Tom

THOMAS J. WENTLAND  

                                   May 30, 1934 - April 26, 2024

Remembering my brother is a labor of love. I wanted to say that because there may be some thinking this might be my attempt at having an auspicious opportunity for “pay-back” by the youngest of three brothers.

So I began with that disclaimer to dispel any suspicions of that kind of sibling one-up-man-ship.

As an added precaution, I’ve chosen to write this in the second person as if addressing it to Tom, hoping that if anything strikes him as inappropriate, he’d somehow prevent my telling the story.

You Loved Having an Audience

You came into the world, Tom, on May 30, 1934. That day the temperature hit 96 degrees, and 106 on May 31st. Years later you’d recount the story told you about that day living up to the saying that dates back to 1889, “hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk.” Not that anyone really did that in Rockford, since it’s not really scientific. Yet you would recount it to any audience who’d ask about your birthday. 

Much to your chagrin, our brother Stan teasingly attributed your freckles to that extreme date-of-birth temperature. This did not please you through your early years. However, pictures of you at that tender age show a cute freckle-faced kid who could easily have co-starred as Opie with Andy Griffin in Mayberry. Those freckles turned out to be an asset in one phase of teen life: you had an admiring audience of girlfriend wanna-bes.

Never daunted, you went on to make your mark and gained further audiences. In fact a series of events shows that you enjoyed having an audience.

Playing Polonaise for recital at St. Peter Grade School

You remember that in 1947, Mom and Dad surprised us with a Cable Upright Player Piano. 

You had expressed interest in music in sixth grade and Mom and Dad enrolled you in music lessons from one of the Sisters at St. Peter after school. You did so well that Sister signed you up to play in the annual school recital.

As I attempted to memorize the multiplication tables, you practiced Chopin’s Military Polonaise with mom humming the correct notes from the kitchen when you hit a wrong key. 

However, I came to appreciate your mastering of that piece, no small accomplishment for you as a 6th grader.

To this day, I have the earworm of Fredrick Chopin’s Military Polonaise [op 40 no 1 in A major]. If anyone want to gain the ear worm, listen to it…By clicking here folks can hear it as played by Gilmore Artist Award Winner Rafał Blechacz.

You had me, Mom and Dad and all the parents of students of St. Peter as your audience.

Dance Tour with Dorothy Hild Dancers

During college, your best friend Chuck Hains suggested that you join together in a summer gig with the Touring Company of the Dorothy Hild Dancers. That was a group of dancers that toured County Fairs. For those unfamiliar with Midwest history, Dorothy Hild Dancers were the “Chicago Rockettes” entertaining at the Edgewater Beach Hotel from the 1930s to 1955. After that time the group continued as a touring troupe making the circuit around the midwest. 

All that was before you began to experience torn cartilage in your knee as a result of a football injury playing for the St. Thomas High Tommies. And so as the symptoms became so painful you had to have knee surgery, from then on, your performance dancing ended.

Still, with Chuck, you had audiences all over the Midwest.

Teaching at St. Thomas High 

In your endeavors to firm up your career, you took a position as teacher at your former high school, St. Thomas in Rockford (note photo of the former St. Thomas in winter at right). You were teaching high schoolers which  presented any teacher with a challenge of making the material interesting. I can't remember exactly what subject you were teaching at the time, but one of the units had something to do with jet propulsion or rocketry. To give life to your presentation, you built a rocket model from balsa wood with a jet cartridge inserted in its back, ceertainly sufficient to peak the curiosity of the class. You had rigged up a wire stretching diagonally across the classroom. The students must have been enthusiastically curious when at the appropriate time in your presentation, you walked to the step ladder at the back of the room and raised the pin trigger that would puncture the cartridge on the model rocket. “That thing went flying across the room and slammed into the corner with a really loud bang,” I remember you telling me. Luckily other faculty didn’t come running with alarm. But the class was in awe.

You gained an audience of teenagers.    

Lightening the Mood 

You served with brother Stan as acolyte at my first mass on May 26, 1963 at St. Peter Church, Rockford.

As a serious newly-ordained priest, I had chosen the theme of “Jesus, the Vine, We the Branches.” And the florist made the creative suggestion of using the heart-shaped flower anthurium since grape vines would hardly be possible. During the rehearsal, you in your jovial spirit noted the flowers and commented that they looked like One-Legged Can-Can Dancers (note picture at right). At that time, I couldn’t appreciate your effort to defuse my nervousness in all the preparation for the event. I did later on. 

You had a reluctant audience.

Having Three Girls

Perhaps you thought that one way to grantee having an audience was to bring three girls into the world…though I’m not sure why you thought you’d get a word in edgewise that way.

But you now had a sometimes reluctant captive audience.

