Painting a picture of Mom

Catherine Rynkiewicz, 1931-2025

Catie Rynkiewicz in her art studio is surrounded by her work, including a portrait of her husband, Walter.

Every so often, Mom asked when I would start painting again. I had studied art through my freshman year in college, which convinced me that writing was an easier mess to clean up than drafting or painting. But Catie Rynkiewicz adopted art late in life like her mother, Ethyl van Hercke, who was known for watercolors documenting metro Milwaukee's vanishing farmscape. So Catie reasonably could expect me to come back around to art.

Her apartment's art studio overlooked a big expanse of windows with a view of the county zoo. The space seemed too big for one person, especially as her vision failed and she moved in pain. But I've watched the sunrise from her couch, and I know why she wouldn't settle for less.

She did not always have so much space. By the time I turned 10, six of us were bursting out of a Cape Cod on 80th Street in Wauwatosa.

Catie always had a sewing nook, crammed like my man-cave closet of an office. Cousin Peg Lazarchic called Mom days ago, sharing a memory of how much she loved the fancy dresses Mom sewed, altered and remade for her. My brother Bob remembered the cowboy outfits she made for the two of us one Halloween. She had a costume too, as our Indian guide.

Women played all roles in Suburban Woman's Club of Wauwatosa children's theater productions, including "King Midas and the Golden Touch" in 1966. The actors are identified as Mrs. George Price, Mrs. Walter Rynkiewicz and Mrs. Paul Pakalski.

Catie sewed costumes for Suburban Woman’s Club of Wauwatosa children's theater productions, and acted in them as well. She ran her lines with me at age 11 when she played the lead as King Midas—in one scene, peel-me-a-grape orders to a servant. She'd bark her line imperiously, "Don't ask questions, just cut." I'd just giggle.

Catie also was on the Milwaukee Rep auxiliary board, publicizing events and attending costume workshops at regional theater conventions. She chaired the auxiliary one year, hosting one of those conventions and serving on the Rep's board of directors. For all their fundraising focus, she missed the backstage drama.

She had been involved in theater since high school: Granddaaughter Evie, as a Wauwatosa East student costumer, found a photo of Catie's own costumes. At Marquette, Catie's roles included Lavinia in T.S. Eliot's "The Cocktail Party." (The Milwaukee Journal noted her "unusual stage presence for an amateur.") Catie remembered all her roles, so when she said she was trying to remember a play, I assumed she was recalling a dream.

Dad's friend Bob Gorske was with us at her bedside, and said he fell for her in "Minna von Barnhelm," an 18th century comedy. As the maid, Catie delivered the play's memorable lines but found the 1952 production forgettable. Later that year, she was cast in Thornton Wilder's "The Skin of Our Teeth" with Marquette debater Walter Rynkiewicz.

Catie's spring 1953 cast photo from "The Cocktail Party" illustrates her fall engagement in the Milwaukee Journal announcement, "Van Herckes Tell of Troth of Daughter."

Marquette's speech students were wrapped up in both drama and new media, meaning television, and she appreciated when I latched onto this novel internet thing, another exploit with one foot in writing and one in design. And when I was cast in the odd church musical, she was in the audience.

These past days, our family has been reliving scenes like these. We are blessed to have all of you with us, helping us, as we think about Catie's artistic legacy, left for us to pursue. For my part, I still have painting ahead of me.

Catherine Rynkiewicz Obituary and Online Memorial (2025)

Legacy.com | Becker Ritter Funeral Home | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Grandpa got a gun

My grandfather was an outdoorsman. Wladislaw hunted in Wisconsin, and perhaps as a teenager in Poland -- pheasant in fall and rabbit in winter. Photos from fishing trips show his prized crappie catches, but no poses have turned up with hunting gear or trophy game. Yet lately Dziadek has been my stalking horse for thinking through the gun-control debate.

