Subject: Mom's 1996 letter to Matt about Dad... Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 19:07:04 -0400 From: Fred Stluka Organization: Bristle Software, Inc. To: Neviska Family , "Neviska, Sami" , "Spicer, Larry and Chris" , "Spicer, Loretta" , "Stluka, Jerry" , "Stluka, Rosalie" , "Stluka, Carol" , "Stluka, Chris" , "Stluka, Monica" , "Brophy, Dave" , "Brophy, Mary Lou" , "Brophy, Matt" , "Brophy, Tom III" , "Brophy, Tom IV" , "Stluka, Frank" , References: 1 Family, Here is an electronic copy of Mom's 1996 contribution to Matt's "Family Ties" project about Grampy (Gene). It was probably included in the big 3-ring binder you may have seen at the funeral home or at the house. --Fred -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred Stluka -- mailto:fred@bristle.com -- http://bristle.com/~fred/ Bristle Software, Inc -- http://bristle.com -- "Glad to be of service!" -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Fwd: Matt re "Family Ties" Date: Sun, 1 Dec 1996 23:29:52 -0500 From: GeneStluka@aol.com To: stluka@voicenet.com, Tom@stluka.com, Suzanne@stluka.com, FStluka@kra.com, Jeff@stluka.com, KStluka@aol.com, Chris@stluka.com Dear Children, Here's a copy of the letter I wrote to Matt for his "Family Ties" school project on Dad. Love, Mom --------------------- Forwarded message: Subj: Matt re "Family Ties" Date: 96-12-01 21:35:41 EST From: GeneStluka To: tomb@keystonenet.com Dear Matt, I'm sending you the text of my writeup on Grampy via this e-mail message, so you will have it as you do your writing. I am also printing it out and mailing it to you. It will go in the mail Monday morning 12/2, so you should have it by Tuesday or Wednesday. Grampy is still finishing his writeup, and will get it to you soon. Love, Grammy -------------------------------------------------------- November 24,1996 Dear Matt, Your Grandfather, Gene Stluka, is a very good choice for a biography. He is the most generous person you will ever know. He has always given his time, talent and resources to help others. Grampy lives his life, believing that God will take care of us if we take care of others. Gene came into my life when he was eighteen years old and I was seventeen. Both he and my brother were freshmen at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. My brother, Larry Spicer, had invited Gene to our home for the weekend. We fell in love the first moment we met. Gene was the "tall, dark and handsome" man that every girl dreamed of meeting and marrying. Gene's personality was generous, impulsive, teasing, encouraging, hardworking and very supportive. He has always been a visionary, seeing what would be possible five, ten or twenty years from now. His faith in God has always been very present to everyone that knew him and those who know him now. Gene asked me to marry him on our second date. That was in July of 1956. Two years later, September 6, 1958, we were married at Holy Family Catholic Church, Parma, Ohio, my family's parish. We had no idea that we would be blessed with ten children. Two of our children did not live the full nine months until their due date. These two miscarried babies, we will meet some day in Heaven. There is an eleven and a half year age span between the eight living children. Grampy had just finished his third year of college in 1959, when our first child, Mary Lou, your mother, was born. He was in a five year engineering program and had promised his Father-in-law, Fred Spicer, that he would indeed graduate. Grampy was determined to keep his word, but was not able to finish college in five years because he started working more hours and taking less classes. Our second child, Fred, was born in 1960 and our third child, Gina, was born in 1961. Grampy thought that God trusted us very much to give us these children as he went on working more hours, taking less classes and playing with his children every spare minute he could find. Babies are Grampy's first love. He finds them irresistible. In 1962, our fourth child miscarried. This was a sad time but Grampy was convinced that God wanted this little angel in Heaven with Him. Grampy could always see the good in what seemed to be a bad situation. Finally, in 1963, Eugene Franklin Stluka received his degree, Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering. He had "made it" after seven years of hard work, determination and optimism. Also, he received the highest paying job offer among the Mechanical Engineering graduates in that year's class. He accepted this offer from General Electric Co. and moved immediately to Lynn, Massachusetts to begin work. Grampy rented a dingy, one room, basement apartment and lived there by himself (except for the mice that played with his shoes) until August 1963. This was the least expensive place