NEWTON?Gary Craig Hadsell passed away
Oct. 9, 2022, at Newton Presbyterian Manor. He was 79. Although Gary
spent his last year of life in the Harvey County area, several local
family members have decades-long ties, including his daughter, Kerry
Grosch (formerly of Hesston) and granddaughters Julie Hendricks and
Tami Mosqueda (James), a grandson, Adam Johnson, along with two
great-granddaughters, Brylie Hendricks and Kynlie Hendricks, all of
Newton.
A memorial service is scheduled for 10
a.m., Friday, Nov. 4, at Petersen Funeral Home, Newton, with Chaplain
Greg Schmidt (Newton Presbyterian Manor and Heart & Soul Hospice)
officiating. Burial will immediately follow with U.S. Air Force
Military Honors at Greenwood Cemetery, Newton. The body has been
cremated.
Gary was born ?across the Ohio River?
on Sept. 18, 1943, in Wheeling, W.Va., to William Ellis and Eleanor
Jane (Pospisil) Hadsell, of Shadyside, Ohio. He moved to Waterford,
Mich., as a toddler when his parents accepted teaching positions
within the Waterford school district.
He enjoyed the relative solitude and
attention doted on him as a single child for many years before his
sister, Beth Lynne, was born. They were far enough apart in age and
interests that they each had their own sets of friends and hobbies
nearly a generation apart. His parents and sister preceded him in
death.
Gary was raised in a musical family.
His father was a popular piano player in the silent movie theater
era, which paid his way through college before there was such a thing
as student loans. Gary tinkered with piano keys but found his passion
when he began strumming guitar strings in his adolescence.
By high school, he played in a band
(?Invictas?) with three classmates, including Dick Wagner, who
went on to play with Alice Cooper, Bob Seger and Rod Stewart and to
co-write songs with Kiss and Air Supply. ?Many times,? the
bandmates skipped school or passed on Friday date nights to jam out
in the Hadsell basement, Gary?s mother would lament. She used to
cringe at the ruckus, but laugh that they could be out cruising the
streets late at night and getting into trouble somewhere instead.
Gary was a sharp student but saw little
value in documented proof. He viewed himself as a savvy test taker,
which he reasoned only artificially skewed true intelligence. He
dropped out of high school a couple of weeks before graduation,
figuring he didn?t need a piece of paper saying he learned enough
to graduate. His parents, both educators, were mortified. They
offered him three choices, military, college or a job.
Gary entered the United States Air
Force in 1961, immediately fell in love with and married Belinda
Chalender, the daughter of a career Air force officer. Married life
afforded them privacy and housing off the Chanute Air Force Base.
Gary?s military service centered on teaching classes on how to
safely assemble and disable bombs. The couple had two children, Kerry
(Grosch) in 1964, and Craig Scott in 1965.
After an honorable discharge in 1965,
Gary and the family returned to Michigan, where he worked for five
years in law enforcement ? starting in Charlotte before moving on
to the Lansing Police Department. He later took a job investigating
insurance fraud cases for a company based in Detroit, eventually
moving to a supervisory role in which he taught newly hired
investigators to spot signs of fraud. The distant commute was
particularly hard on family life. Gary and Belinda divorced in 1973.
Belinda died in 1974, and Gary suddenly
found himself in a single-parent role with two young children. He had
remarried but this partner was unstable, frequently dropping the
children off at places and not remembering where she left them. That
marriage very quickly dissolved and the children moved a series of
times to live with various friends and then with family as Gary
became a guitarist and singer in a new band.
Eventually, the band renovated an old
school bus into a camper-type unit, and Gary?s children joined him
on the road during their adolescence, traveling from one gig to
another through most states west of Indiana and from the Canadian
border south to Tyler, Texas. Gary landed in Kansas for a few years
as his teens reached high school age before he eventually moved to
the Reno, Nev., area, where music gigs were more plentiful.
His final career change (due to
mounting back issues) involved working as a PBX operator for a casino
hotel, where he memorized thousands of room connection numbers to
swiftly transfer incoming calls to anywhere in the facility. Gary
began to notice his memory starting to wane ? i.e. what turned out
to be the early stages of dementia. He felt he had no choice but to
retire before his worsening memory became apparent to others and his
work suffered.
Gary?s daughter moved him back to
Kansas to live with her in 2019 after his fourth wife died and his
health began particularly declining. He moved into memory care for
more advanced health care needs at the height of COVID-19 in 2020.
Although Gary had been suffering from
the effects of Alzheimer?s disease for the past few years, he
remained fairly amiable and upbeat in most interactions he had with
staff and residents alike wherever he received care. He was most
well-known for his ever-present winter hat and huge engaging smile.
Among his favorite care providers was Christina, who adored that
smile.
Ultimately, Gary contracted what seemed
like a mild case of COVID-19 within a week of his 79th birthday. He
seemed about over it, but suddenly a fever spiked. His body was too
weak to overcome the virus in the end.
Other survivors include his son, Craig
Hadsell, of Valley Center; granddaughters Crystal Hadsell (TJ
Armstrong) of Texas and Amanda (Zech) Keenan of Nixa, Mo.;
great-grandchildren Adam Lee and McKenzie Lee, and Isaac, Cadence,
Levi, and Titus Keenan; and several cousins.
Memorials may be made to the
Alzheimer?s Association or the family, in care of the funeral home.
