Gerald Leon Gager was born Dec. 3, 1920, to Carl Leon and Grace (Nowland) Gager on the family farm south of Woodston. To welcome him were a brother Frank and sister Aleene. As children, they walked to the small country school 2 or 5 miles from the family farm, uphill all the way there and back. Gerald frequently beat the school teacher there to light the old wood/coal stove in the one room schoolhouse. After school, he joined Carl and his great-grandfather, F.C Gager in farming, running a few dozen head of cattle and hand milking a handful of milk cows.
Gerald greatly enjoyed hunting, fishing, going to dances and playing cards with family and friends. As a farmboy, he always had a great respect and love for horses, owning one or more throughout most of his life. He once said, ”You can do a lot of thinking while sitting on a pond bank or a horse’s back.”
During WWII he followed the example of his uncles and brother by ”joining up” but while Frank enlisted in the Army, Gerald chose the Navy. This branch of the service took him all over the Pacific where he got to visit dozens of tropical islands and countries, very foreign to this Kansas farm boy. His ship, the USS Cecil, was anchored off-shore as Gerald and his shipmates witnessed the historic flag-raising on Iwo Jima from her decks. The Cecil also sailed into the port of Pearl Harbor shortly after the horrible surprise attack by the Japanese. We asked him once if he had any lasting friendships he’d cherished during that time. After a long pause he said, “You didn’t really make any close friends like that because they might be killed and gone the next day”. But that pause was full of some personal memories flitting by.
Gerald’s letters home during this time did not reflect his life in the Navy during the war. Instead they were full of concern for his family, the crops, his animals, his friends, etc… Following the war, he returned to Woodston and resumed life on the farm enjoying hobbies and going to dances. He eventually met his ‘Pill’, Estel Hutton, and married her in Stockton, moving his new wife and her son, Dale, into the Gager farmhouse with his parents. In the next few years, Rickey, Jackie, and Beckie were added to the family and the larger family was moved to the 2 story farmhouse just a stone’s throw, or hollering distance, north of the old farmstead.
Besides farming, Gerald pumped wells, did mechanic work for his brother-in-law, and once retired, they moved to Woodston where they joined the volunteer fire department, Woodston Booster Club, the United Methodist Church and the morning coffee club down at the elevator. They also enjoyed visiting neighbors for evenings of playing cards, gardening and enjoyed having close neighbors to torment. He was always getting accused of picking one neighbor’s asparagus to add to his own bounty. Yet when he visited her garage to ‘borrow’ ice from her ice maker, she loaded his hands down with sweet goodies she’d been making.
Gerald lost his wife of almost 50 years to a short battle with cancer and just over a year later married his new dance partner, Vula Roy. They eventually moved to her family farm south of the Webster Lake. They had met at a dance after some well-meaning Woodston ladies coerced him to get with the living again and accompany them to dances. He and Vula continued to frequent dances, gardened, and travelled to see her in Texas, Colo, Calif and Arizona.
Late into his 80’s Gerald contracted the dreaded Alzheimer’s disease, and it was decided a move into Plainville would benefit him. As the disease progressed, they then moved to an apartment in Stockton and eventually he needed more personal care and became a beloved resident of Solomon Valley Manor in Stockton. Though he lost a lot of his short-term memory, he fought to retain his mild manner, slight stubbornness, sense of humor and wonderful qualities that made up who he was.
Small talk had gotten difficult for him with family and other visitors, as he couldn’t add much to any conversation, but he still welcomed all visitors, played cards and dominoes and every once in a while would surprise everyone with a Gerald original. He once told his brother-in-law that ”his forgetter was working overtime” that day. Another time, before leaving the Osborne Pizza Hut, he was asked if he needed to use the men’s room, he curtly replied, ”No, I’ll wait till we get to the car.” Then he just grinned from ear to ear. Shortly after that, he and Dale were rehashing deer hunting days and his dad asked Dale if he had a spot picked out yet for deer season. Dale said he hadn’t yet as it was still summer and then asked Dad if he had any good ideas, to which he quickly answered, ”Sure do… close to the pickup.” You’d have to be a deer hunter, who had experienced dragging a heavy field-dressed deer up and down the hills in a pasture, clear back to the pickup parked along the road, to fully appreciate that quick statement!!
Dad taught the staff at Solomon Valley a few new things too. They’d jokingly ask his name to which he’d smile and say TALISIFER SLOVERSLIZTKE !! At first they just laughed but then he’d have them all wrapping their tongues around that made up moniker till they had mastered it. One morning he’d gotten out of bed before dawn and the nurses saw him sitting in the dining area looking out the window. When asked what he was doing out there, he just smiled and said he was waiting for someone to come have coffee with him. As a safety precaution, Dad sat on an alarm pad to alert the nurses if he got up from his chair. When he got bored, he’d wait till they were all busy and lift his leg just far enough to set the alarm off. Of course when the nurses would look up, he’d just be sitting there smiling at them. They’d go back to work and pretty soon his alarm would go off. And there he’d be sitting just SO INNOCENT. Yeah, they all knew how innocent he was!!! At our last visit with Dad, just 2 weeks before he left us, he had been so talkative, animated and told us about how he had found another nurse he could tease (torment). One day she made a face at him and he made a meaner face right back at her and ‘gave her a finger’ and the game was on. Then he grew serious as he looked around him at the other residents and told us how lucky he was when to compared with some of the other OLD PEOPLE in there. The ones that couldn’t feed themselves, couldn’t talk… He felt good, had a pretty good appetite, and was going to make it to a hundred. And he made a point to tell us again how good the staff at Solomon Valley was. How they treated him so good, were friendly, joked and visited with him, loved his teasing, BUT MAYBE THAT WAS HIS STORY and he was sticking to it !!
Gerald was preceded in death by his parents, brother Frank, sister Aleene, his wife Pill, a stillborn son and is survived by his children, 9 grands, 13 great-grands and 4 great-great-grands, dozens of step-family members and a multitude of other family and friends.
A Memorial Service will be held Monday, October 19, 2015, at 1:30 P.M. at the United Methodist Church in Woodston, Kansas with Pastor Les Ellis officiating. Inurnment will follow at the Woodston Cemetery.
Memorials may be made to Woodston United Methodist Church and sent in care of Plumer-Overlease Funeral Home, 723 N 1st, Stockton, KS 67669. Online condolences may be sent to the family at www.plumeroverlease.com.
