In Memory

William Robb Adams, Jr



 
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11/04/13 11:30 AM #1    

Mark Wieting

Here are a couple of things about Bill Adams. In April, when I read his profile entry about his medical condition and dire prognosis, I had to contact him. Bill had gone to Hammerschmidt School with the rest of us south siders, we'd known each other since age 5, and had been friends until going away to college made the link more tenuous. I had not been in contact with him for nearly 50 years. My main memory of Bill was, "what a good guy." Never out for himself, just a fine person and a lot of fun. His mother, Ruth, was a stitch, and very welcoming to the parade of friends that Bill often brought home. 

He and I made plans for lunch in June, and he offered to drive half way to meet me, despite his being tethered to an oxygen tank. We met at a golf course restaurant in Wisconsin and talked for two hours--until the two portable oxygen units he had brought were exhausted. He had the "big unit" in his car so he could make it home. He was upbeat, although he was sheepish when he asked me in the parking lot to get the wheelchair out of his trunk: "Would you mind pushing me into the restaurant? I am exhausted if I walk more than about 10 feet," he said. But he looked sharp in a brown golf shirt and dress slacks. We went through brief recountings of our lives and who we had kept in contact with. "If I have a regret," he said, "It's that I didn't stay in contact with more people from our class." He told a great story about finding some attractive land outside Oconomowoc that he and a partner bought with the hopes of creating a subdivision. They hoped to interest a developer or two in buying some lots for upscale houses, and when Bill showed one guy the property, he bought them all. Bill said that he called his partner to tell him that they'd sold some lots--"Jerry, I sold some lots."

"How many?"

"What do you think?" 

"One, maybe two?"

"Jerry, I sold all 11 and we don't even have the streets in yet!"

Bill also recalled that he was glad I'd been in touch with Ginni Soule McLaughlin. "She's my first wife." Me: "Huh?" "When we were six a girl from the neighborhood married us." 

When the second tank was running out, it was time to go. But we said it would be good to do it again, although at lunch he'd told me recently his doctor had told him to think in terms of weeks instead of months. I wondered if I'd see him again. 

Thankfully, a group of us were able to have lunch with him in July: Ginni, Tom Marquardt,Terry Witt and I. Tom drove from Madison, and the other three of us drove up together. Although the passing of a month had made him weaker, he was still bright and cheerful in conversation. And very glad that the four of us had made the trip. He paid for lunch! What a guy. He and Ginni recalled their marriage ceremony, but not much of their divorce. All five of us focused on the good old days, Marquardt displaying an incredibly detailed knowledge of what went on in our high school years, and he could recall every car anyone in our class ever drove.

On the way home, Ginni said, "Bill is just one of those people you've always loved."  I think we were lucky as a bunch of kids growing up in Lombard that there were a lot of people in that category. Adams surely was one.


11/04/13 03:11 PM #2    

Don Comfort

Mark,

Thank you for being such a great friend to Bill.  Don

 


11/04/13 04:07 PM #3    

William Gibson Heller

A wonderful remembrance, Mark.  There is a reason you were an English major.   BIll


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