Jan Doetsch and Karla Wheeler

[00:03] JAN CARLTON DOACH: My name is Jan Carlton Doach. I'm 75 years old. Today is Monday, March 11, 2024, and we're in Fort Myers, where I'm going to be talking to my sister.

[00:17] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Yay. Thank you, Jan. My name is Carla, with a k. Doach Wheeler. My age is 70. She's five years older. Today's date is March 11, 2024, and we are in Fort Myers, as Jan mentioned. Now, Jan, on the ride up here, because we live in Naples, we were comparing notes about some of the family stories through the years, and we both found it so fascinating that there are some of the prime stories that have survived all these decades, and yet you and I seem to remember them differently. But because you're my elder and because you took notes quite often, especially when daddy was sharing with you about his Marine Corps years, I will definitely defer to you about any of those stories. Now, I know that primarily today, you wanted to share about our father. Our father was just one in a million, and we were both very, very, very close to him. His first name was Lewis, spelled L e w I s. Lewis Carlton. That's where Jan got her middle name. Carlton Lewis Carlton Doge. And you spelled. Spelled. Thank you. D as in daddy, o e t as in Tom, s as in Sam. Ch. I went through 25 years of my life before I was married spelling doge.

[01:42] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Yeah. And I spell it differently. Do you want to hear that?

[01:44] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: How do you spell it?

[01:46] JAN CARLTON DOACH: D as in David Oetsch.

[01:51] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Oh, I think yours is more effective, but you've had more practice, too.

[01:55] JAN CARLTON DOACH: I had a lot of time to think about it. There's five extra years.

[01:58] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Yes, exactly. Anyway, why don't we just jump in and why don't you start sharing some of the fantastic memories you have about our amazing father?

[02:07] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Okay. Well, I really wanted to share what daddy told me when he came up to visit with me outside of Philadelphia. He stayed because he had come up for his 50th high school reunion, and he brought his Marine Corps book with him of the fourth division. The book is called the Fourth Marine Division in World War Two. And he had just never shown me this before. Now, through our lives, our lifetimes, we had absorbed stories about him, and we knew that he had been wounded twice in the South Pacific when he was in the Marine Corps in World War Two. And there were other stories that we had sort of had absorbed, but we hadn't received any details. And the fact that he brought this book and we sat down together on my sofa, and he. He pointed out different places in it and told me specifics about where he was and where he was wounded made me. Well, first of all, I felt privileged, but it made me realize that I needed to pass this along. This was a record that I wanted to be kept because he had shared it with me. So I took notes while he did that and the specific. So I'd like to say the specific things that he wanted to tell me about. But first of all, I want to tell the story about how he ended up in the Marine Corps. He had gone to. He was in his first year at the University of Maryland, just there. They lived right outside of Washington, DC, when he got pneumonia, so he dropped out and immediately got a draft notice from the army. Well, his older brother, who was quite a terror, was already a drill instructor in the Marine Corps, and he knew that his older brother would probably beat him up if he let himself get drafted into the army. So he went down with his pneumonia and signed up for the Marine Corps, and they took him and they trained him, and they shipped him out to the South Pacific, where he was, as I say, wounded twice. So daddy was wounded first at Roy Namur, and that was on the 8 February, 1944. He was with the 10th Amphibious tractor battalion of the Fourth Marine Corps division, as we know. So they got transported to the Marshall Islands. He wanted me to know this on the Navy ship, the USS Epping forest. And then he was just after they had landed and set up their camp, they were getting ready to have their first meal, and a shell hit the camp, and he was wounded in his left thigh by a fragment. And so they shipped him out. And that was a time, I think I hadn't told you this before, Carla, that he remembered that he was hanging in a basket. That's a basket case. They were in wicker baskets hanging in a little plane. And he's looking down to this island where they're going to. They're going to stop first before he goes back stateside, which is this tiny little dot, just looking at this tiny little dot, and he can't move, and he. There's nothing he can do. He's hanging in a basket, and he's thinking to himself, we're never gonna make it. We're never gonna make it. This is worse than being wounded. We're never gonna make it. But anyway, they did make it. They patched him up, and they sent him back. And so the next time, he spent a lot of time in the jungle, on different islands. But the next time that he was wounded, this was a serious wound, was on Saipan. And this is what this was June, June 15, 1944, and this was when he was on one of those transports that he was with the fourth tank battalion, and they got loaded on Maui, left Pearl harbor, landed on Saipan. This is all in quotes. He was telling me all these details with the dates, and he celebrated his 20th birthday. He told me while they were at sea going from Pearl harbor to Saipan. That was on June 4, his 20th birthday. So there they are. They're getting ready. They're landing on an LCM, which is a landing craft, mechanized. Just as a shell hits the water, japanese shell hits the water, and it bounced. The craft bounced daddy out into the sea. And when the craft came down again from its bounce, its ramp trapped daddy's right leg, the ankle between the ramp itself and a coral reef. And he was underwater, and he was facing the wrong way to even try to get himself out. So he thought, well, this is it. And then a hand reached down and freed him. He never knew who that was. Never knew who that was, but he did not expect it. He thought he was a goner. And that time they shipped him out, and he did not return because he spent the next 18 months in the naval hospital of Philadelphia at the time. And that's where. Should I tell the penicillin story?

