Family News
We had some unfortunate news in our family today. Grace’s father Leonard Weddell passed away this morning.
Last night about 10:30pm (the same day that Grace got home from a 10-day trip) we got a call from the Convalescent Hospital in Cloverdale. He’s been there about 2 1/2 weeks after a brief hospital stay with congestive heart failure. The call last night suggested that he wasn’t doing very well and that he might not make it through the night. We rounded up the family and drove down to see him
He was having a hard time breathing and they had him on morphine for the pain. After the visit, he seemed to be breathing easier and relaxing. Grace and I had the feeling that he was trying to stay awake to keep us entertained. Grace, her mom and I left about 2am and he passed away just a few hours later.
It is a relief for him and his wife. His condition in recent months had been deteriorating and his dementia had been getting worse. We think he’s probably pretty happy right now with the return of his incredible memory. Friday would have been his 90th birthday.
He was a very cool guy. He really did have an incredible memory. When I first got to know him, he had entire chapters of scripture (the short ones) committed to memory. He spent much of his adult life in the Merchant Marine as a ship’s engineer. He had lots of great sea stories. He even left Pearl Harbor on December 6th, 1941. When Grace was about 4, he came home from the sea and he went to work for UC Santa Cruz in the maintenance department. He then retired and served a mission for the LDS Church in Texas. He really loved his wife. Even after they moved into our house and was having more medical problems, he was always looking after the needs of his wife (when he remembered who she was.)
We have lots of great memories of Leonard and we’ll be remembering them all over the next few days. So, now we’re working on making arrangements for the funeral, which will probably be some time next week. Grace and her mom are doing fine.
Thanks for your thoughts, Dave.
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