Community Theatre in Columbus

Those who knew you when you lived in Columbus remember your roles in the Springer Theater in Columbus, especially as Sancho Panza in Man of LaMancha. You passionately lived that role as much as you loved dressing up as a leprechaun for St. Paddy’s Day.

You had an appreciative local audience who admired your various theatrical renditions. 

Academic Career

As head of the Communicative Disorders Department at Columbus State  University, you completed a distinguished career in academia, retiring emeritus in 1999.

You were proud to have played a role in preparing an audience of students striving for a professional career.

Your Hearing Loss  

What might have been the most tragic bit of irony was that the head of the Speech Pathology and Audiology Department would be struck with hearing loss. It came about when you was experiencing a bout with the flu. 

In January of 1985, our Mom had experienced a stroke symptoms, so you travelled to Rockford. With a Doctorate in a field where you’d gained extensive knowledge of the speech mechanism and the effects of aphasia, you served Mom and the family well after her surgery caused further damage and helped us understand what Mom was going through with her further paralysis. 

As you tell it, your symptoms of the flu during that visit were continuing and you ran out of the antibiotic your doctor in Columbus had prescribed. So you went to a clinic in Rockford where you was prescribed an antibiotic. However, after you had returned to Georgia, you said you began to notice your loss of hearing. You attributed that to your having been prescribed an antibiotic that interacted with the one you had been taking, resulting in progressively radical hearing loss.

Despite that, the university was so reluctant to have you leave the faculty that they offered you a role as “Prof” of remedial math for entering freshman. 

You loved it, and, at the same time, you were able to keep your status, benefits and tenure. The University assured the accrediting body that having a tenured professor in that role was best for the students of the university.

And You kept your audience.   

Teaching Remedial Math

On one occasion of my visiting you, you invited me to come with you to your class at the University. The classroom was crowded with probably 80 students. What struck me is that these kids were wrapped in attention as you conveyed the fundamentals of the math they needed to be able to be tested on as a pre-entry requirement to the university with a creatively humorous spirit. 

Of course, being able to introduce your “little brother” to the class gave you an edge with them, seeing a facet of their prof that students seldom get to see: you have a sibling, actually two, but Stan wasn’t there then.

And you shared your family with your student audience who loved it.

FDR at The Little White House in Warm Springs

For 16 years you portrayed FDR at the Little White House in Warm Springs, GA,  many of those years with Nancy Simko portraying Eleanor.

A reporter, Theresa Shadrix, wrote in the Anniston Star, (AL), on February 17, 2007 quoting you as saying:

"It is an incredible honor to be able to step into his skin and make him seem alive, like to make people understand what that time was like, what our country was going through with the Depression," says Wentland.

"Some days you feel like cardboard cutouts," says Wentland. "Then there are some days here when...well, they are humbling.”

Wentland finds it difficult to finish his sentence but Simko looks up from her knitting.

"People thank him. We have had World War II veterans thank us," she says. "These moments are precious."

Source: https://www.theresashadrix.com/2008/12/warm-springs-actors-bring-yourtory-to.html

I remember your recounting to me how an elderly woman of African-American background tottered up to you after one of your presentations. “She looked up at me in admiration” you quoted her as saying, “ ‘I knew him, you know, and you know, Sonny, you are just like him’ ”

And you pleased your audience.

Winston Churchill and other Historic Personages

When you had aged beyond the point when you could pass for the 60 year old FDR, you researched the life and times of Winston Churchill. Those familiar with the Netflix series The Crown might say you could give John Lithgow a run for his money.

And you continued portraying Ben Franklin and later songwriter Harry Warren. Your portrayals of these were ones I never saw but you might even have rendered some of Harry's songs, like the Academy Award winner "The Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe" featured in the film The Harvey Girls and sung by Judy Garland.

Your audience must have been enthralled.

Playing Piano at the Restaurant and Elks Club in Columbus in 2011

As previously mentioned you were an accomplished pianist, not only of Chopin but also of popular tunes. So appreciated that you were hired to serenade those dining at The Loft in downtown Columbus. Diners enjoyed your accompaniment to their meal, and you could play almost any request 

made of you, especially if you had the sheet music in your binder of songs. 

You did the same at the Elks Club where you had a following of friends.

You appreciated your audiences and you enjoyed playing for them.

So Many Stories

There are so many more stories that endear you to us.  The collection of those stories about you, Tom, is a labor of love.

And we continue to be your audience.

Audience  

The word “audience” comes from the Latin word audire. That title seems fitting for Tom who dedicated his life to audiology and speech therapy, assisting people to hear and speak.

So now, dear reader, since this Celebration of Tom's Life has hardly scratched the surface of all the events of his life, now you can continue to be his audience, and he hopes you enjoy the stories found in “The Boys” which can be read by clicking here.