He’s always been a listener, and he’s always listened with his eyes wide open. He’s learned and learned and learned, and now, after 101 years of making memories, Joe Gompers shares pure wisdom when he speaks.
I’m lucky. Me and Joe are friends. And yes, it’s difficult to call Mr. Gompers by his first name, but Joe says it’s Joe, so I’ve been honored and respectful all at the same time while lucky enough to share the man’s company.
1924. That’s the year Joe was born, and it’s when Calvin Coolidge was the United States President, and when J. Edgar Hoover took over the FBI. In 1924, Asians were by-law banned from U.S. soil but Native Americans were granted automatic citizenship.
He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He’s been a county prosecutor. Gompers once was an elected member of the state House of Delegates. And the man still goes to work a few days every week.
But when he speaks, Joe’s wisdom is spoken softly, and he tells of a Wheeling most love to recall. He remembers the streets teaming with foot traffic, and he tells tales about the little leagues, the parades, the supper clubs, the bars on every corner and the crowded churches in most neighborhoods. He reminds people Wheeling once had three public high schools and that kids those days competed against each other in every sport during every season of the year. He terribly misses his bride, Patricia, who passed in late August 2018 … and oh my, you bet he’s damn proud of their children, who, by the way, are (or approaching) retirement ages themselves these days.
And Joe is sharp. If he knew you “then,” he knows you now, and he’ll prove it with a memory from long ago that only you and he know for sure.
He made his way this past Saturday to Wheeling Park’s J.B. Chambers Performing Arts Center for educator Ryan Stanton’s “History of Wheeling” class for adults that focused on the Friendly City during the late 1800s and early 1900s with the beer businesses, prohibition, and organized crime. Former U.S. Attorney Bill Kolibash was there to speak about his book, “Justice Never Rests” which was released a week ago, and I was on stage, as well, to discuss the culture behind the “Wheeling Feeling” during the mob years in the 1970s and ’80s.
At the end of the Q&A session, Joe blessed me with another visit, and after I approached him and squatted down, he shared with me his memories of “Big Bill” Lias and Paul “No Legs” Hankish. He told me about his interactions with those mob bosses and he insisted the city of Wheeling had changed in many positive ways since those darker days.
“We’re doing OK around here,” he sorta whispered. “But change is as hard as you make it.”
Pure. Wisdom.
