Mark D. Tuel, 1921 – 2013, Rest in Peace

My husband’s father passed away at the end of August. He was 91 years old, and he died less than three weeks short of his 92nd birthday. He went in his sleep, at home, in his own bed. Good for him, not so great for the people who were used to having him around, like his wife, Diane, and his son, Rick.
 
Mark Drew Tuel was born on September 18, 1921, in Lehigh, Iowa, and grew up in Ft. Dodge, Iowa. His dad, Harry, was a tailor, and his mom, Irene, was a housewife. He had a younger brother, Dean, who passed on a few years ago.
 
After graduating from high school he and some friends bought a Tin Lizzie for $4, and drove it from Fort Dodge out to California to the World’s Fair in San Francisco, and back, having marvelous adventures and car troubles.
 
When he was 20, the United States entered World War II, and soon after that Mark entered the Army Air Corps and began training as a pilot. While stationed in Los Angeles he met Dawn Kennedy, who became his wife in 1943. In May of 1945, their son, Rick, was born.
 
After the war Mark took his little family back to Fort Dodge and worked with his father in the tailor shop, but civilian life didn’t work out. He decided to re-up. He was told he could go into the Air Force as an officer, or he could become an NCO in the regular Army. He said that he was never flying an airplane again, and became a Staff Sergeant, and was an NCO for the remainder of his career. He retired from the military in 1962.
 
So what did he do for that 15 years as his son was growing up? He was part of that famous oxymoron, military intelligence. He was fluent in several languages. Sometimes he worked in an office and came home every night. Sometimes he was gone for weeks or months at a time. He never spoke about what he actually did. We never asked.
 
The family lived in Japan during the Korean War, and in Salzburg, Austria, in the early 1950s, as well as many posts in "the land of round doorknobs," the USA, during the 1950s.
 
Mark spent the last three years of his Army career in Germany. He was sent to Germany ahead of Rick and Dawn, and when they arrived a few months later, they were astonished to learn that Mark had become an opera fan. Mark had a beautiful natural tenor voice, so opera was a natural for him. About that time his son, Rick, became a folk musician, and Mark drove Rick and his singing partners Terry and Hutch to USOs all over West Germany to perform. Mark gave Rick a lot of grief for playing banjo, but then took it up himself.
 
After he retired from the Army, the family settled in Marin County. He worked as an investigator for the state of California, and eventually he and Dawn moved up to Sonoma for his last job, as an investigator and patient advocate at Sonoma State Hospital.
 
In 1982 Mark was diagnosed with colon cancer. He might have retired the next year when he turned 62, anyway, but the colon cancer nudged him to seize the day, and boy, did he.
 
Once retired he started taking voice lessons. He joined several choral groups and took classes in cabaret singing. As his full and rich tenor voice developed he became a part of Toni Khury’s Sonoma City