[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 184 (Tuesday, December 9, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10829-S10831]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  REMEMBERING RICHARD AND JEAN DeWINE

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, today I pay tribute to the parents of our 
good friend and former colleague from Ohio, Mike DeWine. Richard and 
Jean DeWine died just a few weeks ago, 4 days apart from each other. 
Dick was 85, and Jean was 83. They were together almost their entire 
lives, sharing a beautiful love story and 65 wonderful years of 
marriage.
  I had the honor of meeting Mike's parents in February when I was 
visiting Young's Jersey Dairy in their hometown of Yellow Springs, OH. 
It was a privilege to talk to them. They were so gracious and kind. I 
could see how proud they were of their son and how proud they were of 
our Nation.
  Mike spoke about his parents' lives and especially their love of 
family at their joint funeral service held on November 5, 2008. In 
tribute to Dick and Jean, I ask unanimous consent that the entirety of 
his remarks be printed in the Record at the conclusion of mine.
  There were no two finer Americans than Dick and Jean DeWine. May God 
bless them and their family.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       Thank you all so much for coming today and for your 
     friendship and love. Thank you to JoFrannye, Patty, Jocelyn, 
     and the choir for the music, and to our grandson Albert for 
     playing the piano before Mass.
       Thank you Father Geraci and Father Hagan for being the 
     celebrants today, but I have to say to Father Tom that right 
     now, Dad must be thinking: ``This Mass is much, much too 
     long!''
       I once asked Dad why he kept going to Fairborn to Mass. He 
     told me he found a great priest there, whose homilies were 
     exactly 3 minutes long!
       Fran and I thank all of you who helped care for my parents, 
     enabling them to stay in their home the last few years, 
     especially Patrick, Jamie, Megan, and Barbara--thank you. All 
     of my parents' care givers have been just great.
       And, thanks to all of you who stopped by to visit my 
     parents. Cousin Jerome, we thank you for always being there 
     to brighten my parents' day.
       When I was growing up, I always thought that I had the 
     greatest parents in the world.
       I never changed my mind.
       My parents both grew up in Yellow Springs and both lived on 
     Xenia Avenue. Dad was born at home in a house, which is the 
     present day Wind's Cafe Wine Cellar. They lived next door to 
     the family feed store. Growing up practically in the feed 
     store, itself, and right in the heart of Yellow Springs, Dad 
     was surrounded by a colorful cast of characters who would 
     make a novelist proud! He could remember watching out his 
     bedroom window on Saturday nights, as fights would erupt 
     between patrons of the local bars.
       One time, when Dad was a young boy, my grandfather asked 
     him if he wanted to ride with his employee, Jimmy, when he 
     took a feed delivery to Springfield. He told Dad he could 
     drag the bags from the back of the truck up to the front, so 
     that Jimmy wouldn't have to get on and off the truck to get 
     them.
       Before leaving town, Jimmy and Dad each had a dime and 
     bought a 5-cent Bluebird pie. Since they both had a nickel 
     left over, Jimmy asked my young Dad if he wanted to play the 
     numbers. And, he did!
       Later that day, when they got back to the feed store, my 
     grandfather, shouted, ``Dick, the Sheriff's been looking for 
     you! Were you playing the numbers? Dad ran out of the store, 
     screaming, ``The Sheriff will never find me!''
       He went out and hid among the stacks of feed sacks. When my 
     grandfather finally found him, all he said was, ``Here's your 
     $25--you won!''
       At the same time, my mother was growing up not far up the 
     street. Mother's father was a professor of literature at 
     Antioch College. He was an expert in Shakespeare, Chaucer, 
     and Milton. He and my grandmother greatly influenced my 
     mother, particularly instilling in her a great love and 
     appreciation for words.
       My grandfather had grown up on a farm in upstate New York, 
     and every summer, he would take his family back there so he 
     could help with the farm work. Some of Mother's fondest 
     memories were of those idyllic summers--playing with her 
     sisters, Judy and Dorothy, in the ice house on hot summer 
     days, riding hay wagons, walking to get groceries at the 
     local general store, and watching her grandmother milk cows 
     on a one-legged stool!
       As a young girl, Mother loved to ride horses. In fact, her 
     parents kept a horse at their house on Xenia Avenue! They 
     called the horse Cheyenne. Once when Mother was about 11 
     years old, she rode Cheyenne all alone from Yellow Springs to 
