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Tuesday, February 17, 2004

UNCLE BUD 

Peter Stricklett was born June 27, 1910. He was the third child of grandma and grandpa Stricklett. He was born in the DeSoto area as mom and aunt Mary were. By the time he was school age the family had moved to Blair where he attended Central grade and high school. There he met his future wife Pearl Svendgaard and they were later married July 31, 1929.

Uncle Bud (as the family called him by grandpa Stricklett’s nickname) was owner and operator of the Standard Oil Station all the time I was growing up. It was where aunt Mary always stopped for gas and a short visit and sometimes he would give me a bottle of pop.

After he sold the station some years later he became the area agent for the same company for more than forty years. He was well known throughout the community and after retiring from Stand Oil he worked in the Washington County Courthouse there in Blair.

He and aunt Pearl had four children, Ronald, Mary Beth, Susan and Patricia. They married and moved away from Blair in various parts of the country and all had professional careers.

Uncle Bud had a heart attack which fully retired him and he spent much of his time growing prize roses. He loved working in the yard and their home was quite a showplace. Later on he was diagnosed with leukemia and after a long battle he lost the fight. He is still survived by his wife, and the four children, spouses and the grandchildren.

He was the one of the aunts and uncles that I was around the least. By the time I came along and spent so much time at grandma’s he was married and had the older two children. When I spent summers at grandma’s I would walk to their home and play with Ronnie and Mary Beth whenever I could.

In remembering uncle Bud I would have to say he looked more like grandpa and had his slow and easy way about him. He was a quiet man but did enjoy visiting. In later years he came to the Ozarks to visit mom and dad, along with aunt Pearl. He loved all the trees and the casual way of the area. My mother and uncle Bud were very close as she was much like him, personality wise.

She told me when she went back to Blair to see him in the hospital he was on life-support and wasn’t able to talk. When she entered the room and he saw her his monitors went crazy. That was her indication that he knew her. It meant a great deal to my mother partly because she had helped take care of him when he was little, being the older sister, but mostly just because she loved him. Uncle Bud was the first of the six children to die. It was very hard on all of the family but hardest on grandma. With grandpa gone years before……. her love and loyalty had gone to her children……losing any of them was something she never thought she would have to face. There is a bond between a mother and her children that never lets go………even into eternity.

I do not have the date of his death or his age at time of death.
Until tomorrow,

Essentially Esther