QUINCY VALLEY POST-REGISTER |
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Remembering a friend to many
I would like to tell you about a friend of mine.
I have known this person most of my life. He was 20 years older than me, so we couldn’t really be considered friends in my early years, but I did know him and his family quite well.
We became good friends after I moved back to Quincy about five years ago.
As I became re-acquainted with him, I found him to be very kind, considerate, hardworking and faithful. He always had a good word to say to me and also to say about those around him. He was very interested in his work and loved to talk with me about the exciting things he was doing to help his community. He also volunteered his spare time to help out with Boy Scouts and was even my son’s Scoutmaster.
My friend’s name is Wallace Bushman. Last Thursday, he died in a tragic accident while performing his duties as the public works director for the City of George.
His death has been a shock to me and also the many other friends he had in the Quincy Valley.
I have talked with a number of people about Wallace in the past week and they all have had the same thing to say about him. He was always kind, always considerate and always positive. During his funeral on Monday he was described as a man with a heart of gold and no guile. This is a very apt description of my friend. Not only did he enjoy serving the people of George — he told me on a number of occasions that he loved his job and loved all of the exciting things he was doing to help improve George — he also loved serving his family, friends and church.
After his brother was killed in a car accident eight years ago, Wallace and his wife, Jean, made a home for four of his young nephews, despite having six children of their own and limited finances.
Wallace had a deep affinity for the Boy Scout program and volunteered his limited spare time as a Scoutmaster. He loved teaching Scouting skills and principles to 11- to 14-year-old boys and taking them camping and on outings. I’m not sure if he and Jean ever had a proper get-away vacation in the past five years because all of his vacation time was devoted to taking Scouts to camp.
If there was ever anything that needed to be done for his church or his community, Wallace would be one of the first people to show up and the last to leave. He truly lived a life focused on service and he was a tremendous example to me and to those who knew him.
I think the best way to memorialize Wallace would be to see the things he loved to work on continue to grow and succeed. That would include the improvement projects for the City of George, the Scout Troop that he spent hours working with and, most-importantly, the family he was raising with Jean.
As friends and associates of Wallace, we all can pledge to help Jean and her family whenever they have a need. We all can help George and the Quincy Valley become a better place and we can also support Scouting when we are asked to do so.
I’m sure that’s what my friend would want.