He died when I was 3, leaving no tales of tracking deer or nesting in a duck blind. But Walter Jr. and I did the things he did with Walter Sr.: fishing, camping, woodworking, swearing. Woodworking and swearing have a kind of clumsy connection in my clumsy family: My approach to planning a repair project was what I called "Stare and swear." It took years before my wife would buy me power tools because she did not want to encourage the cursing. This all must have started in the family basement when working with hammer and nails revealed the family's lack of hand-eye coordination. Dad there taught me most of what I retained in Polish, the curse words first. Psia krew. Son of a bitch.

My father disposed of Grandpa's rifles 50 years ago. Dad had no taste for hunting. Deer season brought regular news reports about hunters shooting each other. The thought alone would have made Dad queasy. North Woods hunters wore bright-orange jackets to ward off friendly fire. I still cannot imagine a serious sportsman dressing in camouflage.

President Obama we now know goes skeet shooting at Camp David. I've gone skeet shooting at Camp Long Lake. The Boy Scout summer camp established on former Pabst family property in Fond du Lac County, about 15 miles from where Walter Sr. first settled in Wisconsin. I tried to anticipate the arc of clay targets sailing across the central Wisconsin marsh, and imagined my grandfather watching the flight of ducks.

Camp Long Lake had a large, sunny field for archery, where you could touch an arrow's metal tip with your thumb and feel its implicit danger: This was not the suction cup of a child's toy. Drawing a bow took a steady finger-hold on a taut string. Tension defined the sport.

Yet the archery range had nothing on stress compared to the firearms range, a long covered deck set against a hilly backstop. A newsprint National Rifle Association regulation target was the size of a vinyl 45 but with a tiny bull's-eye, demanding more rigor and precision than the archery range. A breech-loading rifle commanded respect. Its recoil assured it. Today's assault-style rifle gives not as much a kick as as a buffered bounce, so I understand its attraction for today's hunters. But it gives pause that semi-automatic fire makes for faster sport and that for the shooters, weapons are losing their sting.

Not so long ago, preteens were instructed in pistol fire. They still are of course, but in the make-believe world of video games. Minors may have access to firearms, but rarely to firearms training. I've heard police tell about gang-bangers' sloppy, comic-book firing style, and a recent "This American Life" report seemed to suggest that the only thing keeping gang warfare from spiraling out of control is that gang-bangers are such bad shots. Scouting locked away firearms at the range. Practice was buttoned down as well, with adult supervision instead of arcade fire or peer initiation. Camp counselors monitored the range closely, checked our protective headgear and showed us a two-handed grip, not the moving draw of Grand Theft Auto. The squeeze of a trigger had to be so slow that the discharge would be startling. Attention must be paid.

In today's gun-control debate, firearms knowledge is missing in action. When I helped organize a journalism convention, I defended the NRA's right to exhibit alongside computer vendors and wire services. What's the harm in education? Reporters should know a .32 from a 30-'06. Sadly, the NRA showed up without a journalist's guide to guns. Its interest was solely to mount a Second Amendment political defense. The bearing of arms was not demystified but fetishized.

Only one of my other siblings was with me to bounce on Grandpa's knee, and last year we sorted through ledgers and other items from his tailor shop. They included a cheap steel revolver that even in its disassembled state looked likely to turn a bad situation worse. "The Defender" was a token robbery defense, a misfire waiting to happen. Walter Sr. eventually made a flight to safety and a savings-and-loan job.

I grew up watching a TV program about "The Other 98" percent of teens who weren't juvenile delinquents. (Now the phrase means something else.) Yet a more potent armed threat was suggested during the commercial breaks, when the Civil Defense authority offered tips on surviving nuclear fallout. A CD how-to pamphlet on fallout shelters arrived in the mail, illustrated with a child calmly reclining against cinderblock reinforcements, studying for a class that likely would never come back in session. Against the magnitude of the nuclear threat, the build-your-own bunker idea had a short half-life. The urban arms race posed a vaguely similar mismatch. Black Panthers took to street patrol till the police developed their own paramilitary tactics. Weapons raised the stakes. They did not improve the odds.

