Wayne Winert

Wayne Laverne Winert, July 2010

Wayne La Verne Winert:

I was born on 24 December 1939 at Highland Hospital in Rochester, Monroe, New York to Oscar Wilber Winert and Gladys Evelyn Roberts Winert.  My Grandmother, Verna Lane Roberts, held me while in the hospital.  That was a blessing, as she contracted pneumonia on the way to her home in Hume, NY and passed away 25 days later on 18 Jan 1940.  In my first two years of life I lived on the northwest side of Rochester, at 442 Glide Street and Rock View Terrace. When I was two years old my parents had a home built at 723 Stone Road in Greece.  It would remain my home until I married in 1959. 

My earliest memories are going to school at Barnard.  I was 4 1/2 years old when I walked  four blocks to school on my first day. The kindergarten and first grades were in an old wooden school building. My kindergarten teacher was Miss Hamilton.  I enjoyed most playing with big hollow wooden blocks probably 4”x 4” x 6”.  I liked building a “house” then pulling out the key block that would make it all fall down on someone.  I remember having snacks of milk and crackers and then taking a short rest on a small carpet. 

About February 1945 my Mom became seriously ill  and the doctors were not sure she would live.  My dad was working at Delco (Auto Parts etc. manufacturing company) and was not able to take care of me and my sister, Verna Laura, who was only one year old.  He drove us to our Uncle Glenn and Aunt Helen Roberts' home in Oxford, New York about 140 miles and five hours from home.  I felt very welcomed and comfortable there and developed a great love for them.  My cousin Lowell was a year younger than me. We had a great time playing together.  My mother, Gladys Roberts, was found to have a goiter of the thyroid by her childhood doctor in Fillmore, NY .  She had it removed in Rochester and recovered fully.  We were able to come back to home after a few months. Shortly after that it was discovered that a little bit of iodine added to salt would prevent people from having goiters and I never heard of anyone having them in the US after that. 



Newspaper Clipping
of Wayne Winert in 1942

My childhood playmates included a girl named Mary Jane who lived just two houses away.  I liked her because she was cute and had a neat red car that she let me peddle up and down the sidewalk.  Another friend, Alan Hutchinson, lived right behind me and his family had the first TV in the neighborhood.  I was 10 when they got it.  I was watching Howdy Dowdy while sitting on the floor and a girl in front of me accidentally hit me with her elbow and broke my brand new glasses.  My cornea was cut and it was scary, but turned out OK.  Another accident I remember when I was about 4 or 5, occurred in our basement.  I was standing on a wooden box at my dad's workbench while he was doing something.  The box rolled and I cut my chin badly.  Both my parents took me to the doctors about 5 min. away on Dewey Ave. While waiting they learned the person in the doctors office had pneumonia.  They became frightened because there were no antibiotics in those days and many people died from it.  They took me home without seeing the doctor and patched me up.  Thus I have a nice scar that is a little bit of a shaving challenge. My saddest memory of this time is having a guy try to beat me up on the way home from school.  He was in the 1^st grade and a lot bigger than me. I learned to run home fast.  I prayed he would get hurt.  Later that year he was hit by a car and killed. I have guilty feelings to this day because of those prayers.   I also remember the rationing of sugar, gasoline and tires during WWII. To drive to my Aunt and Uncle's home my dad would have to get special coupons to buy gas and carry several tires because he would have a flat tire two or three times on such a trip.  I also remember having Black Outs.  These were practice in case the enemy sent bombers here. During one event I opened the refrigerator and the light came on.  A Warden soon knocked on our door and asked who turned on the light.  I had to cofess.

 As I grew up I was involved in Cub Scouts. My mom was a den leader.  My dad built a very elaborate Lionel Train set up in our basement and the Cubs enjoyed playing with it. We had a nice Knotty Pine paneled basement, built by my dad, similar to our walls in our current home on Long Pond. I started delivering  early morning newspapers seven days a week when I was 12. I saved every penny for college. There were no organized sports, but I played a lot of baseball and kickball on the empty lot next door until someone built a home on it when I was a teenager.   They hired me to back-fill the basement because it was too close to the fence line to get a machine to do it.  I also worked for my dad at the gas station.  By saving what I earned from all my jobs I had enough for to pay for my first year and half at Clarkson College of Technology.

