Gail Svehla:
CLASS OF 1974
Hamilton High SchoolClass of 1974
Milwaukee, WI
Gail's Story
Life
i have been married for 29 years, I live in Arizona have 2 daughters and a 9 year old grandson named Will, a 22 month old granddaughter Named Alexandra and a 6 week old granddaughter named Elissa. I also have 2 shih tzus. I was a warrenty administrator at a ford dealership until we moved to Arizona, I took a much needed breakfor 11 months and then I got a job at a Lincolm mercury dealer as a billing clerk. I amd now once again unemployed due to the dealer being on the verge of closing their doors forever. I do woodworking with my husband in our spare time. Both of my daughters moved to AZ after us, so now the whole family is close to us again.
I go back to Milwaukee as often as I can to visit with my dad and stepmom who still live in the same house on 88th street that they had built when I was 9 months old. My dad has cancer once again and is holding his own, but the doctors don't know how much longer he will be around so I try to see him as much as I can. My brothers and sisters all still live around the Milwaukee border. My sister Joni has a house in Arizona that she rents out by the week to people visiting their families down here. Joni has one Granddaughter named Bella who is 11, Janet has 1 granddaughter named after my mom Madelyn Ann (who died when I was 14), and my brother Bruce has one granddaughter Ashley who is 8.
I love living in Arizona especially in the winter when you guys are all dealing with the snow, I am shopping in shorts and sandals. My dad keeps tabs on the weather here and when ever I talk to him he tells me how hot it is going to be here. When we bought our house, we put solar panels on the roof along with a solar hot water heater and a solar pool heater. I love having $8.00 electric bills in the winter.
My Dad died on Dec 20th 2008 from cancer. He fought a long hard battle.
I am not working right now so I was fortunate to be able to spe...Expand for more
nd alot of time In Milwaukee with my dad and the rest of the family before he died. I was here for a week in november 3 weeks in December, and while I was up in the middle of the night giving him his meds, he told me alot of wonderful stories about his life that I never knew. He told me about his time in the air force when he was in Korea. He also talked about his youth and driving at the age of 12 up on the farm in Minnesota. He had a lot of things on his mind, I guess when you know you are dying you try to get everything settled before you go. He did not have the use of his hands, the chemo took that away from him. So I wrote out his obituary for him, which he changed 3 times before he died. He wanted to have a great funeral luncheon, he wanted everyone to have an 8oz prime rib on him one last time. So I wrote out the menu also which he kept adding to. Then in December after I had been back in AZ for about 2 weeks he told my brother to call me home. So I got back on a plane on Sunday the 13th of December, but before I did I wrote his eulogy. It was about 10pm when I got to the house and all my brothers and sisters were there and we all crowded into his bedroom and i sat down and read the eulogy to him. I asked him if there was anything I needed to change and he signaled for a pen and paper because by that time he could no longer talk and he wrote down to take the soup off the menu. Food was a number one priority to him. And at first he wanted oxtail soup on the luncheon menu, but then he decided that a lot of people would not eat it anyway.
Anyway, over the two weeks before his funeral which was on the 27th of December, I changed that eulogy about 3 times adding things that my siblings reminded me of. I even managed to get up in front of a full church at St. Matthais and read it without crying. my dad truly was my hero. He will be missed by all who knew him.
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