Dziadek was a taciturn man, a bit of a mystery even to his son. I had to make up my own mind on guns, and I'm not sure he would agree with my conclusions. Chicago is safer with a gun ban in place, and would be safer were it better enforced. Firearms have their place in hunting season, and should be the most regulated part of the hunt. Guns should be built for safety as well as reliability, with trigger locks and without high-capacity clips. States should require gun owners to prove they can use them. Marksmanship should be taught by parents or police or church groups, not street gangs.

Walter Sr. was a soldier, whose World War I souvenirs included a wallet grazed by a bullet. Either his sweetheart's photo was his shield, or he just nearly got, well, outflanked. A less fortunate Army buddy returned to Chicago shell-shocked, and called on Wladislaw to expedite veterans benefits after he decamped from my neighborhood to a sanatorium in Poland. He was under no illusions about arms fire at close range. We see arms from a safer distance, yet our views are not nearly as grounded. We think we can secure large public buildings with a few security guards, defuse bar fights with concealed-carry revolvers, or build an ammo cache for a last stand against drones and bunker busters. What would Dziadek say? Psia krew.

Resolutions forgiven and forgotten

"Forgive yourself." There's usually a story behind morning-after advice like that, but it was a mystery to me. I woke for my morning run, poked my head out the door and there it was, graffiti on my parkway planter.

"Forgive yourself." One thing's clear: At least one tagger forgives himself for vandalism. These words have been appearing on Chicago buildings and sidewalks for at least a year.

From its placement, this tag seemed aimed at people leaving the tavern next door. I could have told the tagger that the bar's clientele needed no prompting to forgive themselves for overindulgence. I would have just pointed out the vomit behind the fence. It isn't obvious when frozen.

But I wasn't asked. The tagger thinks it's better to ask forgiveness than to beg permission. So this editor started work early, not with a blue pencil but with a can of Goof-Off Graffiti Remover. Every Chicago home should have a supply.

The graffiti soon was gone, but the advice left traces all the way to the office. "Forgive yourself." I must have been the last person in Chicago to get that memo. The woman next to me on the L swatted me with her backpack, then stood back while I tried to unravel her umbrella snagged on my coat. I missed my stop. She forgave herself.

"Forgive yourself." Still, the tagger is on to something. Every year about this time I'm making resolutions not to be so selfish, so self-destructive, so imperfect. Why don't I just forgive myself? It's not as if the New Year's list is going to last till Three Kings Day.

We all can forgive ourselves for making resolutions that don't stick. We all want to make big changes, but can marshal only modest resources. In business we learn that time, resources and scope will limit any project. If we give ourselves a week to make changes, and the budget of, say, a health-club membership, we're only committing to changes around the margins. Hardly enough for changes around the waistline.

So I'm making realistic changes this year. Like that resolution to try not to win every argument. My partner and I are too competitive. We both want to win, so we take a 90 second change and hash over it all night. Getting in one final dig and charging out the door gets me nowhere. I might forgive myself, but eventually I have to come back home and beg.

Here's how I plan to proceed, and you may want to consider this strategy yourself: Forgive others. Don't insist on the last word. Concede a small point and see where it leads you.

There are plenty of reasons to blame yourself for putting on the extra pounds. Forgive your partner his taste for burgers and fries, and you start to address why you can't make a diet stick. Soon you will find an approach you can both live with.

Forgive your alderman and your congressman for trying to deliver more than your taxes will pay for. They'll stop promising the moon for once. It could spark a revolution in politics.

Will this approach help you save the world? No, but it give your personal plan a scope that's both broader and more realistic. You cannot change what you cannot see. Giving others some slack helps you think about their limitations, about how they compare to your own, and how you can move both in a better direction.

