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no matter which of any of the varied arenas of life they may have known him
from, words like “easy going,” “calm” and “patient” seem to keep coming up.
Owen also told a flying story that beautifully captures how valuable those
even-keeled qualities were in Reade and what a difference they made in the
lives of those around him. It was Owen’s first flight in a Piper Cub. While
Reade was around front to do the necessary hand start on the Cub’s propeller,
young Owen sat in the cockpit not even tall enough to reach the pedals.
Once Reade got the engine turned over, with the throttle set a little above
idle, the plane started slowly rolling forward. Owen remembers it as “a couple
of seconds of ACK!” But then Reade, calmly of course, stepped back and
around, reached into the cockpit and set the throttle back to idle.
Later, when they were in the air, Reade let Owen take the stick. Owen
thought he was holding it steady but the plane slowly started to ascend. He
wasn’t sure if Reade was noticing what was happening and he wasn’t sure what
to do. But then Reade, with no hurry at all, reached out, re-set the stick and
they leveled off. Owen remembers those two little moments as containing a
permanent and immeasurably valuable life lesson that he learned from the
calm and competent response of his Pop. “Oh, you just solve the problem.”
Before turning our attention to the last of the three qualities (Reade’s
devotion to the well-being of the people in his life, particularly his family), we
should catch up a little on his biography. After a couple of years in Puerto Rico,
the Genzlinger family moved back to Bryn Athyn in time for Reade to attend
all four years at the Academy Boys School. He’s remembered there as a football
quarterback, baseball captain and senior class president, described by the class
advisor, Dave Roscoe, as someone he was going to miss because “the eggheads
and the jocks both like him.”
He’s also remembered by the end of sophomore year as Lynn Pitcairn’s
boyfriend. After graduating from the Academy in 1973, Reade and Lynn both
went to the University of Delaware and on December 30, 1976, Reade and
Lynn were married here in the Cathedral.
After earning his degree from Delaware a year later, Reade began a work
career that continued until about 1988, when he left a job and worked for
about a year as a la borer under the contractor who was restoring what became
Reade and Lynn’s family home at the bottom of Waverly Lane. Of course Reade
looked back on that as a great year where he learned a whole new set of skills
and learned where everything was and how it worked in his house.
After that year, Reade co-founded the Cairnwood Cooperative
Corporation, where he served with his keen intellect and calm demeanor until
the present.
A phone call was placed this past Friday afternoon to another aviation
friend of Reade’s out in Alpine, Wyoming. He was asked to share any
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