My dad, Oscar, had worked for Delco (a GM Company which transferred him in the mid 1930's from Dayton, OH to Rochester). He left Delco as soon as he could, as he hated working for a union, to be his own boss.  In 1948 when I was eight, my dad took over a very tiny Mobile Gas Station across from Delco on Lyell Ave and named it “Winert’s Friendly Service".  Dad worked very hard and the station was open 24 hours a day 7 days a week. He would be there from 9 in the morning till 10 at night and often Mom had to take dinner to him (always hot). Two years later he invested in a new Mobil Station just 5 blocks from our home at Stone Road and Dewey Ave.  

For my 10th birthday and Christmas of 1949 our family of 4 (Faye was not born until 1951) flew (yes, flew) to Miami, FL, where we visited my dad's sister, Lilly, and her husband, Ben Orth.  My clearest memory was swimming in the Ocean on my birthday (Dec. 24^th) and also playing with my twin cousins (actually my cousin Norma Orth’s children) the only time I ever saw them, Dale and Gale Orth.  They lived in Alaska but were visiting their grandmother Lilly. They were a bit older than me.  They had fire crackers (Cherry bombs or M-80’s) and they would light them and throw them off the jetty ( a pile of rocks in the Ocean) and that would kill some small fish.  I was really proud because I was the only person in my class that had ever flown at that time. We flew on a DC-3 (WWII) military plane (Mohawk air I believe) from Rochester to LaGuardia Airport in NYC.  Then took a taxi to the New Jersey Airport and flew in an Eastern Airlines on a 4 prop engine (no jets in those days) Constellation to Miami.  A relative on my Dad’s was the pilot. My Mom left her purse on the first plane.  She told the stewardess, who told the pilot.  He called the other airport and they had found it and figured out where my Mom was and sent the purse via another cab to us. So he waited until the cab drove out on the tarmac and the purse to the pilot who then brought it back to my Dad.   How is that’s for good old service.  The people on the plane were told what happened and applauded when the pilot gave it to my Mom.  On the way home I did get “airsick” on the flight between NYC and Rochester. It was a very very bumpy ride.  I was and am so proud of my father for being able to provide such an extravagant trip for his family after only one and half years working in the gas station.  His education stopped after the 8^th grade because his father wanted him to work on the farm.  His ambitions and his math skill (much stronger than mine) did him well.  Mostly though it was his love of serving people in a very friendly way.

The other vacations we took were not so glamorous, but just as fun.  We camped in the Adirondack Mts. several times.  My dad loved to cook when camping especially breakfast.  We also vacationed in a cabin on a lake in Canada. That may have been the scariest time of my life.  I was walking barefooted down to the lake when I stepped on a large snake.  I screamed and ran to the lake jumped into a boat and rowed out on the lake and did not come back for hours until my heart settled down. When I was 16 we took a short vacation to Vermont.  On the trip my dad got very sick with hives.  Mom got very nervous, so I had to drive us home, my first long distant drive.   We took a trip or two to my dad’s home in Ohio.  I do not remember meeting anyone except his “double” cousin Carrie Helke Ditmer.  Later after I was married we went with my dad and met her again. Our youngest daughter born to us was named Kari in her honor. I do remember meeting one other cousin Dorothy Winert Evans, the daughter of my dad's brother, Charles Edward Winert. She did not feel close to many or the Winerts because her mom died when she was two and her dad’s second wife did not like her and kicked her out of the house when she was very young like 14 or 15 and her Dad did not help her. When I was married I visited Dorothy in Denver, CO on two of our trips west.  The first time when was still with her first husband Bill until he died and the second time when she was remarried to Dick Low.  They visited us and Verna here in Rochester.  One of Dorothy’s sons, Bobby was in Verna’s wedding.

Back to childhood things.  My mom thought I was not very healthy.  I often did not have a good appetite and was very thin.  Turns out I had a very large set of tonsils.   I was about eight when they were removed by Dr. Nash who many years later took out David and Kevin’s tonsils on the same day.  A few days after I had mine out I was feeling well enough to ride my bike.  But it was too soon and I broke the stitches and it bled into my stomach which made me sick to my stomach.  My mom was working as a teacher at Roberts Beauty School and my dad was watching me. He became very very upset with blood all over and called the ambulance to take me to the hospital (St. Mary’s).  The scariest thing for me was all the nuns in their black and white habits. The doctor asked me how I liked the ether that put me to sleep.  I told him I did not like it because I was being chased around and around by animals.  Sooo… he said he would give me something else.  It did not help.  The only change was the animals chased me in the opposite direction.