[08:17] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: You go ahead.

[08:18] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Oh, yeah. Because this is a great story. So that's where, unfortunately, gangrene set in, because this was. This was a bad injury, and they. They were going to amputate. They told him, it looks like, you know, you're going to lose that leg, but we have this new drug that just came out of that. If you want to, we can try. So he agreed. They said, it's called penicillin. And he told me that needle gauge was so big and the serum was so thick, and it took so long for them to do this that he was ready to say, stop, just take the leg. Just stop. Take the leg. Yow, yow, yow. Because it really hurt. But he prevailed, he maintained, and saved the leg.

[09:12] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Wow.

[09:12] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Yeah.

[09:13] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Quite the story.

[09:14] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Yeah. So that's when I think of. This keeps coming up to me, how, when I was a teenager and being very dramatic about probably tiny little issues that were huge issues to a teenager, he would say, okay, baby. All right. Okay, baby. Let's not make a big production out of it. And that's how I got thinking about this whole thing of telling stories about daddy, because he never made a big production out of any of this. Most of it, he did not even ever tell us about. You know, I don't remember, do you, Carla? I don't remember him ever mentioning that anything hurt and yet he was in pain. Our mother told us this. That leg pained him for the rest of his life.

[10:05] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: That's right. Because that shrapnel from that first injury, they were not able to remove all of it in his thigh.

[10:11] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Oh, I didn't know that.

[10:12] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: And then the other leg, as you mentioned, with that horrible experience that he had underwater with the coral, that one I know ached all the time. And I remember our mother saying that at night he couldn't even handle having a sheet of, on top of that right foot and ankle because of the pain.

[10:34] JAN CARLTON DOACH: And remember. Yeah. He always liked to keep that foot untucked. And do you remember when he had hospice care at home and we had that otherwise very nice lady who was there looking after him, and she kept trying to tuck his foot back in, make sure he was all tucked in, and one or the other of us had to keep telling her, no, he doesn't like, he likes that foot uncovered.

[11:00] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Yeah, I think the hospice nurses know better, but I think she was a volunteer.

[11:03] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Yes.

[11:04] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: And she meant well.

[11:05] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Absolutely.

[11:06] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: She absolutely did. But. Yep, yep.

[11:08] JAN CARLTON DOACH: She was just trying to keep him cozy.

[11:10] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Yes. Yeah, definitely. But, yeah. Don't make a big, let's not make a big production about this.

[11:17] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Mm hmm.

[11:18] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Yeah. I also never remember hearing our father say an unkind word, do you?

[11:24] JAN CARLTON DOACH: About anybody. No.

[11:25] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: He never gossiped, he never judged other people.