It's an approach that works for me. If you find it unrealistic, forgive me.

Walter P. Rynkiewicz, 1930-2011

Walter P. Rynkiewicz, of Elm Grove, Wis., a respected corporate lawyer in Milwaukee for more than four decades, died peacefully June 7 at Aurora VNA Zilber Family Hospice, Wauwatosa. He was 80.

"He was an attorney and a man of the highest integrity," said James W. Mohr of Hartford, Wis, at one time a fellow lawyer with Mr. Rynkiewicz at Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek. Mr. Rynkiewicz worked at the Milwaukee law firm from 1957 to 2005. "In a profession where integrity was not a long suit for a lot of people, everything he did he did honestly and forthrightly," Mr. Mohr said. "He was one of those people you could trust with anything.

"He was also very compassionate," Mr. Mohr said. "He took people's legal problems and handled them as is they were those of his closest friend or family member. He was always very empathetic about every problem. And of course he was very skillful. He knew estate planning, he knew business law and had enormous respect among people who worked with him. I referred friends to him, I sent clients to him, and knew they would be represented fairly, well, compassionately and honestly."

Mr. Rynkiewicz specialized in mergers and acquisitions during a time that greatly expanded options for small business owners. He was involved in many of the acquisitions of Universal Foods (now Sensient Technologies Corp.), whose chairman John L. Murray died April 18. Mergers included the sale of Thorp Finance Corp. to ITT Financial in 1965 and Pfister & Vogel Tanning Co. to Beatrice Foods in 1971.

"Walter and I were very close friends for nearly 60 years," said Robert Gorske, retired Vice president, General Counsel, and Board Member of Wisconsin Electric Power Company (WeEnergies). "We were law School classmates, associates with the same law firm, and near neighbors in Elm Grove and in Arizona. I was always in awe of Walter's ability to take very complex legal problems and to make them look easy. He will be missed by many."

Mr. Rynkiewicz chaired the State Bar of Wisconsin business law section from 1985 to 1987, and from 1986 through 1990 a state bar subcommittee to revise merger laws.

"Walter was a terrific lawyer and cut across many fields," said Robert LeMense, another Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek colleague. "He wasn't a tax specialist but sure knew a lot of tax stuff. He knew a lot about business, not only the law but a lot of the internal operations. If you said, 'Can you help me with this?' he would, and he would think of things you wouldn't think of. It just came across that he was one smart guy."

Mr. Rynkiewicz also was a director of several local companies he represented, including Price Erecting Co. in Wauwatosa, and Merit Gear Corp. in Antigo. Other clients he served were Cleaver-Brooks in Milwaukee, Heritage Mutual Insurance in Sheboygan, Stoelting in Kiel and Applied Power Inc. in Butler.

"Walter served on the board of directors of companies a lot more important than our little company," said James Ziperski, an attorney for Schwerman Trucking Co. in Milwaukee and a client of Mr. Rynkiewicz. "He was 200 percent in representing us all the time. He was everything we could ask for. When I had a question on corporate law I would turn to Walter and he always came up with the answer. If he didn't have the answer he got the answer, and it was always right. He was as good as they come."

For almost two decades Mr. Rynkiewicz was a director and officer of the Layton Art Collection and Layton School of Art trusts, which fund scholarships and lectures at Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD), Milwaukee Art Museum, Marquette University, Lawrence University, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Mount Mary College, Cardinal Stritch University and Alverno College. MIAD awarded him an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree in 1987.

Since 1965 Mr. Rynkiewicz has lived in Elm Grove, where he served on the Police and Fire Commission and the Building Board. At St. Mary's Visitation Parish he was a lector and cantor active in the Holy Name Society and Potawatomi Area Troop 32 of the Boy Scouts of America. He also was a director of the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, Sullivan Chamber Ensemble and Marquette University Alumni Association.

