The Grandfather He Never Knew - Donald G. Kundiger

Leif never met my father, who died by taking cyanide at the age of 46 when I was only 12 years old, and yet Dad may have passed on several characteristics and propensities to the grandson he never saw. My father was brilliant, as was Leif. He taught himself chemistry, eventually studying organic chemistry at the University of Wisconsin and earning his PhD. He had tremendous musical ability and had studied the piano, playing complex concert pieces. He had the receding hairline that Leif inherited, and that glowing smile. At the time he died, after a couple of years of severe depression, none of us knew back in those days that a propensity for chronic, clinical depression could be inherited, or that the genes for it could be "switched on" by trauma.

Since he died when I was twelve, fifteen years before Leif was born, and I never saw them together, it didn't dawn on me until last fall how much Leif looked like his grandfather. I didn't realize it until I was visiting my nephew, Rick, and saw a photo of him on the wall that reminded me strongly of both Leif (his first cousin) and my dad. Then I suddenly saw the resemblance that Leif bore to his grandfather.

I wish they could have known each other. Leif craved the company of smart people with whom he could discuss ideas. He would have enjoyed my father, though they would likely have disagreed on some things. It's sad that my father never saw his children grow up (my brother and sisters were younger than I was) and never saw any of his grandchildren or great-grandchildren. Sad that he couldn't find joy in life any more, despite his family of four kids and his "American dream" lifestyle owning his own home, a car, and working as an assistant professor of organic chemistry at Kansas State University. By the time he died, he had patented 28 compounds, though the rights to use them were owned by Dow Chemical Company because they had given him grants to do the research.

Dad used to say, way back in the 1950s, that one day we would discover that mental illness is caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. We are finding that out these days. His prediction is coming true, but that didn't save his grandson. Leif didn't ask for help, didn't try medication, as far as we know.

People have often asked me why am interested in genealogy, family history, saying they aren't interested in birth and death dates and a bunch of dead people, but what they don't understand is that family history is the stories, who these people were, the lives they led . . . and how that impacts or influences us. I am more and more sure that they do, in more ways that we can ever know. After all, we are made from their genes. What have they passed on to us?

I have noticed in looking at generations of photos that often there will be startling resemblances between people who are separated by two or three generations, like Leif and my father, but I never dreamed that one of my son's would commit suicide as he did.

Leif grew up knowing about my father's death, knowing how it had affected me. That was one reason that he didn't kill himself at Fort Drum, New York when he was so devastated, because he knew it would hurt me. I told him always to remember that, and that if he ever felt that way again, to remember it and do whatever it took to stay alive. That was not to be. I don't know, and never will know, what tipped the balance and made him decide to put his new pistol to his head and pull the trigger on April 9, 2008. Even though I know of all the problems and disappointments, heartaches, he'd had, what was it that made death seem like the only way out? Was the depression and the decision to die programmed into his genes, passed down from his grandfather, and set in motion by all the trauma he experienced?
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The top photo is of my father on his wedding day, June 13, 1943 when he was 30 years old, just three years younger than Leif was when he died. The second one, one of the very rare color photos of him, was taken in 1959 when he was 46 years old, less than a year before he died.

Fourteen Months Without Our Son

Today it has been 14 months since we found Leif dead on his kitchen floor and we still miss him, talk about him, still want him back. It's as though there is a huge chasm across our lives that can't be filled no matter how much else we have in our lives. There is an underground river of sadness that flows through it all, even through the happy times.

Leif Playing Soccer - Japan & Hawaii - Ages 6-11

Leif started playing soccer at Camp Zama in Japan when he was only five or six years old. He was really good at it, especially playing goalie or fullback. Even that young it was amazing how far he could boot the ball, and unlike some kids, he wasn't scared when other kids rushed at him in the goalie box.

He played every year through his freshman year of high school. What I can't believe is that with all the photos we have I can't find any from the four years he played in the Chicago area, first with leagues and then on the freshman team at HighLand Park High School. I looked and looked. I even remember having the camera with me at games, and in Highland Park, many of those games were played in cold, damp or soaking wet nasty weather. I remember one game where the field had a couple of inches of icy water on it, with actual ice floating in it, and those kids still played!

He got an award for his play on the freshman team at Highland Park High School in Illinois. I remember at one game I was awed when he kicked a ball literally down the entire field over the heads of both teams, to one of his forwards way up there by the opposing team's goal. This teammate scored.