[11:29] JAN CARLTON DOACH: No.

[11:30] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Yeah. I remember our grandmother, his mother. So she had the two boys, that was our new. The older one was a bit of a holy terror, and he had two sisters. But I remember that our grandmother used to call him sunny boy because she would spank both the boys because she wasn't sure who the culprit was. Spanked them both, send them out of the, out of the kitchen door into the lawn, tell them not to come back for an hour or two. And daddy would always come back in with his big smile on his face, this big hug for his mother. So she always called him sunny boy.

[12:09] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Yeah. See, before you told me that, and that wasn't too long ago, I had not heard that story about that nickname, the sunny boy. I wonder if they had a nickname for his brother.

[12:20] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: I wonder, too. And you know what's funny now that we talk about that sunny boy, is that our father started to go bald in his twenties, I believe. I only remember him being totally bald. And he was, what, six foot one? Maybe he was tall.

[12:37] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Six foot one.

[12:38] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Six foot one and bald. And when we, the girls mother you and I would go out shopping for the day, and daddy would come to try to find us because mother wasn't driving then. You and I weren't old enough to drive then. So daddy would come to try to find us. And we could always find him because of the light reflecting off of his bald head.

[12:58] JAN CARLTON DOACH: It was easy to see.

[12:59] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: So sunny boy with that bald head.

[13:02] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Oh, yeah, I didn't make that connection. That's good, Carla. Well, and he had that wavy auburn.

[13:09] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Hair when he did pictures.

[13:11] JAN CARLTON DOACH: And that reminds me of him hitchhiking. I just want to mention that, too. They lived about 10 miles outside the center of Washington, DC, in what's now called Wheaton. And they had a small, I guess you would call it a small livestock farm. I know they just had a few animals, but before he went to school, I'm talking about high school now, every morning, daddy would have to do his chores, taking care of the animals, and he liked the cows. I do remember that. He used to tell me that cows are smarter than horses. You know, when I was horse crazy as a young girl, as so often happens, cows are smarter than horses. Anyway, he would finish that, and then, because there was no other way to get to school, he would hitchhike. He would hitchhike the ten or more miles into the city, Washington, DC, to go to school. And where he went to school and why he was there for that 50th reunion was Gonzaga. Gonzaga College High School in Washington, DC is what it was called.

[14:22] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Wow.

[14:23] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Yeah. With those Jesuits.

[14:25] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Yes. I remember his saying that they were required to study a language, and most of them studied French, and he had no affinity for French whatsoever, and they weren't going to let him graduate. So one of the Jesuits took him under his wing and drilled this French into him so that daddy could at least pass the exam. Now, what's funny about that is that when you went to college, when you went to university, you majored in languages, you majored in German and minored in Russian. But I guess you didn't get that from daddy, did you?

[15:01] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Well, I don't care for French much either, so maybe I did get a little bit of that. I just. Something about it rubs me the wrong way. The language I'm talking about, not the culture or anything else. But, you know, also there's his name, his first name. He's named after some older relatives and the, it's l o u I s. All through the family there are different generations who were Lewis. But when he was younger, he knew a girl named Louise. And then when he was taking French, there was. How do you pronounce it? Louis. And this was just too sissy for him. So he's the one himself who changed it to what actually is the welsh spelling, isn't it the l e w I s. Yeah. Yeah, I know. He had told me that. Yeah. There was this girl named Louise, and I didn't want her getting confused with me.

[16:03] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: So when you speak about the Marine Corps, I just get all warm and fuzzy inside. Because our mother was also in the Marine Corps during World War two. Yes, yes. And the two of them met right after the war ended in 1945. They met in a little bar in San Francisco where they were both stationed. And the story that I remember is a little different from the one you remember, but I think your memory is better, so you tell the rest of it.

