Uncle Fred: Part one.

 Fred Walter McIntyre

As you can see  (if you didn't already know), my Uncle Fred was 99 years old. He most certainly had and led a full life.... a very full life. Many of this blog's readers have left comments indicating they would like to hear more about Fred. He was indeed an interesting, wise, generous, and extremely kind man let alone a wonderful uncle. I will write a few posts here and there breaking up his life into some categories so as to keep things simple as possible and somewhat orderly. The picture above is one that my cousin Paige and Fred had picked out 8 years ago after the love of his life (Cathy) passed away (they were on again off again for well over 60 years and never married and will be one of the fore mentions posts). Along with the written obituary you will see below (it explains his life just not in a nutshell as I would have done. Fred and I had also in recent years worked out what he wanted for his obituary and photos and the like. Rather than start a mess I just went with what she had done after all before Fred came back to Valdosta, GA permanently he was at his house in Rocky Mount, NC with Cathy for about a decade with little trips back home (GA) where I would visit him, but it was Paige who was running the 9 hour each way trip every couple of months for a day to week each to help Fred for 4 1/2 years. No harm, just as you are about to find out very long. Expensive too to run in 3 different papers, Fred would have shot me had he known what I paid to run it ($1,500.00). He was very Frugal, that doesn't mean cheap though for the stuff he was going to keep like tools or his clothing. Those items had to be the best period no questions. But wasteful he was not. He was born in 1923 and grew up during the Great Depression.....he didn't throw ANYTHING away not even if it was broken. That will be one of the other posts. 

That is hard to read, maybe because of the red lettering,  so here is the newspaper version.

Not much better, but maybe the black is easier to read. If you enlarge it it is too wide and you'll have to scroll to the right to read the 2nd column.

These were the pictures they picked out 8 years ago for inside.  

This is the one that I wanted for the cover and Obit. He is wearing his Masonic pin and his Shriner's pin. He was so generous with his time, devoting 70+ years not to one but two "service organizations/fraternities".  And if that was not enough he spent decades serving as Secretary for Valdosta Kiwani's Club. Throw in his back and forth between Valdosta, GA and Rocky Mount, NC his care giving to "Aunt" Cathy for a decade I don't know how he did it. I will say this. He was one tough old coot. The man just last year (2021) had 14 teeth surgically removed at one time and didn't so much as take a single aspirin afterwards and it took two weeks for the bleeding to stop. Another real short story that led to me being here with him. He didn't want to pay someone to be here at night while he was sleeping and one morning he fell and couldn't get up and didn't have his phone in his pocket. He laid on the floor for 8 hours before someone found him and got him up. That's when he broke his hip and ripped apart one of his rotator cuff's. He walked around here up and down steps with the broken hip for EIGHT days. He had me come up to take him to NC to get the rest of his stuff. I said no way is he doing that. I made him promise to go to the Dr's. He did and I've been here ever since.

Here we have Fred at 27 months and two days. He was always a little fellow. 

This was his last ID that we had made in 2018. He was still happy then.

Fred received a Masonic burial. He was a Master mason for over 70 years. I had the pleasure of attending a few Masonic get togethers and Shriner meetings with him.

Hopefully you were able to read his life's story in the Obit. I think this is it for today. 

Yes, there is still free baseball cards tonight. Just follow the blog, comment on this post before midnight EST tonight. last night's winner was: Derek