Thursday, September 18, 2008

Gene Schull


Gene Schull March 25, 1925 - Sept 13, 2008

Dearest husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, died at the age of 83 on September 13, at St. Luke's Hospital. He leaves his wife of 57 years, Rebecca, son Jonathan, daughter-inlaw Betsy Wood, daughters Deborah, Elinor, son-in-law Fleming Meeks and grandsons Henry and Sam Meeks. He is survived also by his extended family: Geoff, Margolit, Jeremy, Eric, Melina, and Jennifer, Lee, Jared and Alexandra, and by a cousin, Gilda Michnoff. Gene was a native New Yorker. His parents, Minerva and Max Schull, owned kosher butcher shops in New York and Long Beach. At the age of 17 he enlisted in the Navy and served for four years as radioman 2nd class in the South Pacific during World War II. He studied photography in Los Angeles on the GI Bill, and worked for several years as a commercial photographer in New York. His next career, as a sales manager, took him and his family from Long Island to Miami, then to Cleveland, Dublin, Edinburgh and London. With children grown, Gene and Rebecca settled in New York and in Los Angeles where Gene became a pilot-flying was a great love of his life. He was an insightful photographer, a natural born inventor, storyteller and improviser. He was a lover of life, of his family, open to everything and everyone, and grateful for his good fortune. Even during his final battle with cancer he would say "I'm the luckiest guy in the world." Characteristically, he surprised us at the end. He died in his sleep, his loving family beside him. "They shall mount up with wings as eagles..." Isaiah 40:31.

gene.pdf (an article about my Dad, by his nephew, Dan)