Born in Sweden and immigrated to the United States at about five years of age my uncle never looked back to his country of origin.
Growing up in the United States, Uncle Bart Peterson, became an exceptional athlete excelling in all of the sports he participated in: from baseball to ice skating and from boxing to football. Like my Dad, he truly enjoyed competitive athletics and was the very best in his High School years, even captain of the school football team.
In the early 1940’s it was common to marry soon after High School, but World War II changed life for everyone. We plan our way, but it is the Lord that determines where we go.
And so after finishing High School my uncle was trained in the US Navy and served his time in the Pacific. After he came back home to Chicago he was able to use his GI bill benefits to complete college. My aunt Juanita, who became his wife, was his great cheerleader, encourager and helpmate every step along the way.
It was with my aunt’s help and encouragement, that uncle Bart became a physiotherapist, and a very good one at that. He was assigned the more difficult patients that none of the other therapists were able to handle. He became so proficient that he ended setting up his own practice in order to contract himself out to the hospitals.
The main reason my uncle was able to take care of the toughest patients was because he had the Christ like character trait of being real gentle even with rough people. Unusual, considering his physical prowess and skill in boxing and wrestling.
Early on he had gone out for the Chicago Cubs, but was the last player to be cut from the team at the tryouts. A great disappointment at the time, he later explained that he had under performed in one or two trial plays at the very end of the tryouts.
But it was the Lord’s hand. God knew that it would not be the best for Uncle Bart to become a professional athlete. Among other things he would have been away from the family for long periods of time and then afterwards he would have been without any skills or profession early on in life. Paid athletes have a short lived income span.
And then again, there were many people my uncle ended up helping while exercising his profession as a physiotherapist.
There was a time when, I too, seriously considered becoming a physiotherapist, thanks to the role model my uncle had been for me.
Uncle Bart was a good example of: Matthew 5: 5 “Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.”