Obituary of Evelyn Ruth Pantages

"So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.' " -- Luke 17:10 The day before everything changed, Evelyn Ruth Gretta Pantages had made up her mind. She would make a comeback to the workplace. Again. ``Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? And I said, 'Here am I, send me.' '' (Isaiah 6: 8) On Dec. 9, 2007, Evelyn had spent a typical Sunday attending church, cooking, straightening up the house and anticipating a new challenge in a new job the next day. Even at age 77 -- and looking 20 years younger, everyone said -- she still had some bills to pay. But on her first day at work, Evelyn suffered a stroke that left her paralyzed and wheelchair bound. Her speech and cognition partially returned but the next 3 3/4 years were spent modeling the best patient she could be for young nurses' aides and medical techs to learn their practice and bring hope and comfort to others based on their interaction with her. Born in the same year as Jacqueline Kennedy, Audrey Hepburn and Anne Frank -- and sharing the courage, stoic outlook and the joie de vivre they were known for -- Evelyn died at age 81 Wednesday night of heart and brain seizure complications. The last years of her life at Bath Manor Special Care Center and The Merriman were like the end of a roller coaster ride at an amusement park. The ups and downs provide thrills and then comes the time for the train to pull in. But the ride does not come to a complete stop until the last 100 yards as the clickety-clack of the cars gradually winds down. Her family saw Evelyn's 2007 stroke as a mystery of faith. It was a time when God paused, and she waited -- sometimes animatedly and always with character and a point of view. Her family understood God to say during this time, ``Well done, good and faithful servant.'' (Matthew 25: 23) A child of the Great Depression, she was the fifth of 11 children born to Adam and Susan Gretta on Dec. 23, 1929, in Keisterville, Pa. She was preceded in death by her husband Billy, infant daughter Martha, her parents and brothers George, John, Frank, Melvin, Robert and James. She is survived by sisters Helen (Kukasky), Alma (Manuszak) and Jeanne (Schewe) and brother Richard; sons Lawrence (Carvel), Martin; granddaughters Celeste (Bradley) Wagner and Cassandra (Matthew) Brenn, and grandsons Alexander, William and Nicholas. The Depression left its mark on Evelyn from her childhood years. Years later, she would laugh about getting nothing more than an orange or apple for her Christmas present. The Sears catalog was her companion in the backyard outhouse. At night, her mother would stand outside in the cold weather, telling her to hurry up. The "honey-dippers" came to take care of outhouse maintenance. No plumbing, no electricity. Several kids to one bed. Laundry was done with soap and water holding a washboard over a tub. "Washy-washy, rinsey-rinsey" was the slogan repeated during the chore. As she grew older, what a surprise, something as simple as work became the defining characteristic for so many of her generation. And she embraced it whole-heartedly. It started when she babysat and was the nurturing caregiver for six younger brothers and sisters. It continued when she was withdrawn from public school after eighth grade in her small coal-mining Western Pennsylvania town. Keisterville was a tiny place with a ballfield, a couple of streets and farm animals running here and there. The town name became a treasured watchword around Evelyn's children and grandchildren. If you were dressed shabby, it was the Keisterville look. If you claimed you were poor, that was the Keisterville lifestyle. Be careful, Evelyn's heritage was always watching. She made up for her lack of formal education by earning a Graduate Equivalency Degree from the Akron Public Schools in the 1970s. Before that, moving to Cleveland to take on the challenges of adulthood in the late 1940s, she became the youthful boss of the Woolworth's store lunch counter on Euclid Avenue. Serving milkshakes and sodas was replaced by the traditional career path of wife and mother as she married Frank William ``Billy'' Pantages on May 30, 1953, and later gave birth to son Lawrence Adam and son Martin William. Perhaps her first adversarial encounter with life's mystery of faith as an adult came when Martin's twin sister Martha was born with a respiratory ailment and lived only 1 day. Her marriage of 57 years resulted in -- you could guess it -- more work. She and Billy operated a tavern near the tire factories in Akron from the 1950s to the 1980s. Leo's Cafe, named after building owner Leo Sweet, was located on Seiberling Street (in the 1960s and '70s) and on East Market Street in a former Burger King restaurant (in the '80s). In between shifts of cooking, tending bar, cleaning and a wide assortment of duties, including making sure Larry and Marty got grape and cherry lollipops from the drive-in tellers at the Goodyear Bank, she found time to: -- raise two sons and be the doting "Gram" with five grandchildren; -- teach her sons to play ``Fox and Goose'' in the snow-covered backyard where you were not allowed to run out of the road maze created; -- crochet