[16:32] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Yeah, we didn't realize that until we told each other in the car just now driving up here. Yes. That was so funny. So here's what I remember. Our mother, who was from a completely different state. Daddy was from Maryland, she was from Ohio, but they both ended up stationed San Francisco, out of San Francisco in the Marine Corps. And she was a sergeant. She made sergeant. She was an executive secretary to a general out there. So here's my version of the story. What I remember her telling me, mother telling me that she and her, her friends, her girlfriends and the women marines were sitting at a bar, at their bar stools, San Francisco. And there was a group of male marines. And one of them said loudly enough because he wanted to be overheard, hey, guys, look at that babe over there with the big, beautiful brown eyes. And she swiveled on his seat to face him. Oh, by the way, he was a private. She swiveled on her seat to face him and said, they're big, beautiful blue eyes, private, because, of course, they were all in uniform and she was a sergeant. So that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. And more than that, they must have started dating right away because they were married. What, Carla?

[17:56] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Oh, like four weeks later.

[17:58] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Five weeks.

[17:59] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Five weeks from when they met.

[18:00] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Five weeks later.

[18:01] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Yep, yep. And they were happily married. Well, I mean, as much as couples can be happily married, but they had a good, solid marriage for 52 years until separated by dad.

[18:10] JAN CARLTON DOACH: They certainly did. And I just want to add that they got married because they wanted to get married because it was a full three years before I came along. So this was no shotgun wedding, you know, even though it just so happened that her mother and her brother, he was stationed out there, too. I think he was with the navy. They were both out there in that area so that they were able to attend the military wedding. They had a military wedding. They look great in their uniforms.

[18:40] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Yeah. I love their wedding photo with both of them in their dress uniforms. And it's just. And they, you know, after they left the Marine Corps, they stayed involved and stayed loyal and dedicated to the Marine Corps until the day they died. They were often involved in the toys for tots down here in the Fort Myers Naples area. Toys for tots is such a big fundraiser, charity for every Christmas, and they both were very dedicated marines. I wanted to mention, too, that I recall mother saying that her shining glory as a Marine, not just that she had become a sergeant, she wasn't one to brag, but she said her shining glory was when the United nations was founded. And there was the big convention to whatever they call that when it's the first founding a body, a big, huge body like that, and all the dignitaries are there from around the world. She was chosen to represent the United States women marines, and she just felt like that was her greatest glory as a marine.

[19:51] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Now, wait, I hadn't heard this before.

[19:53] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: We put that in her obituary.

[19:56] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Oh. Hmm.

[19:58] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Maybe.

[20:00] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Where was this?

[20:01] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: This was back in 45 when the United nations was founded and all of the armed forces were to choose one or two representatives to be there.

[20:14] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Wow.

[20:15] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: So she was chosen to represent the women marines.

[20:19] JAN CARLTON DOACH: And this wasn't a bragging point, because, see, she had never even mentioned that to me. This was an honor to her.

[20:26] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Oh, absolutely.

[20:26] JAN CARLTON DOACH: That's how they treated. That's how they treated their service.

[20:29] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Absolutely. An honor. Yes.

[20:32] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Both of them. That's how they viewed it.

[20:35] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Yeah. So we are the proud daughters of two world war, two marines, both incredible human beings. And I'm sure that all the years that they were our parents, that many of the qualities that we admired came from their Marine Corps background.

[20:56] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Oh, absolutely, yeah. Oh, absolutely.

[20:59] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: That idea.

[21:00] JAN CARLTON DOACH: I used to tell people that, yeah. You know, every once in a while for the years I was tending bar, and they'd say, well, how come you have that kind of a value? I said, both my parents were marines.

[21:09] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Yes.

[21:10] JAN CARLTON DOACH: What do you expect?

[21:13] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Amazing people. Our mother's name was Marie Elizabeth Cooley. Doach.

[21:24] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Yes, Cooley. C o o l e y. Cooley.

[21:28] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Yeah. And she came from a very, very down to earth, very touchy feely, huggy kind of family from Ohio, and our father came from a family that was a bit more prim and proper. And why don't you tell what we do know about the story about when our grandmother, our mother's mother and our mother's brother met daddy before mother and daddy were married.