Back to vacations.  Not mine but my family's that I did not go on.  I started at John Marshall High School in 8th grade as there was no High School in Greece then. There were no school buses so I had to take public buses to get to school which was about 5 miles from home. I had just finished my freshman year in High School at John Marshall and had flunked my first and last class.  French.  I did not like the teacher very much. She ate too much French pastry and weighed over 300 lbs. So I had to go to summer school. My parents and sisters took a trip to the Rocky Mountains for five weeks and I stayed home alone so I could attend summer school.  I rode my bike to Mt. Reed Blvd. and Driving Park Rd. to catch a subway which took me to Monroe High School.  I went with my new friend, Archie Provan, he had just moved here from Scotland the year before.  We had a ball, especially after school in the Rochester Public Library. The subway went right under the Library and had a stop there. . I also took Geometry to improve my “C” grade and earned a 100 on the summer school Regents final.

I was given a car for my 16th birthday (1950 Plymouth Special Deluxe P-19) and a year later received a nearly new 1957 Ford for graduation from High School, which I would later use to drive home from college on weekends to date Gail.

I have no memory of it, but later when I started dating Gail, my dad told me that he and Mom became acquainted with Gail’s Mom and Dad after we moved to Greece, I believe because of the Masons and Eastern Star that they both belonged to.  He told me that they got together for a card game or two and that I played with Gail when she was an infant and I was two or three.  Maybe that is when the marriage was arranged.  Ha! Ha!



High School Senior Portrait



When we met again in high school, Gail was dating my best friend Carl and and since I had a car, they asked me to drive them to a dance at school.  They fixed me up with a date, Marilyn Hicks (later married to Neil Yerkes) who was a friend and neighbor of Gail's and was in the class between Gail and I.  This was my first real date. Interestingly, Marilyn was a Mormon girl, but I did not know what a Mormon was.  Her parents' had converted to the Church in the thirties in Rochester.  Gail had the experience as a child of going to the Hill Cumorah Pageant with Marilyn, but I did not.  On this double date, I thought it would be cool to let Carl drive and then I could get in the back seat with Gail, as she was more kissable, not being a Mormon, and we've been together ever since.  Gail's version of the story is a bit different, but she'll tell it herself.

After high school, I followed the counsel of my Uncle Glenn Roberts and went to college to pursue a degree in chemistry.  I was the first in my family to go to college which seemed intimidating.  My dad, as the youngest in his family, was not allowed to even start high school as he was needed to work on the farm. Oscar's father Charles Julius Christian Winert had immigrated as a boy from West Prussia (probably Poland) with his parents. Oscars' mother's (Anna Laura Helke) parents immigrated just before she was born.  Both families were economically challenged and lived on small farms near Dayton, Ohio. As often as possible, I drove home 200 miles for week-ends to date Gail.  Gail took a bus several times to Potsdam, to see me for a week-end and a dance.  Without the benefit of LDS standards, thanks to some angels, we behaved as we should. Not counting a beer or two.

I proposed to Gail on the day between her birthday, June 17, and her graduation, June 19, and she accepted. Two months later, on 22 Aug 1959 after I was given legal permission by my parents (it was required for men under the age of 21) and we were married in Salem United Church of Christ, in Rochester, NY.

Our Wedding Day

After our wedding, my GPA at school improved a whole grade point and I spent a lot less on gas. Gail's savings and earnings (she went to work in a very nasty paper making factory) along with my work in a Chem. lab and earning some money as a ROTC Cadet and one loan for the last semester, paid for school and their first child, David, who was born October 8, 1960 in Potsdam, NY.  Because of the chemical's in the paper plant, Gail was not able to work during the last year of Wayne's college. The loans were all paid back within one year of graduation.

I interviewed for jobs in Ohio and Connecticut., but really wanted to work at Kodak in Rochester. I was turned down following a Kodak campus interview and following a letter application.  Then I walked into Kodak Office during the Easter break and obtained an interview with Dr. Dudley Glass, a PhD Organic Chemist, who normally only interviewed PhD Candidates. But that day an angel intervened and he interviewed me.  Dr. Glass asked very penetrating questions about my Senior Research project at Clarkson.  I was very relaxed because I did not know Dr. Glass knew Chemistry (what HR person does?).  At the end of the interview Dr. Glass mentioned that area of synthetic organic chemistry was his specialty and he was impressed with the undergraduate research project I had taken on. More importantly he said there would be another interview.  Two weeks later, Kodak paid my way to return to Rochester for two interviews in the Research Lab.  One was a good fit and the other was not. 