     Wilberforce, some 7 miles away, using only the directions and 
     map that my grandfather drew for her.
       In the summer of 1940, one of my father's best friends was 
     Herbert Berger. That year, Herbert went away for the summer. 
     He had asked Dad to ``look out for'' his girlfriend, who 
     happened to be 15-year-old Jean Liddle. Well, Dad did. And, 
     my parents were inseparable from then on.
       Dick DeWine and Jean Liddle married 3 years later on 
     September 2, 1943. Dad was 20, and Mother was 18.
       World War II, of course, was raging at this time. Dad went 
     in as a replacement. He was a Private with K Company and saw 
     combat in France, Germany, and Austria. Captain Bell was 
     their leader. About five years ago, Dad sent an email about 
     first seeing Captain Bell when he and his buddy, Ernie 
     Dessecker, had arrived in Europe and were awaiting their 
     company assignment. This is what my dad wrote:
       ``We were told that the next morning, we would be assigned 
     to some infantry company. That night, we went into a bar and 
     were bought some beer by some GI's who knew we were--for want 
     of a better word--very uptight. All they talked about was 
     Captain Bell and his K Company. They told us that if we 
     wanted to do a lot of fighting that would be the company to 
     be assigned to. That was not really what [Ernie] and I had in 
     mind!
       The next day, we were loaded on a truck and at each town, 
     it would stop and some names were called to get off. When 
     Dess and I were told to get off, the first thing we asked 
     was, `What company is this?' When told it was Company K, we 
     both wished we could climb back on that truck and head for 
     the rear echelon! Of course, in a very short time, we were so 
     very proud to be part of Captain Bell's Company K. . . .''
       Dad never forgot the men with whom he served, maintaining 
     friendships for over six decades. He also never forgot the 
     horrific things he saw when K Company was sent to the Dachau 
     concentration camp shortly after it was liberated in April 
     1945. From the time I was just a kid, Dad told me stories 
     about Dachau and how people in the nearby town would tell the 
     soldiers that they hadn't really known what the Nazis were 
     doing. Dad could never quite comprehend that.
       On the day before the German surrender in Europe, Dad spent 
     the night in a fox hole near Innsbruck, Austria. He heard 
     rumors that the War was nearing an end. But still, Dad stayed 
     awake all night in that fox hole, fearing that the enemy 
     would attack. He remembered thinking that he saw German 
     troops coming at him. When he compared notes with all his 
     buddies later, they, too, had experienced the same thing.
       When the War did end that next day, they rode into 
     Innsbruck, where people greeted him and the other soldiers 
     with a shower of flowers. Meanwhile, Mother and Aunt Judy 
     celebrated the German surrender by riding on a fire truck in 
     an impromptu parade down the streets of Yellow Springs. Dad's 
     two younger siblings, my Aunt Mickey and Uncle Jerry, watched 
     the parade with pride.
       Last week, I started reading my parents' letters to each 
     other when Dad was fighting in Europe. They are letters of 
     great passion and love, written by two young kids, who were 
     only married a year when the War separated them. They write 
     of their plans and dreams and of the child they hoped to 
     conceive as soon as Dad got home. Dad's letter refers to that 
     child as ``Mike,'' while Mother's letter references Michael--
     a distinction they would each make throughout my life.
       Dad came home in April, in time for Reds Opening Day, and I 
     was born on January 5th, that year.
       Dad taught me to fish, to hunt, and to love OSU football 
     and Dayton Flyer basketball. But, his real passion was the 
     Cincinnati Reds!
       When Dad was 16, he and one of his buddies camped out in 
     line for 36 hours to get tickets for the 1939 World Series, 
     when the Reds were playing the Yankees. They ended up in two 
     different ticket lines, but had made a deal that whoever got 
     up to the ticket counter before the tickets ran out would 
     buy two. Dad was able to get two tickets, but then he 
     couldn't find his friend. It got close to game time, and 
     Dad had to go inside the ballpark.
       When he was inside, though, he went up to the top deck at 
     Crosley Field and searched again for his friend. He looked 
     down below, outside the ballpark, and there was his buddy, 
     walking away in tears, empty-handed.
       Dad reached into his pocket and pulled out the silver 
     dollar that his father had given him and wrapped the other 
     baseball ticket around it. Then, he threw it over the 
     railing, hoping and praying that it would fall at the feet of 
     his friend.
       Amazingly, it did--and they both watched that game 
     together.