[21:54] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Yeah. This was when they first met. And you and I both only have just a little slice of this, but it's a great little kernel that, as I said, they were all in that same area, mother and daddy, because they had been stationed there. And then mother's mother and her brother, who lived a little farther south, they had moved there, too, right before the war. So they're going to meet now. They're going to meet all of them for the first time. So mother and daddy are taking the train down from San Francisco to Palo Alto. And grandma, as we called her, and our Uncle Jim, we're going to meet them. They're going to meet our daddy for the first time, right? So here's motheregh, and I guess they're engaged by now. So it's official. And they dressed up. Grandma told me that they dressed up. They cross dressed. She wore men's clothes. She dressed up in men's clothes. This is 1945. And Uncle Jim wore women's clothes. Right. To meet the train. And when, I remember when grandma told me this, I guess I was fairly young, and I said, why? Why did you do that? Grandma and I, she said, because I wanted to see if he had a sense of humor, this man my daughter was going to marry. Right. And unfortunately, neither one of us knows what happened next. I mean, I don't remember that. It occurred to me to say, so what happened? Did he. But you and I know that he did have a sense of humor.

[23:31] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Yes.

[23:32] JAN CARLTON DOACH: He came from, as you said, a very formal, very formal background, his family. And because of his background and his training, I don't remember him being comfortable ever showing upsetting types of emotion.

[23:51] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Right.

[23:52] JAN CARLTON DOACH: But he did laugh. He did love to laugh. I gotta remember that. That type of emotion was good.

[23:59] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Absolutely.

[24:00] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Sing. Do you remember?

[24:01] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Oh, singing in the car. Oh, my goodness. Mother and daddy harmonized.

[24:04] JAN CARLTON DOACH: They would harmonize, yes. Yeah. When we'd take trips to visit the.

[24:09] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Grandparents, his favorite was we were sailing along on Moonlight Bay.

[24:16] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Nice.

[24:17] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: And then mother would come in and harmonize. Yes.

[24:20] JAN CARLTON DOACH: And he had a nice tenor. And when it was just the two of us, when I was a little kid, and I can remember sitting there with my legs sticking straight out in the passenger seat, this is before seat belts or kiddie seats or anything like that, and I'd ride with him and he would sing. It's the only time he would sing it. Old man river. Oh, that was thrilling.

[24:41] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: All bet because he did have a beautiful, beautiful voice.

[24:44] JAN CARLTON DOACH: He had a nice center.

[24:45] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Yeah, yeah. So many wonderful memories. My goodness.

[24:50] JAN CARLTON DOACH: I had made a couple more notes just about his south Pacific things. Sure. That I thought that I would just like to check before we maybe move along from the topic of daddy. I know that the slogging through the jungle, he just hated being wet and dirty and being all afraid of jungle rot.

[25:13] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: And I remember all the years growing up, he used to take minimum of two showers a day, sometimes three. If he had been out doing any yard work, he would say it was because of his promise in the jungle and in the foxholes. Yeah, yeah.

[25:28] JAN CARLTON DOACH: It was never going to be wet and rotten feet again. That, and he always wore socks and shoes, even to the beach.

[25:38] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Yes.

[25:38] JAN CARLTON DOACH: And he didn't like going in the water anymore, either.

[25:41] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Oh, yeah.

[25:42] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Do you remember how our cousin Fritz used to tell the story about the time they were on the Chesapeake and the big thunderstorm came along and it was pouring rain, and somehow, whatever happened, daddy ended up outside the boat.

[25:59] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Oh, boy.

[26:00] JAN CARLTON DOACH: And thrashing around in panic. And his cousin said to him, Coltie, we're on a sandbar. Just stand up. And they all thought it was so funny. They laughed at him in the boat. And you know, Carla, it wasn't until, like, fairly recently, the last few years or so, when I was thinking about that, maybe it was one of the last times I heard that story told again that of course, he panicked.

[26:28] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Absolutely.

