Pearl Farm

My great great grandparents, James H. and Rosa Pearl, who founded the Pearl Farm, and built our farmhouse, had six children, Mary, Rose, James A., John, my great grandfather Tom, and Frank. Tom married Florence Doyle, and they had six children, Marjorie (Marj or Margie-my grandmother), James B. (J.B.), Robert (Bob), Maureen, Virginia (Ginger), and Gerald (Jerry), and raised them on the Pearl Farm, adjacent to where James H. and Rosa lived.

The following is the Eulogy that I wrote and delivered at Uncle Bob’s funeral on April 29, 2023.

Robert Louis Pearl May 25, 1926 – April 25, 2023

Uncle Bob would really be pleased to see us all gathered here for Mass today.  Many people may not know this, but as a young man, before marriage and kids, Bob wanted to be a priest.  

I want to tell Bob’s daughters and sons-in-law, Janet, Ellen and Tom, Maureen and Mousa, Meghan and Mike, and Erin and Rich, how sorry I am for the loss of your dad.  And to Bob’s grandchildren and their spouses, Matthew and Jessica, Lakota and Bill, Elan and Caroline, and Max and Maor, I am so sorry for the loss of your beloved grandfather.  He loved you all so much and was so proud of each of you. 

My name is Amy Guerich, and I’m from Kansas City.  I’m one of Bob’s many great nieces…number 9 of 19.  My beloved grandmother, Marjorie Pearl Guerich was Bob’s older sister.  

It is an honor and a privilege to be asked to speak about my dear great uncle today.

Bob was patient, kind, thoughtful, soft spoken, and caring.  He was a proud veteran, a proud Kansan turned Ohioan, a proud native Potawatomi, and a proud Catholic.  His immediate and extended families were a top priority for him, as evidenced by his annual Christmas letter that he and Aunt Joyce used to send, and he kept it up after she passed.  The letter was an annual accounting of sorts of that year’s happenings with the daughters and sons-in-law, and grandchildren, along with a recap of their travels, including annual trips to Kansas.  

Bob was a celebrity among his family in Kansas.  He was the only child of his parents’ six children, who moved away from Kansas permanently, so it was a big deal to have him and Joyce visit.  Summers were an exciting time in Bob’s hometown of St. Marys, Kansas.  His siblings’ excitement was contagious and the hustle and bustle of cooking and planning get togethers happened before their arrival. “Bobs are coming”, they’d say.  The Kansas nieces and nephews enjoyed spending time with their cousins in the earlier years while Bob’s daughters were still living at home and would make the trip as a family vacation.  One of the greatest sources of entertainment when Bob was visiting Kansas were the lively, and dare I say, rowdy, pitch games that took place in the homes of his brothers, JB and Jerry, and his sister, Marj.  They played “Sandy Hook” pitch, named after the area of the Kansas country where they grew up near the Kansas river. 

Bob and Joyce stayed with Bob’s sister, Marj, many times on their annual trips to Kansas.  She’d wave them off until they drove out of sight, one time with a pick-up truck and Uhaul trailer, and many times with the blue Cadillac with the trunk loaded down low! 

The news of Bob’s monthly haircut appointments with his grandson, Matthew, also made it to Kansas.  This has always stuck out to me, and it wasn’t until I was reading his obituary that I realized why.  In the obituary, Lakota wrote that Bob had many adopted grandchildren and great grandchildren.  Both of my grandmothers were single moms, so I never had a grandfather in my life, so it is easy to understand how special Bob’s love for his grandchildren was. 

Bob was so happy when Matthew decided to enter the medical field, and he was thrilled when Matthew and Jessica welcomed Baby Wren, Bob’s first great grandchild, just one day before his own birthday.  You probably often saw him sporting his Columbia University pullover sweatshirt, as he was a proud Columbia grandfather given that both Lakota and Elan are Columbia grads.  Bob loved children, and he had many fun times with Max and Maor, the youngest of the grandchildren, as they were growing up.  Max and Maor were special as they grew up just a few minutes from their grandpa, so they got to spend a lot of time together, and they all cherished their special handshake.  Max loved having pizza from Paisanos at Grandpa Bob’s.  Bob was very happy when he recently got to meet his very first great grandson, Leo, after many family facetime calls with Elan, Caroline, and Leo. 

Next to family, one of the most important things in Bob’s life was his faith and his service to others.  Bob’s cousin, Patrick Dockry, passed away two weeks ago.  During Pat’s funeral this week, the priest said that a person’s legacy is not what they have, but their service and what they’ve done for others.  Bob lived a life of service to his parish and to his community.  As a founding member of St. John Bosco, he took a lot of pride in and ownership of this parish.  I’m not sure how many times I’ve visited Cleveland as an adult, but I can tell you that we have a family picture with the alter as our backdrop from every single one of those trips, with the subsequent picture being those same family members at a local breakfast eatery following Mass. 

Bob loved a good meal. He thought of the memories of his mother’s Sunday fried chicken dinners with great fondness.  He loved his sister Margie’s strawberry shortcakes.  And strawberries just happen to be in season at the time of his May 25th birthday.  On a day trip to Kansas City when Uncle Bob and Janet were visiting St. Marys, we took them to a local Kansas City BBQ restaurant and ordered one of everything.  

