.
If any of the music in this blog interests you, you can find all the songs I have composed on YouTube (costs you not a cent), on streaming services like Pandora etc and for sale on Amazon Music and iTunes. The music is found under the name Robert Charles Wagner (It’s a classical music thing).