[26:29] JAN CARLTON DOACH: It was dark, it was a thunderstorm, it was pouring rain. He didn't know where he was, and he didn't want to be caught underwater again. Of course, of course. See, now that these days, when we're all so aware of traumatic and PTSD, I don't think he had PTSD about it. He just certainly avoided water, and that was a panic stricken moment for him.

[26:55] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Yes. Yeah. Wow. Wow. And it's interesting because our mother loved the water. Remember she used to tell us how she was and that she was such a good swimmer that at age twelve, the local YMCA up in Akron, Ohio, Cuyahoga falls up there, they invited her to be one of the instructors at age twelve. Swimming instructor. Yes. She loved the water. And I remember that she was usually pretty gentle about daddy getting in the water. Remember when we moved north of Philadelphia and we had a swimming pool? That's why Daddy looked for that house, because he knew that would make mother so happy to have a pool, even though our season was so short up there. But I remember that she was very gentle with him. She wasn't bossy or anything with him when it came to Dutch. Why don't you. Her nickname for him. Dutch. Dutch. Why don't you come on in? You know, we'd all be in because we all love the water. And he. Most of the time, he declined. Occasionally he would, but she honored.

[27:56] JAN CARLTON DOACH: And he could swim.

[27:57] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Oh, yeah, definitely.

[27:58] JAN CARLTON DOACH: He just preferred to avoid her.

[28:01] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Right, but she honored that. Yeah.

[28:04] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Yeah.

[28:06] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Yeah.

[28:11] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Do you want to say a few quick words about Grandma because you lived with her.

[28:15] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: I did, yeah.

[28:18] JAN CARLTON DOACH: She was wonderful.

[28:19] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: She was just.

[28:20] JAN CARLTON DOACH: This is our mother's mother.

[28:21] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Our mother's mother, Leona Ozella Kiefer Cooley Macken. And I had the privilege of. So Jan and I, growing up, Grandma was always our safe haven.

[28:32] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Yes.

[28:33] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: She always had our backs. She was our staunchest advocate about anything. She was always such a fantastic listener. Probably the best listener I have ever known in my life. And she would validate whatever our thoughts or feelings were. And after high school, I was in a toxic relationship with a man and didn't know where to turn. And grandma came and visited from Cleveland. We were in Philadelphia. She came from Cleveland, and she said, carla, would you like to go home with me?

[29:03] JAN CARLTON DOACH: May I interrupt?

[29:04] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Yes.

[29:05] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Did you know that that was my suggestion? I suggested it privately to grandma. You did? And she said, okay, don't say anything to Marie in Dutchess. You know, my parents, our parents. She said, let me suggest that. Let me present it. And of course, she had to clear it with her husband, too. I never told you that. But then I'm not a braggart, either.

[29:29] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: So I took her up on that wonderful offer that Jan had suggested and moved back to Cleveland and lived with grandma and our step grandfather. He was the grandfather we knew because our biological grandfather had passed away in 1935 and six wonderful years. Grandpa. Our grandpa in Cleveland passed away shortly after I arrived. And I ended up staying on with grandma and living with her for six years. And her friends became my friends, my friends, her friends. She just. I feel like any good quality that a person might happen to see in me is probably because of mother and daddy, but mostly because of grandma. Those six years of being with her and observing her, I just. Her sense of jumping onto someone else's wavelength.

[30:18] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Oh, yes.

[30:19] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Was just impeccable and accepting. Yes, absolutely.

[30:25] JAN CARLTON DOACH: So accepting. And if she felt she needed to correct, she did it so marvelously, so gently. I just. That's something that I still strive to aspire to, but I tend to not. I tend to be more of a. What did you call me? A zapper.