These photos span a five year period. The bottom one shows Leif in the black goalie shirt at Camp Zama, Japan in March 1981, when he was six years old. Above that are two taken in the fall of 1982 when he was seven-and-a-half, and the top two are from February 1986 in Honolulu, Hawaii when he was eleven years old.

Leif loved playing soccer and probably would have played on his high school varsity team and perhaps in college if we hadn't moved to Puerto Rico. We got there in August and the Antilles High School team was already practicing for the fall season. Leif went to try out for the team but the shock of coming from a chilly northern climate to weather that was 96 degrees and about 98% humidity. The coach had them running for miles without any chances to cool down or drink anything and Leif was an danger of heat exhaustion. He was coming home about to drop and I was worried about him. The coach refused to make any allowances for his change in climate so that he could adjust, or let the boys stop for a drink. The final blow came when Leif's soccer shoe sole came partially off during a run and he twisted his ankle so that he couldn't run for awhile. He was so discouraged and so upset with the coach that he quit the team. I was so sorry to see that happen, losing a sport he had enjoyed from 1980 to 1990, for ten years. I know he missed it. He went to the games and I could see that he longed to be on the field with his friends, especially Lenny.

Leif Hanging on a Bar - Hawaii - Summer 1984 - Age 9

If it could be climbed, Leif climbed it; trees, hills, rocks, ladders, whatever he could find. This was in Hawaii during the summer of 1984 when he was nine-and-a-half years old.

Leif on His First Bicycle - Sagamihara, Japan - July 4, 1981 - Age 6 and a half

Leif loved his brother's "Big Wheel and his two tricycles, but they were nothing compared with the speed and freedom a bicycle allowed him. He got his first bicycle, a used one we purchased from a family that was moving back to the USA, when he was six. He learned to ride quickly, showing that natural athletic ability and balance he was to have all of his childhood and youth. He tore around the neighborhood on it, loving that speed. He liked to wear this football helmet. That was in the days before bike helmets. None of us had them. I don't remember how we happened to have the football helmet, since neither of the boys played football, but Leif liked to pretend that it was a pilot's helmet. He used it a lot in imaginative play.

This photo was taken in the evening on the Fourth of July, 1981 in front of our quarters in the Sagamihara Family Housing Area. The street area was well lighted and on summer evenings, the kids in our neighborhood were often out late playing.

Leif Rowing - England - June 1980 - Age 5

In June 1980 we took a trip from Germany to England, where we visited London, Canterbury, Oxford, Stonehenge, Bath and several other places, stayed in bed-and-breakfast homes and in the Gate House at Greenham Common air base. It was a great trip, including the trip across the English Channel on a hovercraft. We took our car with us and could drive everywhere.

I think this photo was taken in Oxford. It is typical Leif. We rented a rowboat and Peter W. was rowing. Of course both boys insisted they wanted to try it. Leif was only five years old and could hardly hang onto both oars so he settled for one, but he was determined to make that boat move.

One of the last places we went in England was Dartmouth, where we took a trip on a riverboat down the Dart river. While we were standing in line to board the boat, Peter W. decided he was going to walk off somewhere and get us ice cream cones. There I was with the two boys when Leif suddenly decided to take off running, my five-year-old running off in a strange city in a foreign country (something he was to do more than once)! I hollered at him to come back and he paid absolutely no attention. He was rapidly getting away and I finally had to go after him.

Back in Germany some time before this, Leif had been misbehaving one day while I was cooking and had a wooden spoon in my hand. Although I was not one to use physical punishment with my boys, I threatened to "get him" with the wooden spoon. To my utter surprise, he had stopped misbehaving immediately, and the spoon had become a useful tool. All I had to do was brandish it to get him to pay attention and behave, so when we left for England and were going to be going on to visit family in the USA before moving all the way to Japan, I put that spoon into my purse. Which was where it was at that moment in Dartmouth.

I started running down the street after Leif, still yelling at him to stop, but he wouldn't and I was having a hard time catching up. Without ever thinking how this was going to look to the surprised people of Dartmouth, I whipped that wooden spoon out of my purse and brandished it. Leif was near a bench and he immediately stopped and sat down. When I got to him, I gave him a pat on the fanny and the spoon, the shaft of which had split in my purse. It flew apart in two pieces, making it look like I had wallopped him. He wasn't hurt in the least and didn't cry, but went peacefully with me back to the boat line, but by that time, I was feeling thoroughly embarrassed and wondering what the people who witnessed that had thought.

That was the end of the wooden spoon, though. Not only was it broken and discarded, but it's effectiveness was gone. Leif knew at that point that it wasn't ever going to do him any harm and never would have.