[[Page S10830]]

       Mother taught me about different kinds of things. She 
     passed on to me her love of books and taught me about the 
     power of language and the written word. She also taught me 
     how to debate and argue.
       You see, Mother loved words--and knew how to use them. When 
     I was growing up, the conversations at our dinner table 
     covered a whole range of topics--books and music and sports 
     and movies and, of course, current affairs and politics. Both 
     Mother and Dad were always interested in politics, but Mother 
     took her positions to the public.
       In the early 1960s, after seeing several of her Letters to 
     the Editor in the Yellow Springs News, then-editor Keith 
     Howard persuaded Mother to write a weekly column articulating 
     a conservative viewpoint--a position that was certainly not 
     then--and certainly not now--especially popular here in 
     Yellow Springs. She titled her column, ``A View from the 
     Right.''
       In an October 21, 1964, column, she articulated her strong 
     support for Barry Goldwater and conservative philosophy. She 
     opened the column with this line, ``If I were to give one, 
     and only one, reason for voting for Barry Goldwater, it would 
     be because of his firm stand against the frightening growth 
     of the federal government, its power-grabbing programs, and 
     its insidious intrusion into virtually every phase of our 
     lives.'' And that was back in 1964.
       Mother was such a bright, articulate, well-read, 
     knowledgeable woman, with the most sophisticated and clever 
     wry wit. Her amazing, light-hearted rhyming poems always made 
     you smile. Take this one, for instance, that ran in her 
     column at Christmastime in the early 1960s. She titled it, 
     ``Love One and All--Right, Center and Left!'':

     'Twas the week before Christmas, and all through the town, 
           ev'ry creature was stirring--both uptown and down.
     The stores were all fancied with tinsel and things, and 
           somewhere a highly-fi'd caroler sings.
     While I at my battered old typewriter sit, my brain in a 
           quandary, my brow tightly knit.
     I can't seem to think now on Cuba or Adlai, or the state of 
           the world--either goodly or badly.
     I cudgel my brain for the newsworthy fellas, the Stevensons, 
           Goldwaters, Khans, and Ben Bellas.
     Not a thought do they bring to my brain sore and lame, tho' I 
           whistled like crazy and called them by name:
     ``Now Hoffa, now Bobby, now Rocky and Barry,
     On Jack and McMillan and `Fidel-the-Hairy.' ''
     To the top of my head to the top of the page
     The gears in my brain simply will not engage.
     It's Christmas and I am opinion-bereft, and I love one and 
           all--Right and Center and Left.
     So I'll leave you with this thought (at least for tonight), 
           Merry Christmas--that's all--from ``A View from the 
           Right.''