slippers and afghans and other fuzzy things; -- memorize the lyrics to every old popular song; -- complete her GED studies; -- volunteer at Akron City Hospital; -- teach Sunday School at St. John Lutheran Church; -- become the first female worship usher at St. John; -- become an epistle reader, too, while singing soprano in the choir; -- play the accordion, especially polkas; -- take piano lessons and get slaps on the wrist from her elderly teacher; -- take a class in the lost art of calligraphy; -- join the Publishers Clearing House club that sent weird and sometimes useful kitchen gadgets monthly by the boatload; -- sing in public concerts with the Betty Jane School Mothersingers club, wearing evening gowns that would have made Ella Fitzgerald and Judy Garland jealous. Her goal for many years had been to become a piano teacher. When the pastor at St. John accepted an out of town call and had an upright piano to give away, she happily stepped forward to ask for it. She had played by ear and learned the accordion as a youngster. She spent more than 20 years taking formal piano lessons but always felt there was more to learn. But her "real" work got in the way. Happily. When the tavern days ended, she found new work. She single-handedly brought down the unemployment rate decade after decade, one job at a time. She took her talents to Fairlawn for Scandinavian Health Spas, to West Akron for Seibert-Keck Insurance and to Cuyahoga Falls at Falls Fashion Cleaners for a Saturday job. When someone asked if she was still working, she said modestly, "Well, I have 3 jobs right now." Luckily for her family, her advice and witticisms to children, grandchildren and friends never ended. She would say: -- ``Better to have it and not need it, than to need it, and not have it.'' -- ``A baby should never, never go outside without its head covered.'' -- ``Doctors bury their mistakes.'' -- ``That clerk is so slow, she needs a firecracker stuck up her butt.'' -- ``What's in your wallet?'' -- ``I take after my grandfather. He was in his 90s and knew he wouldn't be around soon. He would say, `Pretty soon, bye-bye.' '' When her good friend Jeanette Viereck had to have an operation after losing sight in one eye, Evelyn told her son to try to comfort Jeanette on the phone at the hospital: ``Better that you lose one eye than we lose you.'' When someone wanted to take her on a trip, she would say: ``You tell me when and where to be ready and I'll be there an hour before.'' From the 1960s to 2007, Evelyn was a walking advertisement for self-help. If she thought her doctor was prescribing too many drugs, she fired him. George Steinbrenner treated Yankees managers better than she treated some doctors. For decades, she found comfort, healing and educational help from chiropractors, vitamin and nutrition experts and tai chi teachers and exercise leaders. Of course, smoking cigarettes was a popular activity of her times. In the early 1960s, raising two young children and fighting back from pneumonia and a worrisome cyst on her back, one day she looked at her Viceroy pack and decided she didn't need the government to tell her that habit could not possibly be good for her. So she quit on the spot. When her children wanted her to accompany them on kiddie rides at Fallon's Playland amusement park on Massillon Road, she obliged. That is, until the Tilt-A-Whirl spun her neck around a little too hard. She never got on it again. But work ... ah, that was a different story. There was always a load of laundry, shirts to press, a yard to mow, trash to carry out, a car to wash, or a sidewalk with snow to be shoveled. When she was pregnant with the twins, youngster Larry scrubbed the kitchen floor with soapy water in a bucket that she filled while he got down on his hands and knees with her counsel. "Wipe in the corner, Larry. Rub out that dirty spot, Larry. Ring out the rag, Larry. That's a good boy." Her sturdy arms, legs and back had much to give -- just as her coal-miner father did coming home covered in black soot every day and her mother demonstrated with 11 children running under feet. Another of Evelyn's sayings: ``Some people eat to live; other people live to eat.'' And her? She worked to live, and lived to work. On the day before going back to work at age 77 (and she did finish three hours of her first day's 5-hour shift before the stroke occurred), Evelyn made her family promise something. ``Don't tell anybody I'm starting a new job. I don't want anybody calling with congratulations.'' So, we never told. Until now. As the hymn writer said, ``For all the saints, who from their labors rest, who thee by faith before the world confessed, thy Name O Jesus, be forever blessed. Alleluia, alleluia.'' Funeral Services will be held Monday 10:00 am at St. John Lutheran Church, 550 E. Wilbeth Rd. Akron, Ohio 44301. Rev. John Eiwen officiating. Interment East Akron Cemetery. The family will receive friends Sunday 2 to 6 pm at the Anthony Funeral Home Kucko-Anthony-Kertesz Chapel, 1990 S. Main St., and Monday 9 to 10 am at the church. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to St. John Lutheran Church. (Anthony, 330.724.1281, www.anthonyfh.com).