Today, May 10, is the anniversary of Charlie’s birthday in Heaven. I still miss him every day! Each of us in the family knew that he would give his life for us without question, and that is the most precious gift one could ever have from a husband or father. This is a tribute I wrote about him in his memorial booklet:
Charles William Glanz
My husband often surprised me. He was not what I would consider a true romantic, but as the years went by, I realized that he was romantic in simple, homey ways. He loved to hold hands and touch. I must admit that sometimes I was annoyed by this, especially in the middle of the night when he couldn’t sleep or in the middle of a movie or sermon to which I was intently listening. However, more and more, I have realized what a comfort and an anchor his touch was for me. I knew, without a doubt, that I was loved, and I so miss that touch today!
When we first met in the summer of 1964, he was my boss! He was managing Marina City restaurants for the Hilton Corporation, and I had a summer job as cashier and hostess in the coffee shop. I was twenty-one years old, a small town Iowa girl in the city for the first time, and I had just finished my junior year at the University of Kansas. Charlie was thirty-three, a very handsome, well-respected, high-powered manager who’d not only had a tryout with the Milwaukee Braves as a pitcher but who had also been a paratrooper, a plain clothes detective, and a night club manager, so I was immediately dazzled by this suave, experienced man-of-the-world!
In those days he was very romantic. Of course, we had to “date” in secret since the boss was not supposed to fraternize with any of the employees, so we always met at Gus’s, a restaurant about a block away. On our first date, after a lovely dinner we drove to the Planetarium and then went wading in Lake Michigan. (He later told me that he had NEVER done that before!) Since our first date was on a Tuesday, we celebrated our “anniversary” every Tuesday from then on. Each week he took me to one of the most exclusive places in Chicago—the London House, Mr. Kelly’s, the Showboat Sari-S, the Empire Room. What a fabulously romantic summer I had! However, the end of the story is that after we were married, he rarely took me to any of those places again . . .;-)! Instead, we saved to buy a house.
I was sometimes envious of other women whose husbands brought them flowers, jewels, and chocolates and surprised them with spontaneous trips to islands or nights on the town. And then I think about the constancy of my dear husband—for thirty years of work he came directly home every single night, he never deceived me in any way, and he supported me in every endeavor I attempted over all our years of marriage. What could possibly be more romantic than that?
Charlie and me at a “younger” age!
Charlie loved baseball, golf, “Law and Order” reruns, anything from the bakery, our church, his mother, his children, and ME! Happy Birthday, my Darling!
