Chris Hansen’s blog

I just got a call from my brother. My Uncle Dick passed away last night, peacefully. When he didn’t stir this morning my brother went into his flat (my uncle lived in the granny flat in the basement of my brother’s house) and my uncle was sitting in the chair in his bedroom with the blood pressure cuff around his arm. I suspect he was having a heart attack and died as he was taking his blood pressure. We are unsure of the funeral date at the moment but I am hoping the end of next week.

Dick was 79 years old, my mother’s younger brother, and unmarried. He was a musician by avocation, and a bookkeeper by trade. He’d served in the Coast Guard in the mid to late 1940’s, and then went to Boston University, where he got a degree in music. He kept the books for a number of companies, but mostly he worked for a seafood wholesaler in Ipswich, Massachusetts. He was an avid golfer, and followed it very closely for many years after he stopped playing. He was a church organist for many years at St. Paul’s in South Hamilton. He was also a member of the poker club that John Updike held at his house in Ipswich. I don’t expect to see Updike at the funeral, as Dick hadn’t been able to make the game for years, but I think Dick had signed copies of all the books that Updike had written.

When I was last in Marblehead, in December, we bought him a set of speakers since the ones he had weren’t very good. He was tickled pink (he wasn’t very good at computers and thought there was something wrong with his computer rather than the speakers). Every afternoon, when the sun was over the yardarm, I’d go downstairs and have a drink with him and talk about the family. Now I am the oldest of my grandparents’ four grandchildren and, I guess, the “patriarch” of that branch of the family. I suspect that he had a lot of stuff that would be of interest to a family geneologist, and he left me all his books and computer equipment, so I may have a bit more material to chew over.

When I was growing up, it was said that I closely resembled him–now, when I look in the mirror, my dad looks back at me.

Anyway, we don’t yet know when the funeral will be. I would expect Friday. so I shall have to take compassionate leave to go over there. Plus, I’ll have to get a plane ticket at the last minute.

I have two old pictures of him. This first one is Dick standing with my grandmother in the front yard of the old house in Hamilton.

He looks fetching in his Coast Guard uniform. The second one is of my grandfather with his three children. My mother is on the right, my Uncle Donald on the left, and Dick standing right in front of my grandfather.

He will be missed. When I talked to my brother, he was still a bit stunned; I don’t think it’s settled in yet. I’m sure my sister is quite broken up. I am glad that he didn’t suffer at the end, and didn’t linger on in a nursing home.

The good news is that, just yesterday, my brother and sister-in-law came to a divorce settlement. Unfortunately, it doesn’t include my sister-in-law being brought to book for her embezzlement, forgery, and fraud around my father’s estate, apparently. But, Harold doesn’t seem to be excessively unhappy about it. In fact, I think he’s glad to be shut of it all. He told my uncle last night, and it seems that he was as happy as Harold, maybe even happier. They were planning a big party to celebrate.

So, time marches on, and another good man has left us. May he rest in peace, and rise in glory.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 28th, 2008 at 04:02 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.