       My mother was unique and extraordinary. She had many sides 
     to her and many interests. In her youth, she was a vibrant, 
     strikingly beautiful woman. She and Aunt Judy were varsity 
     cheerleaders at Bryan High School. She rode horses, and early 
     in their marriage, Dad and Mother fished and camped, often 
     taking Uncle Jerry and Aunt Mickey with them, and also camped 
     with Aunt Judy and Uncle Leo. Later, Dad and Mother would 
     stay out on their old houseboat on the Ohio River.
       Mother loved music. I can remember her playing the 
     accordion when I was a kid. Mother always had an LP record 
     playing--Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Jo Stafford, the 
     Kingston Trio.
       Mother could have been a professional writer. All of our 
     kids got their ability to write from their grandmother (it 
     skipped a generation). The kids didn't inherit her abilities 
     so much as they learned to write through Mother's presence in 
     their lives and by listening to her and how she chose her 
     words in their conversations. She read prolifically herself, 
     and loved to read books to our kids.
       My dad could talk to anyone, and that is because he had a 
     genuine interest in people. He was naturally curious about 
     them. It didn't matter whom he was talking to, he wanted to 
     know all about the person. How did you make a living? Where 
     did you grow up? What about your family? Many times, I 
     marveled that Dad knew more about my own friends than I did. 
     That is because he asked them questions and talked to them 
     and listened.
       As our son, John, wrote to his grandparents,
       You taught me how to treat people. Employees, the guy at 
     the paint shop, whoever--regardless of their social status, 
     you treat everyone the same. And it is a good way to treat 
     people.
       And that is part of what made Dad such a brilliant 
     negotiator, trader, and investor. Like his parents before 
     him, he built DeWine Seeds and the Ohio Twine Company on 
     close personal relationships--whether they were with local 
     farmers, seed dealers, elevator operators, or international 
     businessmen. Dad took the business his parents were so 
     successful at and took it to a new level. These 
     relationships, which he maintained until his death, allowed 
     him to keenly understand the markets and to gather 
     information to make trades and deals across the country and 
     around the world in places as different as Uruguay, Poland, 
     and Ireland.
       Dad was a real dealmaker. Our oldest son, Patrick, put it 
     best, ``It didn't matter if he was buying a new lawnmower or 
     selling seed in Europe, no one was better than Dick.''
       Dad was always an optimist. He told me that he just 
     couldn't wait to get up every morning. He loved life 
     immensely. When my mother a few months ago expressed the hope 
     that they would leave this Earth together, he looked at her 
     and allowed as how he was not about to leave anytime soon.
       At the end of each day, he looked forward to the next and 
     to working on the list of things on his legal pad that he 
     wanted to accomplish. Dad never stopped working and never 
     stopped looking ahead. In fact, in the last month of his 
     life, after battling cancer for over 3 years, he still had 
     his list. He went through his files and sent out old photos 
     and newspaper clippings to friends.
       And, in those last days, Dad even bought a farm.
       Mother and Dad loved their home on their 24 acres on 
     Fairfield Pike. After they sold the seed business, my dad and 
     mother would be found each day out in their office in the 
     barn working. You would go out there, and there they would 
     be--one at one desk and one at the other.
       They had purchased that property--which was part of 
     Whitehall Farm--from Martha Rankin. Along with my 
     grandfather, they rebuilt the dam that had been blown in 
     1912, and created a pond, which attracted countless ducks and 
     Canada Geese. They spent years converting a pasture field 
     into a mosaic of grape vines; berry thickets; vegetable and 
     flower gardens; and fruit, nut, and stately trees, including 
     sugar maples, spruce, red oak, hemlock and bald cypress. Dad 
     grew many of the plants himself in the greenhouse he built 
     with bricks from the old St. Brigid Church, which he, Mother, 
     and some of the grandchildren gathered after the 1974 Xenia 
     tornado.
       My parents were extraordinary grandparents. They gave our 
     children the best gift of all--and that was the gift of their 
     time.
       Mama and Dick, as all my kids called them, were always 
     involved in their lives. They put each of their eight 
     grandchildren to work as they were growing up, teaching them 
     how to weed; paint fences; prune trees; pick apples, 
     cherries, and raspberries; and mow grass. My parents were 
     both phenomenal teachers who taught their grandchildren how 
     to enjoy hard work and appreciate a job well done.
       All of our children have such fond memories of Mama and 
     Dick, whether the kids were working in the greenhouse; 
     fishing in the pond; or picking fruit and berries on hot 
     summer days. They can still smell the fire burning outside 
     when they would help Mama and Dick make bean soup and maple 
     syrup from their own trees.
       Dick would tell the kids fantastic stories about the Giant 
     Mouse, who would fly him around the pond, and the leprechauns 
     living under the trees. And Dick and Mama both played 
     countless games of checkers with the kids.
       And then, there were the muddy feet that Mother tried so 
     hard to keep off her floor. As she wrote in a limerick for 
     her grandchildren:

