C.W. Gusewelle

Memorable Christmas kindness was a gift of light in a dark era

Alone and away from home that Christmas Eve of 1957, I learned a lesson about the unexpected decency one sometimes has the luck to meet.

C.W. Gusewelle

Charles Gusewelle remembered at memorial service

A visitation and memorial service was held Sunday at Unity Temple on the Plaza for Charles Gusewelle who was a journalist for over 60 years at The Kansas City Star.

C.W. Gusewelle

C.W. Gusewelle visitation draws hundreds of mourners to Unity Temple in Kansas City

Longtime Kansas City Star writer Charles W. Gusewelle, known for his travels and stories about animals, is fondly recalled by readers and friends. The visitation and memorial service was held Sunday.

C.W. Gusewelle

In his own words: Honoring the life of C.W. Gusewelle with a collection of memorable columns

If words were bricks, C.W. Gusewelle would have built cities. Instead, his legacy is the thousands of columns he wrote for The Star, the dozen books and more.

C.W. Gusewelle

An ill-omened start, saved by a gesture both grand and humble

A plane delayed in leaving meant that at the other end, the next midday, the Paris train was missed. The station board showed another train three hours later, so it was an inconvenience, nothing more.

C.W. Gusewelle

Carving the Thanksgiving opossum

The festive spirit has claimed our house. The floors are polished. The rugs and upholstery have been cleansed of the malfeasances of dogs and cats. Friends will be joining us at the holiday table, and I have risen in darkness to stuff and bake the Thanksgiving opossum.

C.W. Gusewelle

When house guests and house cats collide

Our house guests, Mel and Jo, were the nicest folks imaginable. They’d gotten up at 3 o’clock in the morning and driven all the way from Iowa for a church conference. And exhausted by that long day, they came to spend the night with us.

C.W. Gusewelle

The death of a beloved pet takes with it a piece of your heart

The first cat, the white one whose name was Oliver, arrived with my bride. The two of them came as a package. I’d never lived with a cat before. And though it dates me to confess it, I’d never lived with a woman, either.

C.W. Gusewelle

The joy of a simpler type of writing

A couple weeks ago, my computer died. And my printer, useless without it, is moribund as well. So I am writing this on a typewriter, one of the 23 archaic machines that clutter an upper-floor room in our house. But who needs a printer anyway? The typewriter prints as it writes.

C.W. Gusewelle

Just a pup, but already an uncommon companion

Teal season in the Midwest arrives oddly out of time. The days still are warm and the leaves have not yet started to color when the early flights of green-wings and blue-wings come racing down the continent to linger a few weeks, then hurry on ahead of the cold.

C.W. Gusewelle

A good life, not long enough, for a pretty good dog

“The pup has style,” a man once said, and I thought I’d won the lottery. He also had much courage, and a ruling passion. If I’d ever gone at writing with a dedication like that, there’s no knowing what work I might have done.

C.W. Gusewelle

One day, one sublime day, to recall the glory that was youth

He woke in darkness and had his moment in the yard, then stationed himself inside the front door, keening softly. With eyesight dim and hearing all but gone, he would take no chance of being left behind.

C.W. Gusewelle

Trip to France comes complete with rich recollections

A bank of gray clouds rolled up from the south and west, across the English Channel, and the weather turned dampish, as autumn in Paris is wont to do.

C.W. Gusewelle

Marching alone, through the challenges of life, the true test

He was only one man, not a million. His marches made no headlines, got him no fame. He marched four blocks down the long hill to the bus stop, and at the end of the working day marched up the hill to supper.

C.W. Gusewelle

Even as memory betrays us, it also yields great gifts

Memory is an unruly servant, like the butler in one of those dated English comedies. For years you imagine that he is in your employ, then one day you discover he has really become master of the house. You issue commands, but they are ignored.

C.W. Gusewelle

Long after days fade away, memories return in full color

Autumn is rich in mingled images. Leaves driven by an evening wind take to the street together — rushing columns of them, swirling mobs, a dry brown confusion flying on ahead, hesitating, then turning furiously back upon itself.

C.W. Gusewelle

A webbed reminder to slow down and this, too, shall pass

It was only a small event on a busy city boulevard in the middle of afternoon — incidental, really, in the cosmic scale of things. But in these senseless and dangerous times, something about it was oddly reassuring.

C.W. Gusewelle

At start of summer in their lives, a morning to remember

Time, stand still. Stop just here, just now — on this cool, green morning, with the early sun pale through new leaves and my small garden flourishing and the children awake in their rooms and the gray kitten, Roosevelt, marching along the top of the board fence.

C.W. Gusewelle

Even the deepest friendship cannot match the bond of kinship

They are sisters, also best friends. And in some small way I envy them that. It’s the nature of us all to covet the thing we cannot have.

C.W. Gusewelle

Generations span the century

The earliest memory is of a strange man bending to suffocate me with an evil smelling cloth — and parents allowing him to do it! A moment’s struggle. A sudden sleep. And waking then with the awful sore throat of a 4-year-old just separated from his tonsils.

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Charles Gusewelle remembered at memorial service

Nov 21, 2016

A visitation and memorial service was held Sunday at Unity Temple on the Plaza for Charles Gusewelle who was a journalist for over 60 years at The Kansas City Star.

Joe Ledford The Kansas City Star