I worked for 10 years for Earl Robertson on some very interesting photographic systems. This work was interrupted after 10 months to fill a two year obligation to serve in the US Army as an Officer.  At Clarkson, I was one of only three out of the class of 300  that had been offered an opportunity to receive a Regular Army Commission. (Same as West Point Grads).  I declined because it would have required 3 years service and the job at Kodak would only be held for two years.  There also was a chance I would only need to serve six months, and in fact six months orders were issued.  However, in September, after starting at Kodak in June of 1961, the orders were revoked and replaced by orders for two years due to the Berlin Wall construction.

 

After the birth of Kevin in Feb. 1962, and 10 months at Kodak (April 1962), I entered the Army. Officer training was at Ft. McClelland, Anniston, AL followed by two years duty at Ft. Bragg, NC. home of the 82 Airborne Division.  During that time several major events occurred. The Berlin Wall had just been constructed increasing war tensions and my service time from 6 months to two years.  Pres. Kennedy and the Russian Pres. faced off over the Russia putting missiles in Cuba which could reach the US.  My chemical company was called to prepare for war in Cuba and I was made the Company Commander during that time.  The Russians fortunately backed off and war was averted just as my Company was to board planes.  My unit was also involved in preparing for the Civil Rights March in Washington.  About a year later, while still in the Army, I remember just where I was and what I was doing when he learned that President Kennedy had been shot and killed.  My family and I returned to Rochester and the Kodak Research Labs in 1964.

I had a Reserve Army obligation for 4 years.  This involved monthly week-end meetings and a two week summer camp.  At summer camp 1965 in Ft. Dixon, NJ, I took my family and camped at a State Park. After setting up camp, we walked through the woods and noticed that the next camp site had a NY car.  Gail looked closer and said, "I think that is Hilda."  It was Hilda Cobb, her friend from Hilton, NY whom she had not seen for many years.  Gail's dad had worked for Hilda's dad at Kodak. They worked in a small building next to Lake Ontario where he had the responsibility of pumping millions of gallons of clean water daily from Lake Ontario to Kodak Park some 10 miles away. The girls often met as their mothers brought lunch to their fathers and the families would eat and play together.  It was sixteen years after Gail's dad had passed and we were married with three children (David, Kevin, and Suzanne) and were  beginning the process to adopt another (Robin), when the thread of Hilda was woven back into the tapestry of our lives.  Hilda introduced her family who were also there for Army Reserve Summer Camp.  Husband, Wayne Schultz, children Jody, Tammy and Kurt.  We became life long friends. 

Now the tapestry gets really beautiful.  In May of 1968, Gail and I moved into our newly built home at 83 Pine Valley Drive in Greece. I had learned that my neighbor worked in the same building as I did at Kodak and was in a four member car pool. I became the fifth member.  A house warming party was held for our home we had built.  Hilda came to the party with her hair wet.  When asked why, she said she just came from her baptism into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Then Hilda discovered that our car pool neighbors were also members of the church. That neighbor, Dale Dallon, was the Elders Quorum President.  That summer, as a non-member, I helped my neighbor paint signs for the Hill Cumorah Pageant.  We attended pageant with Hilda and her family. I remember sitting there with Hilda's husband Wayne, who had not yet joined the  (he was smoking a pipe) and talking with  him about what a strange church this was; they called each other "brother" and "sister".  Hilda later sent the missionaries to our home.  They came at the time we were having David's birthday party in Oct. so we asked them to come back later.  We progressed with the lessons until we came to the learn that men of African descent could not hold the priesthood.  I read or looked at hundreds of anti-Mormon books in the book  stacks of the University of Rochester Library.  The discrimination was a major problem to my conversion but the whisperings of the spirit assured me to have faith because the matter was inthe Lord's hands. So, when the discussion became formal and the brand new missionary, Elder Steven Murdock, turned to me and asked him if I was ready for baptism, I think his companion, Elder Randy Shoemaker, was a bit surprised by my response.  The wonderful, clean,  moving power of the Holy Ghost came over me and I said to Gail, "I am ready! Are you?"  She said, yes! But what about David?   He is eight."  David was not a "Yes" man.  He said "No! I do not understand it."  The missionaries had to come back several times to teach David at a level he understood and he then said yes.  We were all baptized on 13 Dec 1968 in the chapel in Highland Park in Rochester, NY  some 15 miles from our home, by our neighbor, Dale Dallon. At the first sacrament meeting we met Marilyn Hicks (now married to Neil Yerkes), Gail's neighbor and friend and Wayne's first real date.

