My uncle George Swor died yesterday afternoon in St Luke’s Hospital in Duluth. He was 88 years old, my mother’s youngest brother, and the last survivor of her immediate family.
That hardly covers it. My uncle George was a one-of-a-kind family treasure.
I have a photo at my desk showing the Swor family in 1954, which includes my mother and her sister Katherine (my beloved Auntie Kay, whose recipes I sometimes publish) and their six brothers: Sam, Jack, Mitchell, Nick, Henry and George. I imagine in their youth, the Swor kids were a force to be reckoned with. When I was a kid, they were a happy, boisterous bunch, gathered at Grandma Swor’s house every Sunday for chicken dinner. I thought my uncles were marvelous. They all seemed strong and capable, with swarthy Mediterranean good looks, and they seemed to be joking and laughing all the time, which made us kids feel safe and protected, and part of Something Big.
All those people grew up and married, raised families, and then most of them died way too soon.
Uncle George and Aunt Betty raised four sons, while my parents raised four daughters. For some years our families lived across the street from one another on Fern Avenue in the Kenwood area. My sisters and I spent some time with our cousins, especially with Aunt Betty, who loaded up her navy blue Cadillac (she always drove a Cadillac) with all 8 of us, taking us swimming at Park Point or to a cabin at Lake Minnisuing in Wisconsin. While I remember her large metal Red Dot cans filled with peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies, I also remember Uncle George burying silver dollars in the sand for us kids to find.
I remember being in the car with my cousins when Uncle George would say “Hey, kids, let’s have a contest to see who can keep their eyes closed the longest!” I always wanted to win that contest. We only found out years later that he did this any time we were in the vicinity of a Dairy Queen. Other times he drove us over Superior’s “singing bridge,” always telling us to put one hand on the car’s ceiling and make a wish, because bridges were good luck.
Uncle George owned a Texaco station on Sixth Avenue East for many years, and during childhood I spent happy hours there with my sisters and cousins, picking apples from the huge apple tree and throwing them (ineffectually) at passing traffic, or playing in the creek behind the station, into which my cousin Barbara was known to toss her much-hated eyeglasses. I can’t see a red Texaco symbol without thinking of my uncle in his dark green attendant’s uniform, running out of the station to clean windshields, check oil and fill gas tanks. (The man who wore the star is now among the stars.) Years later he opened a motel across the street from the station, which soon went from a regulation motel to a sort of shelter for local misfits. I doubt he collected as much in rent as he ”loaned” to others, but he helped so many with housing, transportation, food and protection from the elements. Despite his happy association with more than one snarling rottweiler, he was robbed at least once, and perhaps more than that, but he never lost his faith in humanity, and he never stopped helping anyone with a sad story.
My uncle never forgot his nieces. He was especially close with my cousin Barbara, sharing a love of adventure and gambling with her. They often traveled to Vegas together, and I’m sure each trip was memorable. Every Christmas my sisters and I received gifts from my uncle, even though we hadn’t spent much time with him, and in our later years there were always Christmas gifts of cash. Family meant the world to my sentimental uncle, and he never wavered from his love or loyalty.
Depsite the death of his brothers and sisters, and the early and unexpected death of his son Greg, my uncle soldiered on. He and my aunt separated in the late 1960, but never divorced. Though he lived alone, he was never really alone. He always had a smile for every person he met. Though I’m sure they must have happened, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t see my uncle smiling.
I didn’t see my uncle much in the past few years, a fact of which I am not proud. He was always accessible and I was not. The last time I saw him feeling well was at the last Swor Christmas party at the Depot in December. He always made you feel as if you were the very person he wanted to see at that very moment. His health was failing, but not his generous spirit, his wonderful smile, or his love of family and tradition.
And so last Wednesday, when he wasn’t feeling well, he had the presence of mind to call an ambulance for himself, and to call my cousin Barbara (my mother’s namesake) to let her know something was wrong. At the hospital he suffered a heart attack from which he was unable to recover, despite vigilant medical care and the love and prayers of family.
It is sad to know he is gone. But I think we are all relieved that he did not have to linger in a bedridden condition for days or weeks on end.
I wish I had a scan of a photo to post here so you could see his smiling face. But I don’t. I do have memories of him that will last the rest of my life.
Rest in peace, Uncle George.
We love you.
You can trust your car to the man who wears the star...