Mr. Rynkiewicz was born in Milwaukee July 4, 1930, and graduated from West Allis Central High School in 1948. The debate team sparked his interest in the law and music teacher Damon H. Shook cultivated an interest in the arts. A member of American Federation of Musicians Local 8, Mr. Rynkiewicz played trombone and was the longtime announcer at West Allis Concert Band summer performances.

"He won a major science award in high school and I would not have been surprised if he went in a science and mathematics direction," said classmate Claude Kordus, a business consultant in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. "He's very precise and meticulous," Mr. Kordus said. "When he talks he's very measured, and that has value in the law too."

Mr. Rynkiewicz passed up scholarships at the University of Wisconsin and Carroll College to enter Marquette University, studying English and mathematics. There he met Catherine Van Hercke in an American Literature class in 1951. It was love at first sight: He said he immediately moved two rows closer. The two were married in 1954, with Mr. Kordus as best man and Prof. Joseph Schwartz, the American Lit instructor, in the wedding party.

At Marquette Mr. Rynkiewicz earned a Bachelor of Science degree cum laude in 1952 and a law degree in 1955. He was admitted to the Alpha Sigma Nu national Jesuit honor society, as well as Delta Sigma Rho, Sigma Tau Delta and Pi Mu Epsilon. The late Kenosha County Circuit Judge William Zievers was a fellow debate partner.

"Walter worked harder than I did and had a knack for mathematics," Mr. Kordus said. "At one point the question was, was he going to law school or was he going to be an actuary."

Before joining Whyte Hirschboeck & Dudek, Mr. Rynkiewicz was a litigator at Quarles, Spence & Quarles in Milwaukee and Puhr, Peters, Holden & Schlosser in Sheboygan, Wis. "Whenever I heard him speak, he was extremely good," said Alfred A. Heon of Fredonia, a fellow Marquette undergrad who joined him at Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek.

In retirement he and Catherine spent winters in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Other survivors include sons Stephen (Brenda Russell) of Chicago, Robert (Heidi Boehlke) of Minneapolis and Paul (Karen Lindholm-Rynkiewicz) of Wauwatosa, daughter Lynn (Mark) Rakestraw of Rochester, N.Y., and grandchildren Evelyn (Brian Page), Jacob, Emma and Matthew.

The family appreciates the conscientious care of Dr. Paul Ritch and the Hematology/Oncology Clinic staff at Froedtert & The Medical College of Wisconsin.

Visitation is Wednesday, June 15 at St. Mary’s Visitation Church, 1260 Church St. Elm Grove, from 9:30 a.m. until the Mass of Christian Burial at 11 a.m. The family requests memorials to Marquette University Law School, Friends of the Elm Grove Library or St. Mary Visitation Parish.

Rynkiewicz, Walter P.

Of Elm Grove, WI and Scottsdale, AZ, died peacefully June 7 at age 80. Beloved husband of Catherine (nee Van Hercke). Loving father of Stephen (Brenda Russell), Robert (Heidi Boehlke), Paul (Karen Lindholm-Rynkiewicz) and Lynn (Mark) Rakestraw. Proud grandfather of Evelyn (Brian Page), Jacob, Emma and Matthew. Walter was an attorney for 44 years at Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek in Milwaukee, long active in church and civic activities. Visitation Wednesday, June 15, 2011 at St. Mary’s Visitation Church (1260 Church St. Elm Grove) from 9:30AM until the Mass of Christian Burial at 11:00AM. Memorials to Marquette University Law School, Friends of the Elm Grove Library, St. Mary’s Visitation Parish. The family appreciates the conscientious care of Dr. Paul Ritch and the Hematology/Oncology Clinic staff at Froedtert & The Medical College of Wisconsin.

Becker Ritter Funeral Home
14075 West North Ave.
Brookfield, WI 53005
(262) 782- 5330
www.BeckerRitter.com

Father's days: In praise of Walter Rynkiewicz

Walter & Catie Rynkiewicz, 2010

My father Walter died this morning.

