My mother-in-law, Trintje Ann Russell Wade, was born and grew up in Skaneateles, along with her other six Russell siblings and their parents. In 1957, she met her older brother’s college roommate, Eugene Maury Wade, Jr., of Memphis Tennessee, while attending their Georgetown University graduation. The attraction between them was immediate and mutual. Maury was commissioned into the United States Air Force, and began his basic flight training. He was selected for advanced jet pilot training at Laredo Air Force Base in Texas, where he and Trintje married in October, 1958. He trained to fly jets in the T-33 “Shooting Star” at Laredo, ultimately becoming a MACH II F106 jet pilot. They left the Air Force in 1964, and made their home in his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, where they raised their 4 children.
Trintje passed away in Memphis on May 28, 2020 after a brave battle with pancreatic cancer. She loved her Skaneateles hometown, decorating their Memphis home with its lake pictures and maps, and reminiscing of it and her childhood and young adulthood there often. The Russell siblings hosted family reunions there in 2008 and 2015, where I got to see and experience the magic of this village and it’s lake first hand…it was easy to grasp the fondness she always held for her Skaneateles hometown.
Jim Rungee
Murfreesboro, Tennessee
For Trintje
by Jim Rungee
A young woman when I left you, for another life
To watch Shooting Stars in Texas, and become another’s wife
Through passing years we’d visit, I’d think of what once was
But knowing that it’d never be, and you know that’s it’s because
That although I missed you dearly, I wouldn’t change a thing
Living 60 years in Dixie, loving all that life could bring
Though distance came between us, you can rest assured
Through those years my love for you endured
Now in the twilight of my life, I’m old and gray
I’m not sure that I have much more time
Could I come to see you? I hope you wouldn’t mind
Surely you can understand how much I pine…
Chorus
…to walk out the dock and watch the sunlight glitter in the wake
Of Lightnings as they flit and sail and dance across a lake
That God himself must have scratched into this earthly crust of land
With a benevolent and gentle finger of His very hand!
And stroll along the shoreline, through a summer’s breeze
Wade out into the water and through all my memories
So when He calls me home,
I pray He’s gonna say
That I can pass through Skaneateles
Just one last time on my way!
II
Reminisce when I would listen for the wind at autumn’s end
That hearkened winter’s frost was coming just around the bend
I despised those frozen mornings, but knew I’d never tire
Of how the setting sun
When the day was done
Would ignite the sky across the lake, and set the ice on fire!
Then spring would blow and bluster, life began anew
The misty mornings’ luster when the frost gave way to dew
Each warming day brought promise that it won’t be long til when
Summer’d come and I could once again…
Chorus
…walk out the dock and watch the sunlight glitter in the wake
Of Lightnings as they flit and sail and dance across a lake
That God himself must have scratched into this earthly crust of land
With a benevolent and gentle finger of His very hand!
And stroll along the shoreline, through a summer’s breeze
Wade out into the water and through all my memories
So when He calls me home,
I pray He’s gonna say
That I can pass through Skaneateles
Just one last time on my way!
Bridge
I want to see the farmers market in the park set up to sell
And smell the baking cakes and
Taste the pastries from the bakeries that remind me
Of my youth and a simple life
That stayed with me, no matter where I roamed
And hear the steeple bells that ring
That carry from St. Mary’s
And bring the people into town
The quaint village kinfolk that defined me
And define that special place I get to call
My Skaneateles Home!
Chorus
Where I’d walk out the dock to watch the sunlight glitter in the wake
Of Lightnings as they flit and sail and dance across a lake
That God himself must have scratched into this earthly crust of land
With a benevolent and gentle finger of His very hand!
And stroll along the shoreline, through a summer’s breeze
Wade out into the water and through all my memories
So when He calls me home,
I pray He’s gonna say
That I can pass through Skaneateles
Just one last time on my way!
