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"Jack, we lost a good one Sunday."
"Did we?"
"Yeah. Dick Wolf."
Two men were talking over morning coffee around the counter at the L&B Donut Shop last Tuesday.
"He pissed off a lot of people," a man at a nearby table offered.
"But he probably helped double that number," said another.
The men didn't know their conversation was overheard by Wolf's son Rick Hoschar. Rick, who lives in Williamsport, Pa., had been drawn to the L&B, an East Liverpool, Ohio, institution, for coffee and a bit of solace that morning. It was two days after Dick passed away on Sept. 19 at home, after a long decline in health.
Dick Wolf hated the "step" prefix (as in "stepson") and lectured against its use. After marrying Mary Hoschar, a widow at age 35, her two boys and four girls were his sons and daughters, as much his children as the two daughters Mary gave him.
(For people like me who have trouble keeping such things straight, here's the birth order of their children: Philip, Jimmy (infant, died at seven months) Fran, Rick, Joan, Lisa, Monica, Kerrianne and Erika.)
AN HORRIFIC injury to Mary in 2005 (along with double-bypass surgery on himself) prompted Dick to write a letter describing her importance to him and telling the story of how they came to be. It apparently was sent to Oprah Winfrey to nominate Mary for some recognition program, but in essence it was an eloquent testament of his love for his wife.
Aware of each other as children in East Liverpool in the '30s and 40s, he had a terrific crush on Mary when she was 13 and he was 12, but she married a good friend of his, James Hoschar, and started a large family. After service in the Navy during Korea, Dick came home, lived with his parents and went to work in the mill, immersing himself in community life as a bachelor. He was particular and never became serious about a girl, telling his mother she'd know this was the one when he brought her home to dinner.
James Hoschar died suddenly at age 37. Among his multiple small businesses was a restaurant Mary managed at what was then Hill's Plaza in Calcutta, and she continued that after his death. Dick ate there frequently and happened to be present when Mary's Oct. 23 birthday was being celebrated. That's his birthday, too, so the family included him in the festivities. Things clicked, the smoldering embers rekindled, and he invited the cheerleader and prom court member who once seemed hopelessly out of his league home to dinner.
IT IS A GIGANTIC understatement to say the life of Richard K. Wolf centered around his wife, his children, his community, and East Liverpool schools and sports. Mary was his anchor, his children were his charge and joy, and he bled Potter blue and white.
Dick Wolf was passionate and opinionated about the people and things that mattered to him. He hated injustice and often took the side of the underdog. When Waste Technologies Industries sited an incinerator in East Liverpool, he organized, spoke and protested against it. An example of his humor was that for years he answered his home phone with the words "Von Roll," a poke at the parent company of WTI.
Largely self-educated, he was gifted with high intellect, an encyclopedic memory, a great sense of humor, and a forceful personality. He developed a rich vocabulary and could express his point of view in complete thoughts with factual references and polysyllabic words. Those who tried to debate with him sometimes came off as children in knee pants. I'm sure he never uttered the words "Let's agree to disagree"
Dick could work with others to organize and accomplish large goals, but usually contrived to work with those of like mind.
To Wolfie, principles were empty shells without taking action to back them up. He relentlessly gave his time and energies to improve life and help people in his hometown.
"WOLFIE" IS WHAT I called him, taking my cue from other friends. His nephew, Ray Sullivan, who gave the eulogy Thursday at the Dawson Funeral Home, said Uncle Dick had the habit of bestowing nicknames, and, sure enough, he gave me one: "Fearless." (I liked it, but it should have a cautionary note to me on a character trait that has gotten me into trouble.)
I got to know Dick Wolf after signing on as a reporter for East Liverpool's daily newspaper in 1980. My beat included covering the East Liverpool Board of Education, on which Wolfie served over a period of 37 years.
"The vote was four to one, with Wolf dissenting." I could have had a rubber stamp made to insert those words into my board stories. But Wolfie was not contrary for the sake of being a contrarian. As Bob Duffy said, "He always had a reason."
I connected to Wolfie through the Tri-State Pottery Festival (Dick was a founder and organized the festival 5K run). He was very involved in wrestling. I had wrestled in high school, and got to know then-Coach Nick Trombetta, who had turned around the ELHS wrestling program with some help from Wolfie, who pushed creation of a wrestling practice facility through the board and put sweat equity into its construction. Many years as a table scorer at the Ohio Valley Athletic Conference wrestling tournament was just one on a long list of his volunteer jobs.
I had an older connection to Wolfie. He worked at Crucible Steel in Midland, Pa., for 35 years. He and my dad, Lester, had the same job as recorders in the Cold Strip. and both were put out of work when Crucible shut down in 1982.
Dick was only 50 at the time. He never took on other employment, with the exception of occasional remodeling, carpentry and handyman work, for which he charged peanuts, said Kerrianne. With a small pension from Crucible, "we lived on very little," Kerrianne recalls. Wolfie meanwhile threw himself into "doing" for his community and school. A board member, he did so much maintenance work around the high school some students though he was a custodian.
It's amazing that they managed, with a houseful that for a number of years included Dick's mother, Ada Rice Wolf, and Mary's bachelor brother, Richard Landfried, who was at Pearl Harbor and suffered lingering effects of war trauma.
IN 2005, MARY was sitting on the sidewalk in front of their home on steep May Street, working on a flower planter, when a five-year-old child got into a car up the hill and somehow took it out of gear. The car rolled down and smashed Mary into a telephone pole. She lost her left arm above the elbow, and had a long recovery from a crushed right ankle, damaged left ankle and other injuries.
That was what prompted Wolfie's letter to Oprah, which no one in the family had ever seen or knew anything about. Lisa found it in his rolltop desk.
In the letter, he repeated a statement he had spoken when he and Mary renewed their vows on Jan. 12, 2003: "In terms best expressed by an old sailor, you are my compass, my rudder, my anchor, and my safe harbor, sheltering me from all of life's storms. . . (and) the wind beneath my wings."
He recalled once telling her, "Mary, I wish I could give you all the nice things you deserve."
She had replied, "Things have never made me happy."
In a deep drawer of that rolltop desk, Rick found it stuffed full of envelopes addressed to Dick Wolf. There were a few spite letters, but the rest - hundreds of them - were notes and letters of thanks from people whose lives he had touched.
Wolfie, my friend, you were one of a kind.