A tribute to Eddie Finke

My dad died when I was three. I don’t really remember him — or even the evening he died. But my older brothers and sisters — who have kept his spirit alive for me over the years with stories about him — certainly do remember that night. Today I am especially grateful to my sister Cheryl for writing this guest post as we remember our dad.

Dion and Daddy

by Cheryl May

That's Cheryl's yearbook picture when she was 15 years old.

Fifty years ago, on January 6, 1962, I was waiting for my friends to pick me up to go to the Elmhurst Youth Center to dance and just hang out together. This is what a 15 year old looked forward to on the weekend. While I waited, I watched The Red Skelton Hour with my dad. No one had T.V. sets in their bedrooms back then, but this small black and white T.V. was sitting on their bedroom dresser.

My dad had been sent home from work a few weeks earlier because he wasn’t feeling well. After a visit to the doctor he was told to get some bed rest and not to exert himself. This was a lot to ask during the Christmas season with five of his seven children still living at home. It was the first time I put the lights on the Christmas tree — a job my Dad had done previous years.

Family and friends came over to celebrate Christmas like always, but daddy didn’t move from his bed — everyone took turns visiting with him in his bedroom. Mom took good care of Daddy and we even rigged up a “new found contraption” that let him read a book while lying flat on his back.

On that evening of January 6, as I waited to go out dancing, Daddy and I talked about the popular music I listened to on the radio. Daddy loved music. He sang with the Illinois State Champion Lions Barbershop Quartet and was a member of The Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America (SPEBSQSA). A popular song in 1962 was “Runaround Sue” by Dion and the Belmonts. We talked about the song and Dad said he liked it. I thought that was pretty neat that my dad could like all kinds of music. My friends arrived, and my dad said, “Have a good time!” I squeezed his hand and told him to rest. That was to be the last conversation I ever

Eddie and Flo clearly enjoyed their time together.

have with my dad.

I arrived home later that evening and found Mom sitting quietly in the kitchen with our neighbor Marion. They told me to sit down. “Your dad had a heart attack,” they said. I was not prepared to hear the rest. “He died at home. An ambulance took him away.” I put my head down and sobbed. I would never see or hear my dad again.

After wearing myself out crying, I walked down the hallway to the bedroom I shared with one of my little sisters and caught a familiar smell of my dad from his jacket in the closet. I went and found a picture of my dad taken at my sister Bobbie’s wedding a couple years before. I put it on the table next to my bed.

A while later I heard the back door open. My older brother was home. I had never heard my brother cry like that before. I stared at my picture of Daddy. I was afraid I would forget what he looked like as time went by.

Our lives changed that day 50 years ago. I got a work permit and got a part time job as a waitress after school and on weekends. Mom found a job in a bakery. Our family pulled together and we made it through some tough times.

Daddy was 47 years old when he died. Over the years I would think of all the good times he was missing with his family. I’d think of Daddy when I was at a parade in town, or when my brother took my sister to a Father-Daughter dance at school, or when I’d hear Mom crying quietly in church. When I think of all Daddy missed, I think of what we missed, too. But I sometimes see his smile, his patience, his kindness or his quiet sense of humor when I look at my children and grandchildren. And whenever I hear Dion and the Belmonts I smile at the memory of our last time together.