At Tacoma Mall, at The Fair and in life, disabled man delivered

If ever an entrepreneur triumphed over grim odds and inspired others in the course of his everyday business, that man was Gerald Vernon Schletzbaum.

He died a week ago, in his sleep, at 60. Today, his mother and sisters say, he is running and singing, two things he couldn’t do in this life.

The birth of Marilyn Ferguson’s eldest child went wrong. The doctor used forceps to pull the baby, and crushed his skull.

The birth injuries caused the cerebral palsy that limited Gerry’s body, but not his brain, joy or ambition.

As a non-toddling toddler, he bounced, sitting on his heels and bumping up and down.

“We called him Gerald McBoing-Boing” in homage to a Dr. Seuss character, said his sister Diane Gray of Puyallup.

“Or Boingers,” added his sister Peggy Brown of University Place.

His mom was a gardener, so he was, too.

She gave him his patch and he grew vegetables. At 12, he started his produce business. He’d load vegetables onto his wheelchair and crawl up the steps to neighbors’ doors. He’d tell them what was fresh, and what it cost.

“He always found a way to make a dollar,” Marilyn said.

“He’s an entrepreneur,” Diane said, forgetting the past tense.

Oh, and a daredevil, too.

He and Bill Howard met as students at Tayette School in Tacoma. Bill had a special bike and the strength to pedal fast. Gerry had the grip to hang on in his wheelchair.

“They’d take off, right down the middle of the street,” Peggy said.

Side streets, main streets, they rode them.

“People in the Puyallup Valley knew them,” Diane said.

“Probably because they got caught behind them,” Peggy said.

Still, as much as the family included him in camping, going to the beach and motorcycling, Gerry felt the difference.

“He knew you were doing, and he wasn’t,” his mom said to her daughters. “There was a spot where he felt not being able to do very, very deeply.”

In that rough spot, he decided to move to Rainier School in Buckley. He had his own garden, learned independent-living skills and fell in love with a young woman who also had cerebral palsy.

“They got married and lived up in Burien,” Diane said.

Gerry was a Seattle charm machine.

Lou Piniella met him, and, bam! Gerry had a lifelong open invitation to Mariners games.

Victor Rosselini met him, and Gerry had carte blanche at the Four-10 restaurant.

When the Schletzbaums’ marriage ended, Gerry returned to Puyallup, and to entrepreneurship.

He’d grown up blocks from The Fair’s Red Gate, waving in customers parking on the family’s lawn. Why not work inside the gate? He got a gig as a delivery man in his motorized wheelchair.

On any big floral occasion, he sold flowers in the Don’s Drive-In parking lot.

Three times, he got pneumonia. Once he was robbed by a person who had no ethical issue with taking $300 from a paralyzed guy’s money box.

His family suggested indoor work at one of his favorite spots: Tacoma Mall.

From the mid-1990s until four years ago, he rolled between kiosks and coffee shops, American flags flying from his motorized chair, with food deliveries. That’s where we met when I wrote about him in 1996.

At its peak, Gerry’s Delivery Service had two employees.

Modest as the money was, he gave $19 a month to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital and $29 to support a child in South America. A member of the Mormon church, he believed in helping those not as fortunate as he was.

He left his delivery service only when he could no longer operate his wheelchair. His mind was sharp as ever.

“He never said, ‘Why me?’ He never questioned why God put him on this Earth in that body,” Diane said.

The answer to that unasked question may lie in the impact Gerry had on people, from those who took a latte from him to those who new him best.

As his mom put it, “If you can be an inspiration to your own family, you’re really something.”

Kathleen Merryman: kathleen.merryman@thenewstribune.com

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