that Grampy could find and he thought it was good enough for him. He was just a block from the Atlantic Ocean, and this is when Grampy fell in love with the sea. Grampy was alone because I was staying in Columbus awaiting the birth of our fifth child, Tom, who was born two weeks after Grampy went to Lynn. Grampy rushed back to Columbus that same day, to see his new son, stayed just a short time, and then drove back to Lynn to go to work the next day - with no sleep. He had driven fifteen hours each way. Grampy rented a house in Ipswich, Massachusetts for the family and we were back together, our family of six, in August 1963 That was such a happy time. We were living on a peninsula called Great Neck, surrounded by water on three sides. In June 1964, our sixth child, Frank, was born, and our little rented house was cramped for living space.so, in July 1964, Grampy found a way to buy a two family house in Salem, Massachusetts. Our family of seven lived on the second floor and we rented the first floor to another family for additional income. We had six large rooms, plus a basement and an attic. We even had a beach two houses away. Again, Grampy told us that God was taking good care of us. Grampy did very well in his job and was rapidly getting promotions and raises, always just enough of a raise to take care of our needs. He was Chairman of an "Ad Hoc" committee at this time. It was a citizens' committee formed for the sole purpose of preserving our beach - preventing the building of a sewage treatment plant that would displace the beach. Grampy's efforts won out. In 1965, our seventh child miscarried and Grampy told us us our family was blessed to have two little angels in Heaven with God. We had a son, Jeff, in 1967 and another son, Chris, in 1968. Our family of nine was expensive to feed, clothe and entertain but Grampy found fun things to do inexpensively. He took us to parks for play and picnics, to the beach (I think we visited every beach from Cape Cod to Southern Maine), to frozen ponds for ice skating and he found the best hills for sledding. Every weekend was an adventure with Grampy. He loved watching the Nor'easter storms along the coast and racing out to the tip of Cape Cod to see the sunset over the water. Grampy made all the ordinary, everyday occurrences seem exciting, charming and beautiful. The stars at night were always bigger when you watched them with Grampy. In 1970, Grampy was asked to move to Cincinnati,Ohio for a better job with G. E. We had talked for many years about the house we would love to own some day, and Grampy found our dream house in Cincinnati, in 1970. He bought the house without my seeing it. I could not go with him, househunting, because we were expecting our tenth child and I could not travel. Grampy brought back Polaroid pictures of the new house. He was so excited and the pictures were of a beautiful house. Grampy knew that God had helped him find the perfect home for his family. On December 19, 1970, our furniture was all loaded into a moving van and we were in a motel for the night. Early the next morning, Grampy drove himself and three of our children to Cleveland, Ohio, passing through a heavy snowstorm in New York state. The next morning, he left the three children in Cleveland at my parents', Fred and Louise Spicer's, house. He then drove to Cincinnati, parked the car in the garage of our new house, took a taxi to the airport, flew back to Massachusetts and took a taxi to the motel where I was staying with the other four children. He loaded us all into our second car and drove Chris, age two, and me to the airport to catch a plane to Cincinnati. He then drove, with the remaining three children in the car to Cleveland, where he picked up the three children he had left with their grandparents. Grampy drove six children to Cincinnati, to the motel where I was staying with Chris. Once again we were all together and we moved into our new home on December 23. We had a beautiful seven bedroom home with half an acre of land. We had extra money from our moving allowance - but - it was two days until Christmas so we had to go Christmas shopping on December 24th. Grampy was sure we could do all of it in one day. He was right. Grampy stayed up all night putting together toys so that Christmas would be special for the children. We settled into our new home and in February 1971 our tenth child, Monica, was born. With no beaches in Cincinnati, Grampy started family camping for our new adventures. We camped in Kentucky and Michigan. Grampy's new job caused him to travel to Europe for a week every month. He always came home with stories of the wonderful sights he'd seen. Then he would try to catch up with us, to hear our stories about the week he had missed with us. Grampy's mother