R.I.P. Charles Hale "Chuck" Gover Jr.

Frostburg, MD-

Charles Hale Gover, Sr., 97, of Frostburg, formerly of LaVale, died Tuesday, February 11, 2020 at Sterling Care Frostburg Village.

Born May 3, 1922 in Frostburg, he was the son of the late Charles D. Gover and Lucy (Hale) Gover.

He was also preceded in death by his wife of 59 years, June E. (Ort) Gover; and his son Charles H. Gover, Jr.

I don't know what possessed me to look up my Air Force friend Chuck Gover online several minutes ago.  But instead of him, I saw several posts about his father who died in 2020 at the age of 97.  Of course, in the third line of his father's obituary which I copied above, I learned that my friend, Chuck, had predeceased his father.  

I was Chuck's 742nd Strategic Missile Squadron sponsor when he failed pilot training and was given an assignment in missiles at Minot in 1975, I believe.  We became friends.  Rather than live in the BOQ on the base along with many of us, he rented a house in the town of Minot.  Chuck was enamored of trains, boats and planes and, most especially, cars.  He was also a Titanic fanatic.  He definitely enjoyed watching movies.  I recall that we must have gone to at least a couple of films at a theater in Minot.

When the Air Force decided to downsize the missile crew force by putting a piece of magic tape over the acrylic door to the deputy's launch-key hole, while also legally letting one crewmember sleep during new, 24-hour alert shifts, Chuck took advantage of the "early out" program and returned to Maryland and, eventually, West Virginia.  I called him one evening when he was visiting his family, and we continued our friendship for the next several years.  Even though he was straight, he was highly supportive of my fight to remain in the Air Force after they discovered I was gay.

The photo above, and many others, I took when I visited him on that extended flying trip from Minot that took me to St. Louis (Dave Morris); Bloomington, Indiana (Darryl Butler); Morgantown, WVA (Chuck); Philadelphia (the Zito brothers, Dave and Dennis, and their family); and mom in California.  I would later fly from Colorado again to Morgantown, WVA, in the 1980's.  Chuck, his wife at the time, and I visited both the Antietam and Gettysburg Civil War battlefields. 
                                                                                     
We last spoke after I had moved to the condo on Franklin St. in Denver.  The times to call him were not easy--this was well before cell phones.  We stopped keeping in touch and lost all contact.  Now I know that he had died several years ago, and that his father outlived him and his mother.  I have yet another friend from my past whom I have known who has died:

James Patrick Mulaney
Rob McDonald
Kent Thomas
Chuck Gover

Dan Stratford
Dick Tuttle
Bart Keeling

George Gordy
Wayne Heubner
                                                                                   

Charles Hale “Chuck” Gover Jr., 67, of Morgantown, passed away on
Dec. 30, 2019 at Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown.

Hale was born at Wright Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio, to Charles H. Gover Sr. and June Ort Gover on Jan. 22, 1952. He attended Allegany High School in Cumberland, Md. and received his Bachelor’s degree from West Virginia University in 1974. He married Nancy Kremer, of Morgantown, on May 25, 1983 in Morgantown. He worked for over 25 years at the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey where he retired in 2007. He was a veteran of the United States Air Force.

Hale’s passions included dogs, cars and sports.

Hale is preceded in death by his wife Nancy and his mother June.

He is survived by his father, Charles H. Gover Sr., of Frostburg Village Assisted Living Facility, Frostburg, Md., his cousin Lewis R. Schumann of Naples, Fla., along with other cousins and close friends throughout the area which he considered to be his family.

He will be remembered in a celebration of life to be held at Batton Hollow Winery, Lost Creek, at a later date.                                                          

Chuck was a smoker.  I really would not be surprised if he had died fairly young, at 67, of lung cancer.  

Friendships diverge along the many trails of our lives.  Every year, I used to receive and send out stacks of Christmas cards, to family and friends.  Now I get very few, counted upon a few fingers of one hand.  We shared our lives and significant experiences and then our encounters faded away, eventually altogether.  Before you know it, they are gone, and you add yet another stone to the cairn of your regrets, wanting so much to tell the departed that they meant so much to you in your life, even if just for a time.

