Ernest “Bob” House
In January I was in Melbourne, Australia when I got a message that Al was critically ill. I was shocked. He was never sick, never took medications. When I called him, he was feeling better, though weak. By September he had a serious relapse. Late in the month, I came to spend a few days with him. He was in a reflective mood, assessing his life and wanting to talk about the old days.
I first met him when I moved into his neighborhood in 7th grade. He was two years younger, but wanted to hang around with the older guys. Since he was younger, we teased him. He shrugged it off. He had a good sense of humor, including humor about himself. He was always curious about how other people lived and a little surprised when they did things differently than we did in Alton, Wood River, and Granite City.
After college we both taught high school in our home area, and, inspired by the “Route 66” TV program, we explored places we had never seen. Our first trip was down to New Orleans over Christmas. We stopped at every Civil War battlefield. There were a lot of them. A summer sweep through the northeast took us to Montreal, where we encountered the deep anger of the Quebecois, news to us. We visited Lexington and Concord and stayed in dorm rooms at Columbia University, while we explored nightlife in Greenwich Village. Yep, things were different. On a trip to Miami we traced Sherman’s March and stayed in cheap Art Deco hotels on Miami Beach. During my two-day visit, Al wanted to talk about these early 1960 road trips.
After four years of this life, I married, moved away, and went to graduate school. In 1968 Donna and I were living in a Chicago suburb when Al came to visit. As he left, he thanked us for our hospitality. He said he had come to see what married life was like. He was thinking about it for himself. Shortly after, he married Martha. I was best man at his wedding, as he was at mine. He and Martha came to Chicago for a few months so he could work on his PhD dissertation as part of my project.
His assessment of his life was very positive. He had a great wife, a great family, a fine teaching career at the high school and community college, and in retirement enjoyed his work with the Elks. He had succeeded in the roles he took on. In his view, he had accomplished all the things expected of him and much more. Not all people see their lives in such positive terms in retrospect. Many see missed opportunities, lost ambitions, messed up relationships. Al was positive and optimistic to the end.
I would add to this assessment that he was a great friend, one of those few indispensible friends who help you get through life. Loyal to a fault, always engaged and interested in what I was doing, whatever crazy thing I was up to. As I spent time in Europe, Australia, and South America, I sent him postcards. And when I visited him, he wanted to know what life was like in those places. He was also an avid reader. His love of history took him out of the mundane, what detective stories and movies do for others. When I began to write books, he read every one and made comments. You may think that’s no great act of friendship, but those books are dull.
The ancient Greeks had a saying: Never consider a man fortunate until he’s dead. You never know what might happen to him until then. Al and I discussed this idea many times. I will say now that Al Leavell was a most fortunate man. And he certainly would agree. His final judgment of his life was that it was a life well lived. I can only say, rightfully so, rightfully so.
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