On that same trip, we took a little driving tour of Kansas City, and Bob pointed out the stockyards where his maternal Grandfather Doyle would take the train in to sell his cattle.  Uncle Bob loved history and genealogy and recounting stories and memories of old times in Sandy Hook.  He was proud of his heritage.  He loved his grandparents on both sides and often told stories about spending time with them growing up.  It made him very happy to know that both of his grandfathers’ (one a rancher and one a farmer) properties are still in our family to this day, five generations later. 

Bob was a proud member of the Citizen Potawtomi Nation, as his great grandmother was a native Potawatomi, having been a part of the Trail of Death as a young child when her family was forced off of their land in Indiana, down to Sugar Creek, Kansas.  He participated in several commemorative caravans and several dedications of markers along the trail.  He and Joyce traveled to many CPN pow wows in Shawnee, Oklahoma, stopping to see friends and family in Indiana and St. Louis along the way.  They may have also stopped at a few casinos in Missouri and Oklahoma!  After Aunt Joyce died, Janet went along on those trips.  Bob did an excellent job passing down the importance of keeping the Potawatomi traditions alive to his children and grandchildren, especially Elan and Lakota.  In 2010, Bob, with the help of his daughters and son-in-law, Rich, hosted a traditional Potawatomi naming ceremony in his beautiful wooded backyard, where his daughters and grandchildren, sister Marj, great niece, Amy, and cousin Mary Ann, received their Potawatomi names.  Bob was honored to have some of the tribal elders from Missouri and Oklahoma make the trip to Cleveland to facilitate the ceremony.  

Bob attended college at St. Louis University, in St. Louis, where his older sister Marj and younger sister Maureen, were also living at the time.  One summer, he went to New York City, with one of his classmates whose parents lived in an apartment overlooking Central Park.  His stories from that summer in NYC were the best.  I love picturing Uncle Bob running around the city.  He loved New York then, and in later years when he visited his grandchildren, Lakota and Elan, at school at the prestigious Columbia University.  

Bob was hired by Standard Oil out of college at St. Louis University, and early on in his career he was transferred to Cleveland to do accounting and finance for pipelines for Standard Oil of Ohio, (SOHIO) after the federal government broke up Standard Oil to be in compliance with anti trust laws several years prior.  He stayed active in business for many years post retirement (interesting to note, he was retired longer than he worked), putting his accounting skills to use here at St. John Bosco.  He was also a 50+ year member of First Friday Club, a Catholic businessmen’s organization.  When Bob’s daughters hosted his 90th birthday party, one of his former assistants from SOHIO attended and said that Bob was one of the best bosses she had ever had. 

Bob had a good sense of humor.  He had this bashful grin when he thought something was funny.  One time I was visiting at Christmas, and I thought I was cute and trendy, wearing a long white furry vest.  Uncle Bob laughed and said that my vest looked like Mako, Ellen’s dog…who is also white and furry.  I’m not sure that I’ve worn that vest since then.  

In honor of Uncle Bob’s sense of humor, I would like to tell a quick story that is funny NOW, but maybe wasn’t so funny at the time.  One weekend, I picked up Uncle Bob, and we drove to see Tom and Ellen in Lordstown.  We drove back to Cleveland on a Sunday, and I was to drop Uncle Bob in Parma Heights before heading to the airport to turn in my rental car and hop on my flight back to KC.  I don’t think that we were in a hurry, but the next thing I know, lights are flashing in my rear view.  I noticed first, then Uncle Bob noticed.  He said “how fast were you going?” I didn’t answer.  I pulled over, and the state trooper came up to my window.  I stuck my head as far out of the window as I could, and said, sir, I’ve got my 95 year old uncle with me, and he has a pacemaker.  He said, “ok”…I asked if I could step out so we could talk out of earshot…my wallet was in the back of the SUV and we couldn’t disrupt the 95 year old with a pacemaker! The officer was incredibly nice.  He said that he wished he could let me go, but I was driving fast enough…too fast for a warning, so he had to give me a ticket. We got back on the road and Uncle Bob asked again how fast I was going, and I said, “oh, you know”, and I changed the subject. He said, “well, we won’t tell anyone about this”.  And that was the end of that.  

As Bob’s granddaughter, Lakota, wrote in his obituary, Bob lived an exceptional life and left a mark on everyone with whom he met.  I’d argue that would even be true for those he hasn’t met.  My best friend shared 2 Timothy 4:6-8 with me and said that it applied to Uncle Bob, although she never met him.  She said, he fought the good fight.  He finished the race.  He kept his faith.  (2 Timothy 4:6-8) For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith…

When I googled “how to write a Eulogy”, I came across a quote that said “Celebrating life instead of focusing on death can help to ease the grieving process.”  So I hope that we can continue our fellowship the rest of today in thanksgiving and celebration of Bob’s life.  

As I wrap up, I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge Ellen and Tom Hardgrove, Uncle Bob’s second daughter of the five, and her husband.  Caregiving is an unimaginably hard job, and they were both incredible caregivers to Uncle Bob in his final couple of years, just as Bob was a caregiver to Joyce in her final years.  Now, I’m not saying that they didn’t have help from Home Health, the VA, hospice, Erin and Rich, and Lakota and Bill, and other friends and neighbors, but Ellen and Tom lived and breathed Uncle Bob’s care 24/7. They structured their entire family lives around attending to his needs.  I know that the last several weeks have been incredibly challenging.  I speak for many when I thank you for the love and care that you showed to our father, grandfather, uncle, and friend. 

Thank you.