These days, so many actors, actresses, comedians, singers, musicians, artists, and writers whom I grew up enjoying are gone.  All of the male members of We Five, Mamas and Papas, and Jefferson Airplane are gone.  Other favorite groups such as The Cyrkle or The Association have lost key members.  We seem to be in a line that is shuffling off to oblivion, one by one.  

 

5818 Bayshore Boulevard, Tampa, Florida circa 1949-1951

 

This was one of the few photographs that I have of the house my parents lived in when I was born in September of 1949 and Ann was born in September of 1950.  Dad had been stationed at MacDill AFB before we were born.  Mom had had Rheumatic fever when she was younger and was told that while she could physically have children, she ought not to.  Unlike her three siblings, she produced a boy and a girl.  Jean, Doris and Robert each had had one boy.  Ann became the only granddaughter on the Breeze side of the family.  (Dad's brother, Leon, would later have three girls and two boys, but that would be a few years off.)

The parents may have rented the house on Bayshore Blvd.  Just below is the way the house looks today.  Except for the foliage, not much seems to have changed.  The house lists for over $1 million these days.  (The tear in the B&W photograph above was due to my clumsy attempt to remove it from a photo album and scan it.)  I believe that mom is the woman sitting on the right.  Dad might be the one sitting on the top steps, holding the girl.  However, both Ann and I were infants at the time, so that the kids had to be someone else's offspring.  According to Redfin, the house was built in 1926 and renovated in 2017. 
                                                                                   

We lived there until after Ann was born and then we moved, my mother told me, to Valdosta, GA, and the Air Force Base there, for six months before Dad was transferred to George AFB back in California, where he was born in Martinez, CA, in 1920.  Mom had complained over the years that Dad was often homesick for his Mother, and he repeatedly drove across country to see his parents in California before and after we were born.     

The following  photograph might have been from Christmas of 1948 (the parents were married in 1947) and might also have been in the house on Bayshore.  While she appears to be wearing maternity clothes, she could not have been pregnant with me on 1948, nor with Ann before Christmas in 1949.  (After I scanned the photograph, I identified the date as 1947.  The only reason that I thought this might be 5818 Bayshore is the wooden flooring which can be seen in the contemporary color photo below.)   
                                                                               

                                                                                 

The opposite view of the living room shows even more windows, and the grain of the flooring flows in opposite directions in the two photographs.  So I might be reaching, and the 1947 date is correct and likely not from the Tampa house.

The following photo is from 1949, not long after I was born.  Dad is holding me.  It's hard for me to read the expression on his face.  Pride?  Wonderment?  Discomfort?  Hope that he doesn't drop me?  Who can say?  But he likely never imagined, holding me, is that the son in his arms will grow up to be gay.  A fact that Dad never quite seemed to get over.  One of the porch urns is visible n the background.
                                                                             

Here is Mom on the same porch, holding me.
                                                                              

Here is Grandma Sanchez holding me, her first grandchild.
                                                                              

To give equal time, here is Grandma Breeze with an infant Ann and a 1-year-old me.
                                                                                  

Here is Mom holding me while sitting in the passenger side of the car.  Just returning from the hospital after I was born?  Probably later since I don't quite look like a newborn.
                                                                           

Mom loved to have professional photographs taken.
                                                                                 

This seemed to be an era of naked baby photos.
                                                                                 

                                                                                   

This was also the era of telegrams.  Rarely did anyone call with news of a big event.  But a telegram was fast and, with a judicious choice of few words, informative.  Even today, a telegram looks far more impressive than an email and, typically, a man delivered the missive to your door.  
                                                                              

The address still exists, but the house that the Sanchez grandparents lived in back in 1949 is clearly no longer there.  The current house is gorgeous, was built in 2016, and sells for nearly $7 million today.  

I suspect this photo of Ann and me was taken before we left Florida for Georgia, but I have no way of knowing for certain.                                                                                

Here we are at a beach with Dad.
                                                                                  

This is definitely on the same front porch on Bayshore.
                                                                                

The following are from Christmas 1949 and 1950 (if they include Infant Ann).