Leif Playing T-Ball - Camp Zama, Japan - May-June 1982 - Age 7

Leif was a very active child. From the time he was very small he went on hikes with us, climbed trees and every kind of playground equipment, rode a tricycle an then a bike. His first "organized" sport was t-ball which he played for one spring at Camp Zama, Japan, when he was seven years old. Baseball of any kind never caught his fancy and if my memory is correct, although he was good at connecting with the ball and sending it flying, he had no interest in signing up for it again. I think it just wasn't active enough for him. Too much sitting in the dugout waiting. Too much standing around on the field waiting.

These photos show him in action and in the dugout watching the action. He was the tallest boy on his team, as usual, and probably the strongest as well.

Struggling with suicide

How terribly sad that so many of our soldiers and veterans struggle with depression and suicide.

Leif's Pirate Story - A Beginning

I found this on Leif's computer after he died. It was labeled just "story." I don't know exactly when he wrote it but it had to be between September 2007 and April 2008. I think it is likely to be early in 2008. I wish he had written more. It seems like a promising beginning, and I am intrigued that he chose to write in first person from a woman's point of view.

Leif's Society for Creative Anachronism persona was a pirate, and because he was such a snappy and stylish dresser in those days, even as a pirate, he was dubbed "the GQ Pirate," and had email addresses that were thegqpirate@hotmail.com, for instance. He had an affinity for the sea and this story seems well suited to his imagination. Leif also had an obsession with sex and romance, and I don't doubt that had he written more of this story, we would have been treated to plenty of romance and erotica.

I am also wondering where this English pirate would have taken his English captive and whether they would have shown up in Puerto Rico, since Leif mentions that is where she and her husband were heading. It would have been a natural locale for him to choose, since he lived there for two years.

The story was apparently envisioned as a series of diary entries, but we only have the first one to pique our interest.

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Dear Diary,

It has been some time since I wrote as my master has only recently returned to me my pen and quill. I will try to recount the events of the last year as well as I remember them.

I was aboard a Spanish galleon bound for San Juan, Puerto Rico where my husband had accepted, or I should say been forced to accept, a position as a surgeon after we were banished from Barcelona for his unrestrained debauchery. Ours being a marriage of obligation my father in London owed due to contractual agreements, my husband never felt compelled to maintain his fidelity, dipping his quill in every Spanish slut he could find despite how it tarnished my already dubious reputation as an English woman living in Spain.

I remember the day well. It was bright and clear and the sails on the horizon could be seen for hours before they raised concern. It was beautiful, one of the few days of the voyage on which I ventured out onto the deck of our ship to enjoy the Atlantic air. I saw the other ship but paid it little mind as others did, just another group of wayward souls on a vast ocean.

But then there was a call of panic from the crow's nest, screaming in Spanish so rapid and desperate I could barely make it out, not being a native speaker. “Pee-rah-tez!!!” was what I heard, the Spanish pronunciation for the word “pirates,” and not just any pirates, it was the flag of the “Avarice,” the ship captained by the infamous Gaius the Grey, a former English privateer no longer under any royal restraint.

Quickly, the deck hands sprung into action as we attempted to change course but the wind was against us. I heard, and there was no heading we could take that would not drive us into the path of the Avarice. Our captain was a right proper Spanish caricature of machismo, and having the full cannon of a Spanish galleon at his disposal chose to maneuver for attack rather than escape. Despite my curiosity my husband forced me to go below deck. Were I a sensible or frightened sort I might have cowered behind the bed but I am a curious sort and so I found my face framed in a porthole watching the approach of the fearsome pirate.

It seemed an agonizing wait but after a time I saw a flash and plume of smoke from the Avarice. A few seconds later I heard the repot of a cannon, but not before I felt the impact of its ball impacting the deck of our ship. The sensation of the ship as it shook from the impact was terrifying. One shot from extended range and this pirate had hit us. There was a pause from the Avarice but our captain returned the greeting with a full broadside volley of cannon fire. It was deafening as the dozen cannon went off, like nothing I had ever heard, yet the balls fell into the ocean with inept splashes either too short or too wide to hit the advancing Avarice.

The cannons began to talk to each other. A single shot from the bow of the Avarice followed by massive broadsides from our own guns. I heard a shot whiz right over our deck with an eerie sound and watched more of our shots fall to the sea. It was clear that what this pirate vessel lacked in cannon it had amply supplied in experience. The next shot from its bow shook the hull violently and was followed by a loud creaking and crashing. I could hear the desperate cries of our crew and it was clear they had hit our mast. We were dead in the water. A sitting duck.

