Russell Benedict Waddell Our family greatly appreciates your support and prayers at this time. I am honored tell you about my father. It was a great honor to call my father Dad. Please let me tell you about this special person. Dad didnt talk about himself much or often, so we know some of this from what he told us and some from what other people tell us. So while we didnt know much about his parents, or his upbringing, we do know some of that story. Russ was one of 5 boys born in Pleasantville, a Northwest Pennsylvania oil town, near the famous Drakes Well, the birthplace of the oil industry in 1869. For some reason, I have a very distinct memory of walking around in an oilfield and my father opening a tap on an oil storage tank. He filled up a Mason jar with it. The green oil that came out of that tap was Good enough to put right into your engine according to Dad. This is the famous Quaker State oil... I later found that oil again in the Mason jar years later and it reminded of that incident, but thats about all I remember of his family hometown. We met his brothers and had a memorable family reunion in Ocean City Maryland about 1967 or so.... It was great to see Dad with his brothers. Uncle Don was the family comedian, Uncle Harold could also be very funny as he and Uncle Wendy were the two brothers who lived closest to us and we would visit them occasionally. The Waddell boys scattered across the country with Uncle Bill, the Doctor in Colorado, Uncle Don in Georgia, Dad, Uncle Harold first in Pennsylvania then Washington and Uncle Wendy in Pennsylvania. Dad was a great student, and apparently a good enough athlete that he once had a tryout with the St Louis Cardinals. Again, why I remember that, I couldnt tell you, but it was in the days of baseball scouts roaming around the little towns of America looking for talent, before the Major League Baseball draft. While my father apparently didnt have the talent of a relative, Rube Waddell, the Hall of Fame pitcher for the Philadelphia As, he did have talent in other areas, most notably academics. Russ went to The Pennsylvania State University, and completed his first year when joined the US Army Air Corps, as the Air Force was called at that time, during World War II. Dad loved flying. It became a life long passion, though he didnt get to fly much. For those that knew him, he would invariably look up at any planes flying overhead and try to guess the type of plane, and the route it was on. This was a bit of a disconcerting habit when you sat behind him in a car, because he would also do this while driving! He would stick his head out the window, There goes a 727 into Newark as you were going full speed down the road, oblivious to the traffic on the road. When he returned to Penn State after 2-1/2 years in the Air Corps, Dad found the two great loves of his life: Science and Arlene Spencer. Dad had an insatiable curiosity about the Physical sciences. He was so interested in all of them that he actually had a Triple Major at Penn State: Math, Chemistry, and Physics, although his diploma only states Physics and he would tell you he is a Physicist. We found his college transcript and every semester was heavy loads of Physics, Math and Chemistry. This served him well in his lifelong quest to figure out the Universe, but it was a bit overwhelming to members of the family. When you went to ask Dad for help with 8th Grade Algebra, for instance, he would go into the complete history of Algebra and the derivations of the equation that you were trying to solve. Hours later, still without the answer to the question you asked, you would go back to your homework and remember not to ask Dad for help. Many years later, Dad would carry this on with his grandchildren, asking each of them, So, what do you think of the Big Bang? Dumbfounded, none of the grandkids had an answer, so Dad would then give his theory on the creation of the Universe. While at Penn State, Dad met Mom. The legend, at least according to Mom, is that she knew he was the one the moment she saw him in a class they had together. Dad, with the Triple Major, had to take a humanities elective, against his wishes, so he took a Psychology class. Because classes had alphabetical seating in those days, the S of Arlene Spencer was seated next to W of Russell Waddell. We had a chance a few years ago to re-live their first date. They had coffee at the famous Corner Room restaurant in State College. They both remembered it like it was yesterday when we went to a Penn State football game weekend with them a few years ago. It was great to hear their stories as we walked around campus. Dad was a Sigma Chi and Mom was Delta Gamma. They had a great time at Dear old State and were lifelong fans. Some of you have maybe heard about Penn State from them once or twice..... They had a lifelong love. A nurse at the hospital said something that struck me when she said Ultimately, we all die of heart failure. This man did not suffer from heart failure. His heart was a success. They married, moved to Bristol and initially lived in an apartment along the Delaware river near Moms parents. Dad was offered the chance to join the family furniture business, but turned it down in favor of a career in science, starting at Rohm and Haas. They had Bonnie while living in Bristol, then bought the brand new house being built at 410 Edgeboro Drive in Newtown. Then I came along, then Tom and by then the house was too small, so they had an addition built. I still remember Dad having an interest in the design of the addition. As a self-styled Renaissance man, he also had an interest in architecture. The two main design features I remember his talking about were the stone exterior walls and the stone fireplace. He loved sitting in his big chair by that fireplace for the next 50 years. That house was truly a home for over 60 years. Dad tried to maintain it by himself, again, repairing everything including electronics with the help of Tom or myself holding the flashlight as he Fixed things. Basically, I think he just reverse engineered things. He would take things apart until the part that failed revealed itself. We had numerous trips to Davis Hardware or other supply stores as we fixed things. That house was host to many great family gatherings and great parties with all their friends and neighbors. Mom and Dad were great parents. We did family vacations to lots of great places and had a lot of great family memories. The Shore was always a favorite, but so was the Poconos, usually with the Millers, their best friends of many years. They supported our interests and even took them on, as they did with tennis. We played together and against each other for countless hours at George School or anywhere that had a tennis court. We even watched tennis together in black and white on PBS before it was a mainstream sport. Dad was famous for asking us Wanna go hit some? Dad was also a huge classical music fan. I remember Saturday Live from the Met booming through the house, his excitement to go see the Philadelphia Orchestra. He would often comment on the greats like Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven. The family thrived, we all went to college, then started our own families. Mom and Dad would always want to visit or have us come visit them. The Christmas get togethers became bigger and bigger as the years went by. Dad would make countless dozens of Christmas cookies, always make breakfast for everyone - usually by starting to rattle pots and pans in the kitchen around 6 AM... We were scheduled to have that Christmas together again this year. We all wish we could have more time together like that. Thats what it all comes down to, isnt it? Time together. So while we are gathered here to remember our time together with Dad, I would like to end on this thought. A friend of mine had a near death experience like we have all heard about. She went into cardiac arrest on the ER table, saw her own body with the doctors and nurses working on her while she floated above them. We have heard stories like this, but I had never heard one so vivid. She told me that we dont have to worry. There is definitely something after this life. I know it, I experienced it. She described it as a feeling of total perfect love and joy. I would like us all to think that is what Dad is experiencing right now. His spirit is of the other world now, a world where he is free to finally understand everything. He can have knowledge of the Universe in a way that he never could while living in the physical world. Dad now has infinite time to explore and know everything he ever wanted to know. He is having a blast with Einstein, Newton, Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven. Thank you. usafband.af.mil/recordings/ Air Force Song
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 11:51:27 +0000
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