Gordon Plummer

An Extra-Ordinary Man Gordon Curtis Plummer died peacefully in his sleep on the morning of Friday, May 11, 2012. He was 90 years old. He died in the house where he'd lived for the last 55 years; a house he shared with his beloved wife, Barbara, who passed away in 2010. His son, Stephen was in the next room and his daughter, Kathryn was nearby. It was a fitting end for someone like Gordon Plummer. He was a kind, modest man; a true gentleman who made friends wherever he went. He was, in many ways, an ordinary man, but in so many other ways, he was nothing less than extra-ordinary. Born in Wellesley, Mass., in 1922, he was descended from a family that first came to Massachusetts on the Mayflower and lived for generations in and around Boston. He had a childhood that probably was pretty typical for that region in the early 20th century: summers on Cape Cod and Nantucket island; skiing and sledding on New England hillsides in the winter and playing ice hockey on the "frog pond" on a farm nearby; playing with his Lionel train set; walking a mile and a half to school uphill, both ways, probably or bicycling on his green and white 26" Columbia. As the Depression set in, he sold eggs from a country farm to earn some extra money but, the family still managed to have vacations in Maine and on Cape Cod. High school, with all of its distractions, proved challenging and he struggled to maintain average grades. To correct this situation, his parents decided he should go to Vermont Academy, where he managed to better his record and earn admission to the Dartmouth College class of 1944, where his father had attended and where his granddaughter would study some 60 years later. These were still depression years and the early years of WWII, and Gordon worked in the college library and waited tables at the hospital commissary. You could begin to get a sense of the honor of Gordon Plummer as he told stories about his youthful "indiscretions."" The first came when, as a boy, he used his BB gun to shoot a sparrow. He managed only to wound the bird and so he took it home and tried unsuccessfully to nurse it back to health. That was the last time, he said, that he ever shot at a live target. Then there was the college episode in which he and several chums raided a junkyard one winter night in search of a radiator cap to repair a friend's Model T Ford. They were caught, spent the night in jail, and ultimately suffered a rebuke from the college dean. As innocent as these events seem through the lens of time, it is clear that Gordon Plummer filed both of them away in his memory as life lessons... examples of how NOT to behave. There would be many times in the future when it would be clear that he had learned his lessons well. Like millions of other young men in that era, his life was interrupted when the United States entered WWII and, at the beginning of what would have been his junior year at Dartmouth, he was sent to MIT to study meteorology for the U.S. Army Air Force. Commissioned a Second Lieutenant, he spent the next year at various AAF bases before being shipped to the Pacific where he served in the Philippines and Guam. After the war, he was able to complete his Dartmouth degree and eventually went to work for the American Optical Company in Southbridge, Massachusetts. Living not far from his childhood home, he maintained a close relationship with old friends, including Bob Mustard who had married and had a child. The Mustards, from time to time, required the baby-sitting services of a young Wellesley student from Norwalk, Ohio, named Barbara Bowen. Despite an 8-year age difference, and the fact that Barbara was still in school, the two fell in love and were married in 1951. Within a few years, they had two children, Kathy, born in 1952, and Steve, born in 1954. In this same time frame, he was given the opportunity to train with IBM in what was then a new and obscure field: information technology. He did some early computer networking for American Optical and then, while visiting his wife's home in Ohio, was offered a similar job for Thompson Products in Cleveland, a company that eventually became the company called TRW. As a world-wide supplier of automotive components, the company needed a global computer network and so Gordon Plummer hit the road, helping to build that infrastructure from North America to Europe, South America, and Japan. The job required him to be away from his family for weeks at a time and he was acutely aware of the burden this placed on his wife and children. This meant that when he wasn't traveling, his focus was squarely on the home front and no man was ever more devoted to doing whatever he could to ensure that his family was happy, healthy and certain of his love. He played a little golf when he could, but mostly his free time was spent with his family, whether it was helping his wife create a spectacular garden behind their home, spending weekends visiting the family cottage in Huron, Ohio and teaching his children to sail on Lake Erie, or making spring vacation trips to the Gulf Coast of Florida. He loved to read - especially spy novels and historical fiction and nonfiction - and he did a little woodworking and painting. Every Christmas, he created a New England scene in detailed pen-and-ink, while Barbara finished it in watercolors. This became their holiday greeting, assiduously mailed every year to a long list of friends and acquaintances. As difficult as his world travels made life, they also provided many positive returns. He developed lifelong friendships with people in England, Germany, Brazil and elsewhere. They became like family to him and remained so until his death, long after his traveling days ended with retirement. His work allowed him to take his wife and daughter with him on several trips to Europe, where they could see the sights he saw and meet his many friends abroad. Gordon Plummer had a way of making friends quickly. To know him was to like him. He was a quiet man, probably quite typical of his generation, giving of himself and always giving back far more than he ever received from anyone else. If you bought him a can of soup while shopping for yourself at the grocery store, you could be sure he would insist on paying you back immediately and completely. After a family dinner, few people could ever beat him to the kitchen sink to do the dishes. As his professional career ended, he entered retirement only reluctantly, but eventually he found his place in that world too. He played a weekly round of golf with old friends from TRW, worked on projects around the house and, once again, enjoyed annual summer holidays to Cape Cod with his children and, by now, grandchildren. He became more involved in civic and social organizations - Cleveland Play House, Western Reserve Historical Society, and American Furniture Club to name a few - and remained so vibrant and active that people often pegged him for a man 20 years younger than his years. But, most of his time during those years was spent at the side of his wife, Barbara. You can't talk about the life of Gordon Plummer and not remark on the strength and depth of his love and devotion to Barbara. She had a strong personality. She was intelligent, energetic and driven. When he was away on business, she kept a firm hand on the tiller of the Plummer household ship, even while carving out a career for herself as Miss Barbara, host of the local syndicated children's television show, Romper Room. As her children got older and Romper Room was replaced by other shows, she threw herself into numerous charitable and cultural organizations, various hand crafts and lots of gardening. All of this is important in understanding Gordon Plummer's life because, through it all, and whenever he could, he would be at her side, sharing the work; enjoying the pleasure she found in all of it, indulging her passions, and cleaning up after one of her many projects so she could start another. Perhaps this devotion arose from the fact that his work had forced him to be away so much, and he was trying to make up for that lost time. It's more likely, however, that he had decided long ago that this was the way a man should behave; working single-mindedly to make life better for his wife, his children, and his friends. Gordon Plummer led a spectacularly ordinary life, and yet he touched so many lives in so many ways, both large and small. It is hard to imagine that anyone who knew him could avoid feeling that they were in his debt - if only to some small degree. If you asked him about it though, he would smile a small, sheepish smile and say firmly that the burden of debt laid quite the other way around. Not surprising at all from this extra-ordinary man who cared so deeply for the sparrows and other living things in his life. The family prefers that those who wish may make contributions in his name to The American Cancer Society, 10501 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44106 or the Children's Guild, c/o Susan Congdon, 11400 Kristine Drive, Chesterland, OH 44026. A Memorial Service will be held at 1 pm on Thursday, May 31 at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 2747 Fairmount Blvd, Cleveland Heights, OH 44106. FRIENDS MAY CALL AT BROWN-FORWARD, 17022 Chagrin Blvd, Shaker Heights from 5-7:30 pm on Wednesday, May 30. Inurnment, St. Martin's Chapel of St. Paul's Episcopal Church.


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