was very ill in 1972. He tried very hard to see her, in Columbus, Ohio every weekend and during her final week of life, he drove 90 miles after work, every night, to see her. This was a hard time in Grampy's life, trying to work, travel, see his family and see his mother. Grampy got very little sleep. This same year, our best friends were planning to get divorced. We spent hours each week with them, trying to help them talk to each other and listen to each other. It was very painful to us when they did get divorced. We were so sure that they could work it out. About that same time, other friends were going to lose their home because they could not make the mortgage payments. Grampy arranged to buy their house and rent it back to them until they could buy the house again. He said, "God had given to us so that we could give to others." In 1973, we made a Marriage Encounter weekend and were asked to be a team couple. Grampy said we could not say "NO" to this request. We were given a good marriage and God wants us to help other couples to see the goodness in their marriages. Once again, Grampy extended himself to help others. It was tough for him to do this while working, traveling and spending time with his family. He had an office at home, with an open door, for the children to come to him as often as possible. In October 1975, Grampy once again,changed jobs within G.E. We bought a house in Haverford, Pennsylvania and Grampy drove to Valley Forge to work. Not one person in our family wanted to move and even Grampy had tears in his eyes as he drove the car away from our Cincinnati home in January 1976. After settling into our new home, new schools and a new Marriage Encounter Community, we continued our lives and accepted the change. Grampy bought a small sailboat, a sunfish, and taught us all to sail it. Grampy started working very long hours at his new job. Even though he was not traveling, he was gone from home and had to get along with very little sleep in order to have time for his children, his job, Marriage Encounter and writing talks for the Marriage Encounter weekends. About this time Grampy was asked to serve on the finance committee at church and he could not say "no." Grampy is such a giving person. Grampy's job at G.E. in Valley Forge changed many times and he finally decided to leave the company, to work at something more fulfilling. He went to work as Vice President of Florig Equipment Co. in Conshohocken and this required him to work half a day on Saturday. Grampy's visions, when implemented, made this company more profitable. We decided to stop giving Marriage Encounter weekends and Grampy dropped off the finance committee. Our family needed more of our time during the teenage years of their lives. Grampy helped the children to pick a college that would be good for them. He encouraged each of them to try college for at least one year. He has this ability to make each of us believe that we are better than we thought we were and to reach out stretching ourselves for more, rather than settling for less. Grampy believes we have an obligation to use all the talents God has given us. He encouraged me to go back to work, once Monica was in school full time. We needed more income because living in Pennsylvania was much more expensive than living in Ohio. Also, college expenses for our children had started and would continue for a long time. Grampy wanted to help his children through school so that they would not have it so hard as it had been for him. All eight children attended college. During this time, friends of ours had bought a house out of state and needed money for the closing costs since their home had not yet sold. Grampy gave them what they needed, not worrying about whether he would ever be repaid. There was never a question in his mind about helping others. In 1987, we sold the house in Haverford and moved to Chester Springs. Then in 1990, after eight years at Florig Equipment Co., Grampy was replaced by the owner's nephew. He was unemployed for a few months, and then went to work as president of Stainless Inc. The company built broadcast towers. Grampy turned this company profitable also. But here, too, he was replaced - this time by one of the owner's son's-in-law. Since then Grampy has been trying to find a business that he can own, one where he cannot be replaced against his will. Matt, your Grampy is a remarkable man. He never stops giving. The few times in his life that he has said "no" to anyone have been when he thought that saying "yes" would have been a bad thing for the person who asked him. I pray that Grampy's children and grandchildren inherit his ability to love others and see the goodness in others. Don't you? Love, Grammy --------------------------------------------------------