     To all grandkids great and small
     Muddy feet don't walk in the hall
     Take off your shoes and make it snappy
     If Mama's mad, nobody's happy

       Our daughter, Alice, remembers ``picking berries and 
     selling them at the Farmers Market'' and ``Mama's Crustless 
     Sandwiches'' (cut into fourths) and ``Mama's Fettuccini.'' 
     Our daughter, Anna, remembers painting Mama and Dick's fence 
     with her brother Mark and nephew Albert and ``being covered 
     head to toe in paint!''
       The kids also remember ``all of the fires Dick made in the 
     fireplace--so comforting and always done just right.'' As our 
     daughter, Jill, recalled, ``We could sit for hours 
     alternating between warming our backs and backing away for a 
     few moments long enough to cool off enough, and then going 
     back for more.''
       There were also all the conversations that took place in 
     the back of their car when Mama and Dick would take the kids 
     to and from lunch on their work breaks. As our son Mark 
     described,

       ``The stories that I have heard there have always stuck 
     close to me. They can be about my seven unique siblings, the 
     way things used to be, or maybe even a lesson learned in 
     grammar. The tales I hear, some are the same, and some are 
     new. The old ones never lose their luster; because every time 
     I hear them, they take on a new meaning. No radio could ever 
     replace the great anecdotes I have listened to [in the back 
     of that car].''

       One of our son Brian's favorite memories was when we were 
     visiting Mama and Dick in Florida once and, as Brian says,

       ``My sister, Jill, threw me in the pool with all my clothes 
     on (she still denies it!). For some reason, I think Dick 
     thought I deserved it. Then Mama had to take me shopping to 
     get new shoes so we could go out and to eat.''

       Our daughter, Becky, was also very close to Mama and Dick. 
     They visited her when she was studying in Britain. They met 
     Becky and her friend, Kim, in Cornwall. That trip always had 
     special meaning for my parents.
       When I woke up this morning, I realized that I won't be 
     able to go tell my mother and father about how our son 
     Patrick was just elected Judge yesterday and how our daughter 
     Alice passed the Bar Exam. . . .

[[Page S10831]]

       When I look back at my parents' lives, they have left a 
     very tangible legacy. It is visible in the land--the trees 
     and the flowers and the plants that they grew on their 24 
     acres and the improvements they made to their farmland.
       But their more important legacy is their grandchildren. 
     That is the lesson of my parents' lives: There is no 
     substitute for the time spent with family and with people.
       They were an integral part of our children's lives. They 
     worked with our kids, talked with our kids, listened to our 
     kids. It was a wonderful relationship and a wonderful gift 
     that dramatically influenced each of them--in ways obvious 
     and not so obvious--and will, in turn, influence each of 
     their children.
       The last thing my father did before he died was have our 
     son, John, order several bushels of flower bulbs. Up until 
     the very end, Dad was planning for the future. He wanted the 
     bulbs to be planted in his yard and in Aunt Judy's yard and 
     in our yard. His great-grandchildren helped plant those bulbs 
     just a week before his death.
       And when those flowers bloom next spring, we will think of 
     Mama and Dick.
       For over 65 years, my parents loved each other and took 
     care of each other. They had fun and loved their life 
     together. They were quite a team. Mother always considered 
     herself ``Dick's straight man.'' And she was. They made us 
     laugh. They made us smile.
       I would like to conclude by reading from one of Mother's 
     letters to Dad, as she waited for his return to Yellow 
     Springs from World War II. This one was numbered 407. She 
     wrote:
       I can have patience, though, in this matter [of your 
     return], specially since, if the news is good, and I think it 
     will be, I know what the outcome of it all will be--it'll be 
     exactly what I've been, and of course, my darling, you, too, 
     [have been] waiting for, for so damned long--the perfect set-
     up of Jeanie and Dick, together for ever and ever.
       Remember that, ``As long as you both shall live?''
       That's right, honey, that's us 100%--and if nothing else, 
     I'm sure of that.

                          ____________________