George Wise, Air Force veteran and Renaissance man, dies at 88

George Wise, a longtime Bloomington resident who died this summer at 88, did not live a life easily summed up in a sentence or two.

Sure, there was work — four years active duty in the Air Force and four more in the reserves, an engineer who built old mainframe computers and later a senior buyer for companies like Toro and Century Manufacturing.

While Wise took pride in his work, work was not his life.

He traveled to all 50 states with his wife of 51 years, Mary. (Their daughter, Joy, joined for 49 states, missing only Alaska.) He was a pleaser who ensured everyone around him was comfortable; on road trips, he stayed only at hotels with pools because his daughter loved to swim. Wise was an avid golfer — two holes-in-one! He was a talented musician who once played saxophone during a set with James Brown. Before moving to Minnesota in 1970, he sometimes helped out at his brother's auto shop in Denver, and he'd always fix his car on his own and repair things on the work bench. He loved taking care of his lawn, and his Christian faith led him to volunteer for Junior Achievement, a business-minded nonprofit that provides experiential learning to youth.

"He was always about creating something, making something, improving something," said his widow, Mary Wise. "He almost seems like a person who needed more than one lifetime. He sure lived like he had more than one."

Wise was working for IBM and singing tenor with the New Hope Baptist Choir in Denver when he met Mary through mutual friends. Eight months and 12 days later, on July 11, 1970, they married. Five days after that they moved to Richfield when Wise took a job at Control Data Corporation, and the next year their daughter was born. After a decade in Richfield, they moved to Bloomington.

Wise was a devoted father — he'd always videotape Joy's dance line performances at Jefferson High School in Bloomington, and the two sang a duet of "Unforgettable" at her wedding — and later a devoted grandfather to Jayden. He loved being Jayden's "Papa George," and he'd brag that his art-and-music-loving grandson is a genius. The family had frequent movie nights followed by a lengthy discussion of the movie. Papa George was wowed by his grandson's wisdom.

"Jayden was everything for Papa George," Mary Wise said. "After Jayden came along, the rest of us all took a back seat."

His time in the military taught him discipline. When his wife took long showers, he'd critique her: "Mary, you'd learn from the Air Force: you got six minutes, in the shower and out."

His final few years were a struggle with dementia and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He died of pneumonia in late June, weeks before his 89th birthday. Services have been held.

His surviving family — which includes his widow, daughter, grandson, and a host of nieces, nephews and in-laws — chooses to remember him as the full-of-life, advice-giving jack-of-all-trades who never met a stranger.

"He was the person to make everything OK and make everything right and make everything comfortable for others," said his daughter, Joy Wise Davis.

She sees the moral of her dad's life as this: "Be disciplined. Do what you say you're going to do. And be there for your family. Remember that family's always first."