Soon,  Gail and I determined to be sealed in a temple, but the nearest temple was in Salt Lake City, some 2,000 miles away.  So with our five children, David (1960), Kevin (1962), Suzanne(1964), Robin (1968) and Gretchen (1970), we drove across the country to SLC and were sealed on 27 June 1970.  For the next 6 years we traveled across the city twice each Sunday to attend church meetings until the consolidated schedule was given to the Church.

 I had learned in the Army that working with people was more interesting than chemicals, so I went to night school at the University of Rochester and earned a MBA in 1971 and then changed career paths from chemistry research to human resources. In 1974 a new ward building was built and dedicated by Elder Packer just 3 1/2 miles away from our home. Nearly ten years after being baptized, we were thrilled on 8 June 1978 to learn that the Lord had now opened the priesthood to "all" worthy men confirming the feeling that I had at my conversion that the Lord had the matter in his hands.  More than forty  years later, the two wards and one building that compromised the church at our baptism are now parts of two Stakes and there are six church buildings in Monroe County.  In 1974 the Washington, DC Temple was built.  In 1990 the Toronto temple and then the Palmyra Temple was built in  2000.

Our family also began to grow by leaps and bounds with the birth of 7 more children: Heidi(1971), Erika (1974), Ingrid (1974), Andrew (1976), Sarah (1980), Adam (1983) and Kari(1988) and the adoption or guardianship of 13 special needs children: Suzy (1968), Lisa(1972),Robert (1975), Nakeysha (1977),DeVaughn (1978), Joshua (1980), Leah (1980), Zehna(1982),Brandon (1984),Erik (1985),Katherine (1986),Scott (1986), and Janet (1989).  (Each of their stories will be told in individual biographies)

The tapestry of our life keeps getting richer even today. Recently our special children at home had a change in their dentist. The new dentist had a beautiful foreign accent that I was impressed to think was Romanian.  I asked and found that was true.  I then told her that one of my grandsons was in Bucharest, Romania serving a mission.  She said she lived across the country in a small city on the Western border near Hungary. I said my grandson was just transferred to such a city the previous week to a city called Oradea. The dentist explained that is her city. She then gave me the name and phone number and address of her sister, Rulunca, who she said would be glad to help his grandson.  Rulunca, was very kind and helpful but told Elder (Eythan) Barney that she was a "convinced catholic". Oh well! it is not often that a grandfather can give a missionary grandson a referral half-way around the world.  Given time maybe she will soften, but in the end it is her decision.

We have been blessed with 11 children born to us and 14 that were adopted.  As of July 2012 we have 41 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren and counting. Four of our children have served missions (Las Vegas, Argentina, Germany and California) as well as five of our son-in-laws (South Africa, Switzerland, Nova Scotia and 2 in Germany). Two of our grandsons have also served (Russia and Spanish speaking Oklahoma) and two more are currently are serving missions (Romania and Argentina).  Many more will serve as the years go on.

We thought we were pioneers for our family in the Church, but upon researching our family history we  have found that one relative, Chester Loveland, (4th cousin and 5 generations ago), was baptized in 1831 in Kirtland and that his father, Chauncey, was baptized 15 years later and traveled with Brigham Young's Pioneer company to Salt Lake City in 1847. He was probably the oldest pioneer to travel with President Young.  So we've learned that the church part of our family tapestry was started many years ago.

The LDS Church is a small world.  The following are just a few of the small world stories that are part of our tapestry. The weaving goes on and on. 

2008

Our daughter Gretchen served a mission in Frankfurt, Germany in 1991. Her first companion, was the daughter of Marlin K Jensen, a General Authority of the Church. He later became our Mission President in Rochester, and he and his large family had dinner in our home. He now heads the Church Historical Department.

Our daughter Suzanne Barney's second son, Quinten, served his mission in Oklahoma City, OK, Spanish Speaking in 2007.  The first people he met at the mission home were Brother and Sister Cook, the parents of our home teachers wife. They came to feel their mission was very blessed to have Quinten. 

Our daughter Kari graduated from BYU in Dec 2010. When she was applying for a mission, she had recently moved in with her sister, Gretchen, in South Jordan, UT.  When she went to her interview with the Stake President  she wondered why his name,  President Plumb, seemed familiar to her.  Then she learned he had been the mission president in Rochester just before she left home for college. When she told him, he remembered what ward we were in and even where we sat in Church.  He told her he was going to give her a "Perfect" rating, as he was sure all Winert's were perfect.

In truth, we are far from perfect, but we love the Lord and all he has done for us.  We love all our children and their families. We are pleased to know they are serving the Lord. 

   Joshua 24:15

"....... choose you this day whom ye will serve; .... but as for me and my house,  we will serve the Lord."