Peter George Krieshok Eulogy

Originally posted on http://www.people.ku.edu/~tkrieshok/eulogy.html

November 22, 1922 - December 25, 2004


My name is Tom Krieshok, and Pete Krieshok was my dad. Over the last few days our family sat around and re-told hundreds of stories about Dad, his life, and his world, a very generous and big world for a skinny kid who was born in a house in Madison, Illinois, and lived almost all his life within five miles of that birthplace.

Pete was born in Madison, Illinois, but his folks, Mary Krivi and Steve Krieshok, moved to the house on Nameoki where he grew up, next door to his cousin Johnny Krieshok. As an only child, Pete's relationship to his cousin Johnny, who was only six days younger than Dad, was very important. They were part of the neighborhood group they called the Swamp Devils, a name they later gave to one of the baseball teams they played on.

Dad's family was your typical Depression era family. One year Dad got an orange for Christmas...that's all, just an orange. Dad's family was also your typical Prohibition era...bootlegging family. Dad and Johnny worked in the "family business", running hooch from the house to Valicoff Cleaners in a Red Flyer wagon with dirty laundry on top to cover up the goods.

In high school Dad distinguished himself through track, excelling in the low and high hurdles. He lettered in track three years, and as a senior he was captain of the track team. He was very proud of his track career, so there were many evenings we kids spent doing the contortions that hurdlers go through to stretch and prepare for their events. We often set up hurdles in the back yard and staged our own events, usually with catastrophic results.

Dad was also a punter on the football team at Granite City High School, the only position his track coach allowed him to play. The fact that he graduated from high school weighing only 129 pounds might have had something to do with that as well.

After high school he enlisted in the Navy, another part of his life about which Dad was very proud. He served on the aircraft carrier Manila Bay and was a tail gunner on a TBF. He was claustrophobic though, so being on an aircraft carier might not have been the perfect assignment for him. Fortunately, his commanding officer allowed him to sleep in his plane rather than in the tight bunk quarters.

On one mission Dad thought he had been shot, so the pilot turned the plane around and headed back to the ship. When the doctors met the plane they realized he had actually suffered a severely ruptured appendix, and they immediately rushed him to sick bay to remove it. Later, in a medication induced daze, Dad pulled out his tubes because he needed to get up and get to the bathroom, and nothing was going to stand in his way.

His pilot later referred to him as a “happy go lucky kid from the Midwest” in his book, “I never knew it was mine”. He flew on many missions, and was known as the one who always volunteered to go on every extra mission. He was very committed to his service, and his dream was to be a pilot. He was in flight school when the war ended, and most of those in flight school were released from the service. He never flew again, until my brother Joe went with him to a reunion of his group down in Florida 10 years ago. But he could identify any plane in the sky, and most of the time he knew them by the sound, without ever having to look up at them. He was amazing.

While he was home on leave, he went to church one Sunday at Sacred Heart, wearing his Navy uniform. One of his high school classmates, Ruth Hagnauer, was at church that day, saw Dad in that uniform, and the rest was history. Dad and Mom both tell stories about how Mom was the only kid in grade school who could beat Dad in a foot race, but she let him catch her that one time.

Being an only child, Dad's relationships with the Hagnauers were some of the richest in his life. They took him in like a brother, and that was so important to him. They are a classy family, and he loved them dearly.

When he got out of the service, Dad and Bill Stack opened up a chicken farm, but it lasted only a year before the chickens got a disease that required them to destroy even the facilities that housed the chickens. He tried his hand at being a meat cutter at Eads Grocery store up the street, picking up some skills he used until just a few months ago. Then he took a better paying job at Granite City Steel, a job he kept for 35 years until he retired.

He took his job at the mill seriously too, and held a few different positions before becoming a maintenance foreman, the only job we kids ever knew him in. He was well liked by those who worked with him, who saw him as tough but fair. If a job was supposed to take 8 hours and his crew worked their tails off to get it done in 7, he left them alone for the rest of the shift, a practice that his crew respected, but which occasionally got him in hot water with his boss.

