CHARLES EDWARD ARGMARDT (1929-2022)  Dad’s Eulogy								July 16, 2022  Good morning, everyone, I'm Chuck Armgardt, and I’m one of Charles or Charlie Armgardt’s four children.  On behalf of my Mom and siblings, I want to start off by thanking you all for coming out today.  Forgive me for referring to my notes, but I want to make sure I get everything out that has been swirling around in my head over the last week.  It’s a day of sadness, of course, but it’s also a day to celebrate a man who by any measure had a long, fulfilled, and beautiful life.   It really was the quintessential American dream, and without being flashy or flamboyant, because Dad wasn’t, it was a true success story.    Dad, or Charlie, was born and raised on the north side of Chicago.  His father fought in the trenches WWI and was a train conductor, and his mother was a homemaker.  His family was religious; in fact, two of his aunts were nuns.    But Dad was an all-American boy as well.  While he was in grade school and later in high school at Holy Trinity, he and his friends would help clean up Wrigley Field after some of the games, in order to get free admission for the next game.   Charlie was lucky to have a band of close buddy brothers.  They called themselves the Byron Street boys, even though they lived on Sawyer Ave.; go figure.  But they were all good guys.   After high school Dad worked for a while as a clerk for a medical supply company, and then he proudly served in the Army during the Korean War in the early ‘50s.  He didn’t see action, fortunately, but he served in chilly Labrador, so that was tough enough.    Soon after returning to Chicago, based on a tip from a friend, Dad landed his lifelong job with Peoples Gas, where he worked for a remarkable 42 years.  For much of that time his office was on Michigan Ave. near Monroe; then in the later years, his office was on the north side, but he made calls on businesses around most of the city to sell and arrange natural gas service.    The big post-military event in Dad’s life, of course, was meeting our wonderful Mom, Mamie.  It turned out that they had grown up in the same neighborhood and parish, and they shared many of the same experiences of childhood and young adulthood, but they didn’t really know each other in those years.    My Mom and her family often went to see movies at the Commodore theater, where her uncle was the manager, and there would be a rambunctious group of guys who would get escorted out.  It was the Charlie and the Byron Street boys, of course, which Mom and Dad figured out later.  But once they met, and they headed out on their first date, where did Charlie take Mamie?  To church.  She thought, “well, okay,” but then later that evening they went to some establishment, which became their and their friends’ hangout.    Charlie and Mamie got married, of course, and last September the happy couple celebrated an astounding 65 wonderful years of marriage.  Over all that time they shared everything life can offer – together.   They were a great team, supporting each other in every way.  They traveled extensively together, enjoyed wonderful circles of friends, and lived the good life.  But it’s important to recognize that throughout his life, Charlie was an extremely hard worker.  Oftentimes and especially in the early years, he’d get home at 10 at night, have a small meal, and then be up at 5:30 the next morning to head back to the office.  Mom and her sister, our Aunt Mary, would sometimes refer to themselves as “work widows.”    Yet also, especially once when the babies started coming, Dad became the truly great family man we know him as.  One of my earliest and best memories is from when I was just a toddler, and just about every night Dad would wrestle and bounce on the floor with me and brother Jeff; and later he did the same with my sisters Anita and Linda.    As I was growing up, I remember being summoned on a regular basis to help Dad with various household projects.  In those I learned values such as patience, when for instance he had me aim a flashlight for it seemed like hours on end, while he fiddled around with the furnace, or the sump pump, or the lawn mower, or whatever else it was.    Dad was quite the handyman, he was always tinkering on some project or organizing stuff, and he always was helping us with our own projects.    So in all those little kinds of ways, Dad taught us so much about the correct way to live.  He was a man of relatively few words, but he expressed his love and his lessons mainly through his actions.    We learned from him and our Mom about right and wrong, dedication, loyalty, personal responsibility, attention to detail, and of course, love and mutual respect.  Dad also enjoyed the Chicago sports teams, especially the Bears, and most especially the Cubs.  His early brainwashing in our family was permanent, so we all happily celebrated the Cubs’ championship together.    But he was a realist as well.  He’d sometimes joke, “the Cubs didn’t lose today…because they didn’t play.”  One of Dad’s greatest accomplishments is that, without having an extensive education, he managed to retire at age 62.  And he did this after providing very well for us, including raising us in a nice home in the suburbs, and amassing a nest egg.    The classic American Dream wasn’t given to him; he created it, and he earned it.    Charlie, or Dad, also had a keen sense of humor.  Even while he was in the hospital in his last days, he was making quips, and all of us in the room with him shared laughs. Last Saturday, I asked him how the ride in the ambulance was, from the hospital back to his nursing home, and he smiled wryly and said “bumpy.”  (His delivery was better than mine.)  But talk about being a fighter.  Dad had his first heart attack 47 years ago, and so he was a medical patient for more than half of his long, long life.  But he fought through it all.    I count at least seven significant diseases or ailments he had, but there was no real complaining, just a quiet dignity. Even at the end when the myositis was really getting him and he even had trouble with swallowing, and when he knew he was facing his own mortality, he was strong and brave.    And in so many ways he was helped tremendously in his later years by so many people, like Jeff, and Anita, and especially Linda, and most, most especially our Mom, who did the most wonderful job possible of actively taking care of him, and just spending hours and hours with him.  Thanks, Mom.  You did everything anyone could ever do for him.  Losing my Father is one of the most difficult things I have ever gone through.  As I am standing up here today, I realize how fortunate I was to have him as my Father.    There are not words to express his influence in our lives.  It is through his example that I learned to be the father and husband that I am today.  He was one in a million.  So, we’re very proud of Dad, of Charlie, a man who lived his life with a strong faith in God, as well with kindness, gentleness, virtue, and strong character.    He served God, he contributed to his church and his community, and he was a good Catholic.  In fact, he always carried his rosary with him throughout his life, and it’s poignant that he still has it with him, in his hands, today.  To conclude, thank you again to everyone for coming out today to celebrate the memory of my amazing father.  He is irreplaceable in our hearts.  We feel so grateful to have had as much time with him as we did.    We will always cherish the memories we have with him, we know that he loved us, and that he is smiling down on all of us.   He was truly a blessing, we were lucky to walk down life’s path with him, and we love him.    So, for one last time, thanks, Dad.

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Charles Edward Armgardt

25 décembre 1929 – 10 juillet 2022

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25 décembre 1929 – 10 juillet 2022

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