Gehringer and His Mother
During his Major League career, Gehringer lived with his mother in Detroit. Gehringer's father died in 1924, and Gehringer moved her from the family farm outside Fowlerville, Michigan, to Detroit. Gehringer recalled that she was a diabetic and "needed someone to look after her."
Gehringer speculated that he might have married earlier (he didn't marry until he was 42) "but I couldn't see bringing a wife into that kind of situation." Gehringer noted that his mother was a "great fan" who would either come out to the ballpark to watch her son play or listen to Harry Heilmann's radio broadcasts on the porch.
Gehringer did not marry until after his mother died, and when he did get married in 1949, he did not let anything stand in the way—not even his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Gehringer missed his Hall of Fame induction ceremony on June 13, 1949, because he did not want it to interfere with his wedding, which was to take place five days later.
Read more about this topic: Charlie Gehringer
Famous quotes containing the word mother:
“Having children can smooth the relationship, too. Mother and daughter are now equals. That is hard to imagine, even harder to accept, for among other things, it means realizing that your own mother felt this way, too—unsure of herself, weak in the knees, terrified about what in the world to do with you. It means accepting that she was tired, inept, sometimes stupid; that she, too, sat in the dark at 2:00 A.M. with a child shrieking across the hall and no clue to the child’s trouble.”
—Anna Quindlen (20th century)