I've been spending a lot more time with Dad. The whole family has been hanging out, and we're seeing a few people we haven't seen in years. Dad had a chance to recall past exploits, and indulge in frozen custard, marching-band music and other guilty pleasures. It's a shame this all came to pass because he's been dying.

He entered hospice May 5 and I visited again just yesterday. It looks a bit like a country club: Rooms trimmed in dark wood overlooking a forest preserve. Patio doors lead out to a garden where yellow finches gather around a bird feeder. A beautiful place, but all the residents would rather be someplace else, maybe Dad especially. He kept nursing home visits brief, was uncomfortable at wakes, and resisted hospital trips — even the one that landed him in intensive care. But fate has a way of making us face our fears. He had time to come to grips with his death, and for us to come to grips with his life.

Walter was named for his dad, who owned a tailor shop and helped start a savings-and-loan. Walter Sr. worked long hours and died when his son was 28. Dad found him a bit of a mystery. I was 3 when he died, and Walter's path was potentially even more time-consuming than his father's: He was a young lawyer in hard-driving surroundings. I think he found family life just as important as career, and resolved to make sure I would find him less of a mystery in 25 years.

So I remember doing a lot of things with him. He took his children to his law office to watch the Milwaukee circus parade from the 21st floor, and we went behind the scenes at the park bandshell where he moonlighted as announcer for West Allis summer concerts. (Probably this scene comes to mind because he would be smoking Parliaments and talking about quitting.)

When we joined the Boy Scouts, Dad was one of the fathers who camped with us. We did woodworking projects together using his father's tools; he also passed on his father's Polish curses. Even in my mid-20s, he and Mom were driving to Chicago to see me in church musicals. My girlfriend Brenda was not sure what to make of it at intermission when Mom and Dad were necking.

Perhaps Dad could make time for us because he wasn't as career-driven as his peers. His clients were mostly small businesses, although some like Red Star Yeast grew into big businesses (Universal Foods, then Sensient Technologies). I've been calling his clients and peers because Dad gave me an hospital-room assignment, as the reporter in the family, to prepare his obituary. Peers and clients said he was a smart guy, but also curious about everything and everyone. In the days before consulting was a big business, his clients were picking his brain for ideas on not just their legal strategy but their entire business.

And he empathized with everyone he met. Dad could talk with anyone: Eric Schumann, owner of Merit Gear Corp., recalls a business meeting where in the course of a few minutes Walter engaged in two genial conversations, strikingly similar in tone, with a shabbily dressed woman in the hotel and with Sen. Herb Kohl. Even as a young lawyer working on car insurance claims in central Wisconsin, Walter would quiz farmers about machinery and the price of milk before getting around to taking their deposition. Throughout his career he cared about his clients, and this brought a lot of steady business without a lot of political gamesmanship.

He was good at corporate law, and led the state bar's panel on corporate practice. A large law firm was the place for him, even if he lacked the sharp elbows that seem to go with the territory. Without prompting, fellow lawyers told me about his ethics, as if ethics were unusual among attorneys.

He also took on his share of nonprofit work, notably setting up the Layton art-school scholarships and lectures. And he was able to mix business with pleasure — I recall sailing in central Wisconsin with a client's family. An even keel was Dad's career course, and he could picture himself happily working as a corporate lawyer in a small town. Fortunately I think, Mom couldn't.

No environment could have been stress-free for Dad. He could obsess over not only his work, but also the crowds on the beach, or our safety running the lawnmower. In the past few years when he spent winters in Arizona, I would take him out to the ballgame, but he never really would take to the crowd. Mom told friends about an excursion to Sedona when their tour bus had a flat tire, and he spent the rest of the trip curled in his seat, concerned that the spare might not get him home.

