Gerry de La Ree
- GERRY DE LA REE - A black ink, black color pencil drawings on an 11 x 14 size coquille board.
This drawing was commissioned by Helen de la Ree in 1975. She gave me a 1950 photo of her husband and asked me to surround him with a framework of drawings by his favorite artists; Virgil Finlay, Hannes Bok and Edd Cartier. For years Gerry and Helen purchased original artwork from me and eventually they published two art books featuring my artwork, "Fantasy by Fabian," and "More Fantasy by Fabian". We became good friends, I was a frequent visitor to their home, often to buy some old pulp magazines or books. It was always a great pleasure to look at all those wonderful original SF and fantasy paintings and drawings displayed throughout the house.
One dreadful day Helen phoned and stunned me by saying that Gerry had only a day or two to live and would like to see me. Unbelievable! It was hard to accept. When I got there he greeted me at the door looking as normal as I'd ever seen him, though I knew that he suffered from sugar diabetes. During the next hour or so nothing was said about his imminent passing, and I don't remember what we talked about because my mind was so numb from the shock of what was happening. I do remember that when the time came to leave, we looked at each other, there was an unspoken understanding that this was the final goodbye. We hugged and I left in a kind of daze.
A few days later he was gone, and I'm still amazed when I think of how calm and ordinary his demeanor was during that last visit. Just before I left he waved at his magnificent library of rare and very expensive books and asked me to take any book I wanted. I couldn't do it. Instead, there was a small plastic model airplane that a neighbor's kid had made, and I took that because he insisted I take something to remember him by. And just like that, a truly wonderful part of my life was gone. That small plastic model airplane that I took sits on a bookshelf in my library and every time I look at it, and the tiny pilot that waves at me, I think of him.
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