Only in America

I don’t usually read obituaries. I know few people in this area, so I don’t expect to find familiar names among the recent dead. With my friend, it is different. She is active in a church with aged parishioners. She goes to at least one funeral every week. Every day I tear out the obituaries from the Dallas Morning News and save them for her on the off-chance that she’ll want one or two of them.

Today there were two-full pages of obituaries. I pulled those pages out of the Metro Section and set them aside. Then I noticed a single obituary on a third page. I glanced at it. No, the man was not a member of the First Baptist Church in Garland. My friend would not be interested in that.

But, as I read, I was fascinated. Leon Wilensky, 85 years old, was the son of Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine and Lithuania. He was born in Dallas and grew up “loving his country, his high school, Forest Avenue High, his SMU Mustangs, and his girl friend, Hazel Davidson.”

He served the U.S. in World War II, and, when he returned, he and Hazel were married. He converted to Christianity and became a member of St. John’s Episcopal Church. He built custom homes. “Yet he felt his true calling was as a teacher.” He spent 18 years teaching history and English in Dallas Public Schools.

Not an unusual biography. What caught my notice was the end of the obituary. His heirs requested donations be made to St. John’s Harvest Outreach, the SMU Mustang Club, or the Holocaust Museum. How beautiful! To honor both his adopted church (St. John’s) and his Jewish Heritage.

The memorial service at St. John’s is scheduled at 10:30 tomorrow morning. “Leon wanted the service to end in time for him to see SMU’s game against UAB.”