He'd relax talking about his high school and college days, and wrote about them before his cancer was spotted four years ago: Dad presented me and my brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews with three-ring binders. They held an 88 page autobiography, and an assignment: "READ THIS." I used to ask Dad questions about his father that he could never quite answer, and didn't want us in the same position. Not to worry: The stories were already familiar, particularly all the jobs he worked through high school and college.

Who could keep them straight if they weren't written down? Paper boy, messenger, window washer. Clearing catch basins for the City of West Allis, with a municipal snow shovel in my brother Paul's garage as proof. Coaching baseball two summers at Jefferson School, not bad for someone who cooled his heels in right field. Manning the counter at Mechenich's pharmacy, which on occasion filled a doctor's prescription for the drug placebo. Playing trombone in 3rd Ward Milwaukee street parades, scenes out of "Godfather III" with fireworks and dollar bills pinned to a Virgin Mary statue. Tutoring geometry, checking mortgage paperwork. Selling women's shoes and men's ties. Shooting Polaroids at the Auto Show. Cleaning up at the florist before Valentine's Day. Laborer on construction sites, for the mason who poured the patio on his dream house. A third-shift foundry job, oiling cranes and hoists, followed by a class in Elizabethan Literature alongside early rising nuns. With no time to shower.

Dad has been retelling a lot of the stories, especially how he met my mother: in American Literature class at Marquette. Dad says it was love at first sight, and he had to move up four rows for her to take notice. However, the details vary in the telling. The saying in Chicago newsrooms is, "If your mother says she loves you, check it out." She did, and she does, but I'm still trying to nail down their courtship story. One version is that a few months earlier in 1951 Walter was producing a TV show for Channel 4. (I like it that my father worked in new media.) He was recruiting panelists for a game show, and someone pointed out Katie in a crowd. Dad did not follow up on that lead. Maybe it was love at second sight. In the Rynkiewicz line, good ideas take awhile to percolate. As Dad tells it, being rejected would have broken his heart, and I would have felt the same way if Brenda had spurned my advances.

It was strange to write an obit and run the results past the subject. (I should have run the obit past a spell checker first: Dad's a precise editor.) But it pleased me to learn that his good clients were still good friends in retirement. And I enjoyed how he chatted with everyone at the hospital, even knowing the banter was tiring him. A volunteer who distributed communion at the hospital told Mom he was a better person for having talked to him.

When father's days were numbered, he faced them bravely. He wasn't quite quoting Ecclesiastes, but he'd say this is just another phase of his life. Knowing it was the final phase brought the family closer. That's an outcome he wanted, in the same way he would plan for and relish family gatherings on the Fourth of July, his birthday.

I've been reading scripture to plan a memorial service, and although the family bible has no bookmarks in the Book of Wisdom I think he aspired to be a just soul. He taught his sons and daughters that service and work well done were their own reward. St. Paul says each of us shall give an account of himself. Dad left very comfortable with how his story turned out.

Encouragement from the family bible

A typewritten letter to my father is filed in the hardbound bible on his bookshelf (apparently at a random page, 2 Esdras 6). Walter P. Rynkiewicz was 28 when his father Walter V. Rynkiewicz died at 1 p.m. May 25, 1959 at St. Francis Hospital, Milwaukee. Michael J. Dunn was an attorney for whom my father had done legal work.

Milwaukee
May 28, 1959

Dear Wally:

Mrs. Dunn and I were indeed surprised when we learned of the death of your father and she joins me in extending our sympathy to you.

You face a rather unusual experience. A few days ago you were a son with a father with whom you could discuss problems and upon whom you could call for advice. Now, however, it will seem as though a veil has lifted, you must make your own decisions and now you take over solely as a father.

You will miss your father very much but don't forget, Wally, that you are well on the road to success. You have an excellent reputation and a good future, all of which your father shared with you and, no doubt, pleased him immensely. That meant a great deal to him and should ease your grief very much.

Sincerely yours,

Michael J. Dunn