For most of those years he worked rotating shift work, meaning he'd work a week of day shift, then a week of afternoon shift, then a week of midnights. He was never a big fan of shift work. Sometimes after an afternoon shift he would stop off at his favorite watering hole, Jacobsmeyers tavern, and have a couple beers. Then he'd head home with a pepperoni pizza. We'd sometimes get roused by the smell and sneak out for a piece. It was our first taste of pizza...and it was heaven. Then there were the donuts after a midnight shift. Especially the chocolate donuts.

When they got married, Dad didn't know how to hammer a nail, so he got some books, and taught himself. Apparently he taught himself well, as he went on to build two houses, a little one behind his folks' house on Nameoki, and the family house on Pine Street. I used to tell the story about how I helped build the Pine Street house, because that's how I remembered it. I was five years old at the time, and I spent a lot of time at the work site, with Uncle Chid, Ralph Tharp, Chinki Mink, and many others who lent their helping hands. I told the story about my helping, up until my oldest son Benj turned five, and I realized that a five year old boy really doesn't help build a house. In an instant, the story went from one about me learning how to use tools, to a story about my Dad, and his patience at being able to have a five year old on the work site not feel like I was in the way, but that I was contributing in some way.

Dad could party. He loved to BBQ, and he loved his Falstaff. At many of the Krivi weddings we went to while I was growing up, I saw my Dad dance, and he was a particularly good polka dancer, or maybe that was the only kind of music they played at those weddings. But you know how there comes a time in a polka where somebody yelps, yeeee-haaaa. Well, that was our Dad. He taught us that, and to this day I still embarrass my wife and kids with that tribute to my Dad.

He loved his Falstaff, and for awhile, he loved it too much. When he lost his own dad and mom within a six month period, he struggled quite a bit. About 10 years ago when he developed colon cancer, his doctor told him he needed to quit...so he did. Quitting is not easy, as a matter of fact, a lot of people spend their whole lives trying to quit, so quitting is always pretty monumental, and it was one of his greatest accomplishments.

The same was true with cigarettes. After smoking for over 50 years, he developed lung cancer. His doctor told him he needed to quit, and after his last cigarette outside the hospital admitting area prior to his lung cancer surgery...he never smoked again. Many people in his situation still cannot give up smoking, but he did, another great accomplishment.

His other real loves, in addition to Ruth Hagnauer, were his own kids and eventually his grandkids. He loved to have his family around him, even though he himself was not always right in the middle of all the commotion. Often when we would come back for a visit, we would all sit around the table and trade stories. My wife Peggy says there are trips where the whole family seems to spend the whole of several days never moving from around that table. But after awhile Dad would usually head off to the living room and watch TV. He always had one ear on the conversation though, and would occasionally chime in with his own two cents on an issue we were discussing in the other room, usually to correct some of our misinformation.

Dad loved golf. Though he was not terrific, it didn't really matter that much, he just liked being outside, walking around with his buddies, especially Eldon Kraft. He got several of his kids interested in the game, and we are carrying on the tradition of being not so good, but not caring so much about that. Then there was that hole in one, yes, it really did happen, and yes, we did get to hear that story a few times.

Dad also loved to barbecue, even in the winter. And he was the best. He could do things with pork steaks that no other chef has ever done, or will likely ever do. He was good with ribs and other things too, but pork steaks...mmmmmm.

There were lots of other things Dad loved:

What do I really want to tell you about my dad? He was a guy, not a perfect guy, but a guy who worked very hard with the tools and talents he came into the world with, to accomplish some things that were very important to him.

Last night a whole lot of folks came through the line at his visitation, and in our re-telling of the evening once we got back around that table at Pine Street, we were impressed by the number of people who said how much he had touched their lives, and how much Dad meant to them.

He had the ability to connect with people, to make you feel like you were special, like at least one guy knew who you were, knew you showed up, and knew you were giving it your best, as flawed or limited as your best might have been.

He was able to see your good side, and somehow look past your flaws. He didn't ignore the flaws, but when push came to shove, he came down on the side of giving you another chance, of letting you be just a guy or just a gal, working very hard with the tools and talents you came into the world with, trying to accomplish some things important in your life.

A few years ago, cousin Johnny did some genealogy work and came to the conclusion that the Krieshok's were descended from Hungarian gypsies. Dad loved that idea, and since then he thought of himself in that way. Somehow that story seems to fit him best. So today we salute you Peter G. Krieshok, King of the Granite City Krieshok gypsies.