George H. Eichler
April 15, 1900 – October 31, 1978
Not a year goes by without someone either asking questions about my grandfather, George Eichler, or telling me some type of story about him. I received a call this week and once again, someone had a remembrance of him which not only brightened my day but reinforced how many other lives he brightened as well.
So while today is Halloween, it is also the anniversary of George Eichler’s passing on October 31, 1978. Sadly, his final years were fought battling Alzheimer’s disease.
This is the last picture taken of him about a month before he died. Somehow he had chipped his front tooth and would not stand still for the photograph. He kept wanting to go and “talk to all his friends,” as he was known to do. My grandmother would say that unless she kept a strict eye on him, he would wonder around the Landing chatting with anyone. So many people would walk him home after he found his way to their house or party.
This was the last picture my grandmother had of him, because he collapsed from a stroke while eating dinner and died shortly thereafter on Halloween in 1978. Both my grandmother and my mother took it very hard and, while I was a child, my memories of him remain to this day.
His obituary listed him as many things but, to me, the essence of who he was revolved around the idea that “community” was more than where you lived and that “love of neighbor” was what everything else sprang from.