Gerald Curtin Nolan
Nolan, Gerald Curtin
68, passed away on December 7, 2016. Born in Worcester, MA to Thomas Michael and Katharine (nee Curtin) Nolan, Jerry grew up in Washington, MO, but lived in St. Louis for most of his life. He was a veteran of the Vietnam War, and later worked as a civil servant, including many years at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Alongside Phyllis (nee Beckel) — his wife of 45-years — Jerry raised a family, prized books (particularly military history and science fiction) and delighted his friends. He is survived by Phyllis, his daughter Katharine Zoladz (Jason), his son Michael Thomas Nolan, his grandchildren Zooey and Wyatt Zoladz, his brother Thomas Michael Nolan (Maureen), and many dear friends. He will be greatly missed.
Services: A Memorial Mass will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Friday, December 16, 2016 at Saint Francis Xavier College Church followed by a burial at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to St. Luke’s Hospital in Chesterfield, MO. Special thanks to the staff at St. Luke’s Hospital Center for Cancer Care and St. Luke’s Hospice for their excellent care and kindness
36 some years ago, the Nolan family moved in next to JoAnn and I. In those 36 some years, we have laughed together, cried together, and knew that either of us could call at 2 in the morning if the need had arisen. Friendships like this are so rare and so totally precious as to make other things seem worthless.
For many years during the fall, winter and spring Paul, Gerry and I would get together to watch a football game or what became known as bad movie night. (And I can tell you for a fact that bad was an understatement in many cases) . These evening always started with Paul showing up late and the three of us sitting around the kitchen table, talking about philosophy, politics, science, history, telling bad jokes or just telling stories that, even if they weren’t true, they should have been. At some
indeterminate point the three of us would retire to the living room. Paul and I would always occupy the couch while Gerry would enthrone himself in what he insisted was the world’s most comfortable chair. Once duly seated he would take up his scepter or power…an item all we commoners would call a remote control.
On one occasion when Gerry was momentarily detained, we hid the remote….. The wailing, gnashing of teeth and the rebuke for those involved in this mortal sin, I’m sure, disturbed the entire house, if not a large portion of the city.
Well Nolan…I finally got the damn remote!!!!!
Perhaps in another time and in a place only Robert Heinlein could envision…the rewind button on this thing would do what I so fervently want it to.
Jerry loved the Lord of the Rings books. No, not with a “normal” book love, when someone has their own copies of the book or books, keeps them through (most of) their moves from house to house, and then loathes the movies made from the books because they just aren’t as good. He loved them so much that I couldn’t even make fun of him for it, and I dished out quite the helping of ridicule for his love of some other notable pieces of “art,” most especially for the movie “Camelot.”
But the Lord of the Rings was a different subject altogether. It helps that I also love the series, but I wouldn’t normally let a little thing like that stand in the way of a good ribbing. What was different about it was that the themes of nobility (of heart, that is), courage of the mighty and the weak, and the recognition of good in the unlikeliest of places were Jerry’s greatest strengths. He loved those books so much that he set much of his moral compass by their lessons. They were the example he set. Another author, Guy Gavriel Kay, worked with J. R. Tolkien’s son during the process of making sense of Tolkien’s notes about the history of his Middle Earth before The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy (which they published as The Silmarillion), and in Kay’s writing can be heard echoes of many of the themes and much of the beauty of Tolkien’s works. In one of my favorite books of Kay’s, one of the characters ends up killing his best friend by a cruel twist of fate. The elegy Kay wrote for the living friend from the other has been running through my mind for the last week. Jerry would say I’m exaggerating, and would probably have some other objections, but I would have told him to shut up, because I’m right.
Know, all who see these lines,
That this man, by his appetite for honor,
By his steadfastness,
By his love for his country,
By his courage,
Was one of the miracles of the god.