November 22, 2002
2:00 PM Visitation/3:00 PM Memorial Service
Rev. Dan Fuller officiating
Eulogy by Greg Clinton

[Following are the notes I used at the memorial service for my Uncle Chuck. A copy of this piece was requested by a friend - I hope posting it here will be appropriate. - Greg Clinton]

Reading: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

I. Charles William Petrosky was born and raised in Monongahela, Pennsylvania (about an hour south of Pittsburgh), where as a youth he was a well-known and accomplished roller-skater.

Parents Michael and Mary Rich Petrosky.

His mother was Mary.
His had a sister named Mary.
He married a Mary.
His oldest daughter is Mary.
It's a very Mary family, you see. (That's not original.)

Chuck's dad emigrated to the US from a region in Eastern Europe that was then part of Austro-Hungary and is now partly in Ukraine and partly in neighboring countries.

Michael Petrosky was a key figure in the struggle for the rights of coal miners in Pennsylvania. According to the family, if you read about the history of the labor movement in that part of the country you will come across his name.

II. During Chuck's time in the Army, from 1946-1953, he spent some time in England. Eddie Fisher was in his outfit and they used to sing together in informal settings, a memory that has always been special for Chuck. For those of you young people who don't know who Eddie Fisher is, he was a very famous singer and entertainer and the father of Carrie Fisher, who played Princess Leia in the Star Wars movies.
During this time Chuck was also fond of walking across the London Bridge. (I'll get back to this later).

After his time in the service, Chuck began working in the soil testing business, and this business led him to stay for awhile in Alexandria with relatives. Yet sometimes he would be on trips into Washington D.C., and after working late, instead of making the long drive back out to Alexandria he would take a room at a place called the Randall House.

One fateful day in the rec room at the Randall House, Chuck had a vision. That vision took the lovely form of Mary Evelyn Thompson. Mary had responded to an FBI recruiter at the end of her high school education and moved to Washington DC to start her new job, and the Randall House was a rooming house where she was staying. They played ping pong together that evening, and the rest, as they say, is history.

They were married in 1955 and lived in Alexandria, Virginia for the next 22 years, a period during which their three lovely daughters were born.

III. Chuck worked in the soil testing business for a number of years, but he loved construction work and was involved in various aspects of commercial construction in the 1970s in Atlanta, including pile-driving and welding. In the late 70s during economic changes that were going on around the nation he left the construction business and became a local driver and dock worker for the Ryder trucking company ("Wish me a load of ping-pong balls."). A "local" driver because he refused to accept any driving position that would take him away from his family.

In 1967 the family relocated to Atlanta, where they were to remain for 33 years, the first couple of years at the Fayetteville Ct. address and then in Conley from 1969.

Chuck joined the Masonic Lodge soon after coming to Atlanta and developed a passion for his involvement with the Masonic order. By the time of his official retirement in 1991 he was a past master of his lodge. He was also a Scottish Rite Mason and a member of the Yaarab Shrine.

With the coming of Mary's retirement a few years after Chuck's retirement, the two of them were able to do some traveling together in their RV rig. Not as much, in the end, as they had hoped to do together, but they did get around the country a bit.

In the year 2001, approximately 50 years after his time in England, Chuck strolled once more across the London Bridge, this time with his wife by his side, but not, this time, in England. As some of you may know, London Bridge was moved some years ago to Lake Havasu, Arizona …

IV. Chuck Petrosky was the kind of person who brought his sense of humor with him into most any situation in life.

Growing up in Monongahela, and later in life, Chuck was a man of many names. People called him:

Chuck, Chully, Tally, Chow, Pete
Grandpa, PaPa, Pops, "Bacon"
"Call me anything except late for dinner."

Chuck used to often say he was outnumbered by females. He had decided that even the goldfish in the house was female, so, with the fish, Puddin the dog, his wife, and his three daughters, the dominance of females in their home was complete.

"He never snored, he only made noise."

He loved singing Christmas Carols in the car with his family.

In the wintertime his children would observe him, after coming home from working the late shift, crawling out of bed faithfully morning after morning and going out to warm up Mary's car and scrape the ice off the windows in preparation for her drive to work, no matter how tired he was.

He was a man who took great pride in his work. One of his favorite sayings was that your work is a signature of who you are. He also took great pride in his physical strength. His brother Mike used to say that Chuck was the strongest man he knew.

He was a kindhearted person who went out of his way to help his friends and family. He was a fix-it man who could figure out how to repair just about anything.

He loved to dance with his wife, something his children delighted to watch. He was a devoted husband. In later years, in times of illness or trouble, he was the rock of emotional strength for Mary, as well as the dedicated nurse by her side. Even during his own illness, he knew how to comfort others and to make everyone laugh again.

He was a loving, affectionate, and supportive father. He accepted his kids' friends, and later spouses, just like they were family. He had a special way of making people feel comfortable around him. He went to many ball games and special events to cheer for his kids.

He loved to tell stories about his children and grandchildren, and yes, his great-grandchild as well. I will tell just one recent story he loved to tell …[Only if you're ugly."]

V. My memories of Uncle Chuck and his family include seeing him and my dad get into - what shall we call them - "spirited discussions" about politics at just about every family gathering. And my dad customarily saying at family dinners "let me get in line before Chuck or there won't be anything left."

He kept his sense of humor until the very end. When I was with the family a few days before his passing, we were trading reminiscences around the kitchen table at one point. After we were laughing I walked back into the living room to join him again and said "Mary was just telling me about the time she almost shot you when you were breaking into the house in Virginia - you know, when you had locked yourself out while everyone was asleep." He took a breath slowly and said, "Yeah, you missed your chance, didn't you." We all laughed and even though he was groggy you could see this smirky grin come over his face. It was hilarious.

I'll miss my Uncle Chuck. We'll all miss him. But he's in good hands.