[30:45] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Well, I think most of us are like that at times, but I wanted to share that. Jan and I are both very passionate about hospice care, and that's because of our dear grandma. When grandma, in 1986, she was diagnosed with end stage lung cancer, and she was living in Naples, Florida, with our parents. And somebody along the line suggested hospice care, and hospice brought her a hospital bed, so she was able to just stay at home and stay in her cozy little bedroom. Our parents helped look after her, as well as the hospice nurses coming in. And we didn't, of course, we didn't want to lose Grandma. And she kept saying to Jan and I, we'd take turns and coming down to visit, she keeps saying, now, girls, it's going to be fine. I'm ready for my transition. Got my bags? Yeah, I've got my bags packed. And it's going to be beautiful, and it's just. It's all going to be perfect. And we'd be like, grandma, no. No, we can't live without you, grandma, no, please. Well, Jan and I were taking turns. It was my turn to be with her when she did have what she called her transition. She didn't call it death. She called it a transition. And it happened on my watch. And it was just as beautiful as grandma had said it would be. It was just after midnight. The windows were open, the gulf breezes were coming in, and a breeze came and tapped me on the shoulder, and it felt like an angel's wing. And I went over to grandma, and I could tell her breathing had changed, and I started breathing with her, and then she was gone. But I could feel her spirit soaring in that little bedroom, along with all these angel wings. And I vowed at that moment, I said, grandma, we will find a way to help other families so that no person has to die alone, has to die in pain. And lo and behold, Jan and I started a national publishing company about ten years after grandma made her transition. It's called quality of Life Publishing. We just celebrated our 25th anniversary, and we publish. We sell about a million publications a year, all designed to help patients and families at end of life, so they don't have to be in pain and they don't have to die alone. So we're both big proponents of hospice care and palliative care out there, and that's all thanks to grandma and her beautiful transition.

[33:10] JAN CARLTON DOACH: And, Carla, that's a beautiful story. I can just see you in that room for the transition. You probably did tell me about it at the time, but I hadn't remembered. So I'm so glad that you just told it again because that's beautiful.

[33:27] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Yeah. Because I had been a newspaper reporter and editor, a magazine editor, but never found any kind of journalism very satisfying. And with grandma's transition, I just knew I will find a way to channel my journalism skills into helping families everywhere.

[33:43] JAN CARLTON DOACH: And feeling the spirit.

[33:45] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Yes.

[33:45] JAN CARLTON DOACH: The way you did that, the swirling around.

[33:47] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Oh, my goodness. And it was so joyful.

[33:50] JAN CARLTON DOACH: It was so joyful. And that was back in what? 19. 86.

[33:53] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: 87. Yes. She was 86 when she did. She made her transition in 87.

[33:59] JAN CARLTON DOACH: So hospice was pretty much unknown.

[34:02] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Pretty much, yeah, pretty much.

[34:05] JAN CARLTON DOACH: But she traveled in good circles, the friends that she made after she moved down.

[34:11] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: So that's probably how she and mother and daddy found out about hospice. And because of hospice, which often happens, she defied the odds. They had given her two months to live. She lived six months because the quality of life with hospice improves, improves dramatically. So it was just a beautiful story. So Jan and I, 25 years we've been quality of life, publishing, launching various booklets, newsletters, whatever is needed out there to help help these patients and these families. And it's the. I tell other journalists that I feel like I'm the luckiest journalist on the planet because I have found this niche that makes my heart swell and I know is helping others in ways where they need it most.

[34:57] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Because we're definitely enthusiastic.

[35:00] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: I'm enthusiastic. Can you tell? I. Is it that obvious?

[35:06] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Yes, it is. And may I just say I love you for it and that I love you. I don't think I've told you that. And who knows how long.

[35:15] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Thank you. Remember how, grandma, you reminded me recently, how the first of the month, she used to say, may I be the first to tell you that I love you for March?

[35:23] JAN CARLTON DOACH: Yes.

[35:23] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: And you and I were doing that for a few months after you had remembered that.

[35:27] JAN CARLTON DOACH: And what was it that I told you that I remember that she said as she was getting near her end, remember, girls, people are the bottom line.

[35:38] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: Yes.

[35:38] JAN CARLTON DOACH: That sums her up right there.

[35:40] KARLA DOACH WHEELER: That is it. Amen. Amen.