Only now did the Avarice change course. It shifted from its direct frontal assault and turned to the right, moving to our stern, to our rudder, to our least cannon. Our guns made a few last futile attempts to engage her as she circled in for the kill. I was terrified. This pirate was ruthless and deadly and clearly had the better of us yet I could not help but be impressed at his capability to disable a superior adversary, as our vessel would have been in more capable hands.

I moved to the stern and looked on stupidly as the Avarice sailed perpendicular to us, readying for a broadside barrage. I don't know what possessed me to stare into what must have been ten guns pointed my way as The Grey let loose all the fury he had on our rudder and wheel house. I saw the bursts and the plumes of smoke as the cannons hurled their balls upon us. I turned and ran from the bulkhead but it was to late. As I fell over the bed I looked up to see the deck above me splinter and the beam which broke away coming towards my face. Then. ... Blackness.

I remember a blur. A haze of smoke and blood and screaming. I could hear guns but not the big cannons of the ships; these were pistols and muskets. Something else; the clank of steel. Swords and cutlasses clashed. The screams of death. I tried to move. The only thing heavier than the beam which pinned me to the floor was my own head and my eyelids, one of which was matted with fresh blood. That was the last thing I remembered of our ship. Then ... nothing.

I don't know how long I was unconscious or what happened in the interim. I awoke to find myself cleaned, the matted hair cleaned of blood. I felt fresh and well, though my head still throbbed a bit. I gradually became aware of my surroundings, first sounds. I could hear the creaking of a ship on the waves and their splash on the hull. I was aboard a ship, but what ship? Where? I was not coherent enough to speculate. Slowly I opened my eyes, both of them clear. No blood blinding one. I had been cared for by someone. I felt my hair on my cheek and it was soft and clean. I opened my eyes fully and looked around. It was a cabin, a large stateroom aboard a ship. I could see light coming from the windows with too much brightness to be a mere porthole. No, this was a captain's suite, or at least a VIP room. I scanned the room groggily. It was littered with trinkets, many artifacts, some quite beautiful, but it was chaotic, unrefined. I could not help but think it needed a woman's touch.

My confusion began to subside as a I gathered my bearings. Where was I? What had happened? What was this place? As I came to remember the answer was obvious. There was only one place I could be. I was aboard the Avarice and this was the stateroom of Captain Gaius the Gray himself!!

Suddenly I became fearful. I am not sure what I was thinking but instinct told me to move, to run. I rose up out of bed, or at least I tried to. As I tried to move I became instantly aware that my hands were bound, tied to the bedposts above me with silk scarves such as are worn by wealthy pirates. I struggled against them but it was no use. My wrists were tied together and the knot was tied to the head of the bed. I tried to move my legs and discovered that my ankles were also bound together. I looked down at myself, and while my body was covered by sheets of a surprising softness, also apparently made from silk (this pirate had taste), I came to realize that below these soft sheets which preserved my modesty I was completely naked save for these bonds.

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The picture is of Leif on Bellows Beach in Hawaii on the island of Oahu, in August 1989 when he was 14 years old.

Leif & Dartboard - Sachsen bei Ansbach - October 1979 - Age 4 and a half

I was amused to find this picture of Leif with our old dartboard, way back in October 1979. I think this is the back side of the very same dartboard he was using as a soldier at Fort Drum. I posted a photo of him with it on March 18 this year. (Find it in the subject list under "darts."

This is yet another instance of Leif's remarkable consistency of interests throughout his life. He had this same dartboard on his closet door during his senior year of high school when we lived in the old stone house. That door suffered mightily and had numerous little holes in it from darts that didn't land on the target. I have a feeling that either these weren't thrown by Leif or he was experimenting with throwing the darts into wood because he was far better at darts than to just miss the board. The same door suffered many little round dents from air pistol pellets. We were not pleased.

Darts fell into the category of sharp projectiles that could be aimed and "fired" at a target. He was good at just about anything that had to be aimed and propelled at a target, whether projectiles like darts and bullets or pool balls hit with a cue stick. I don't have any photos of Leif paying pool, but he enjoyed it a great deal and purchased his own fancy (and expensive) pool cue. I don't know where else he played, but I know he played some at the Kansas State University student union (where I even played with him once, getting roundly defeated) and at Fast Eddy's in Aggieville.

The dartboard in this photo had a good long run. I don't remember when we got it, but it was still among Leif's possessions when he died, so it was around for probably at least 30 years.