Herberth Edward Head, Jr.

Herberth Edward Head, Jr. was born in Owensboro , Kentucky, on August 17, 1925, the son of Herberth Sr. and Henrietta Lanham Head. Herbs younger sister, Mary Inez, joined the family in 1927. The Heads moved to Detroit in 1930.

Herb made the most out of his education, winning a four-year scholarship to DeLaSalle Collegiate, a prestigious all-boys high school. After graduating in 1943, he served his country in the Army Air Corps during World War II. Herb used the G.I. Bill to attain a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Detroit .

Herb enjoyed a 35-year career as an electrical engineer with the Fisher Body Division of General Motors, where he was known for his ability to work well with others and for his hands-on style.

Herberth married Wilma Louise Carrico on August 21, 1948. Herb and Wilma had five children: Herberth III, Kenneth, Jeanine, Sharon, and Kathleen. Herb was a wonderful husband and father. He loved Wilma, his wife of 63 years, dearlyand they were a great team. As a father, Herb was the kind of dad who played with his children on the living room floor, helped them with their homework, and taught them to do the right thing. He was a great teacher and wise mentor who used to quietly counsel his children, when they asked for his opinion, with the phrase, Im not going to tell you what to do, but here are some things to think about. He took his family on many travels, enriching their education.

Herb had a great love for the traveling railroad circuses of his childhood. By the time he was a teenager, he had built a miniature model circus. Herb spent decades crafting his Head Bros. Circus, a near exact replica of the Cole Bros. Circus of the 1930s and 1940s. He carved the human figures, built elaborately embellished and gilded parade wagons, and even sewed the circus tents on an old Singer treadle sewing machine. Over the years, Herbs one-inch to one-foot scale model grew to include 12 railroad flatcars (that carried over 50 circus wagons), 5 stock cars and 7 coaches.

Most of the year, the model circus was stored at Herbs home. But once a year, during the summer, Herb set the circus up in his Roseville backyard, assisted by his crewfirst his wife, and then his children and grandchildren. Circus Day lasted all dayand unfolded according to the real life schedule of a 1930s circus. Herbs circus was also shown at Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin, and the Ringling Museum of the Circus in Sarasota, Florida.

People who had worked on Cole Bros. Circus during the 1930s and 1940s said it brought tears to their eyes to see Herbs miniature version. Those who remembered a trip to the circus during their childhood in the decades before World War II were transported back to that time. Younger audiences enjoy looking at the amount of detail, from the three-ring circus acts in the Big Top and the animals in the menagerie, to the behind the scenes activities as the miniature circus workers carry out their tasks. To all who see it, Head Bros. Circus is a very memorable experience.

For 35 years, Herb played the America steam calliope in the annual Great Circus Parade held each summer since the 1960s in Chicago, Milwaukee, or Baraboo, Wisconsin. (The America is a historic 1903 circus parade wagon in which a steam calliope was installed during the 1930s. It is part of the collections of Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin.) Herb also played The Henry Fords John Robinson calliope at events in Greenfield Village during the 1950s.

Herb was well-known among the historic theater organ community of metro Detroit . He was one of those theater organ buffs of the World War II generation, who rememberedand then rescued--the pipe organs that had graced the grand movie palaces of their youth. Herbs was a mid-1920s Wurlitzer organ that came from the Roosevelt Theater on Gratiot Avenue in Detroit, which he then installed in his Roseville home in 1955. Herb has played many organ concerts throughout Michigan, and at the Al Ringling Theater in Baraboo, Wisconsin. His Wurlitzer pipe organ was recently donated by his family to a 1912 McGregor, Texas, theater that is currently being restored to its original appearance.

Herberth E. Head, Jr. passed away December 15, 2011, survived by his wife Wilma, children, Herberth III, Kenneth (Lisa) Head, Jeanine (Glenn) Miller, Sharon (Randall) Ward and Kathleen (Jeffrey) Berliner. Also survived by 14 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. His family is grateful to have had such a loving, intelligent, and talented man in their lives. A Memorial Gathering will be held on Tuesday from 3pm until 8pm with a Memorial Service to held at 7pm at the Schrader-Howell Funeral Home, 280 South Main Street, Plymouth. A Memorial Mass will be celebrated on Wednesday at 11am at St. Mary Catholic Church, 34530 Michigan Avenue, Wayne. In lieu of flowers, contributions are suggested to St. Joseph Mercy Hospice, the Alzheimer's Association, or the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin.



Our Dad, Herberth E. Head Jr.

Ken, Jeanie, Shari, Kathy and I loved our dad dearly and are unabashedly proud of him, not only for his many accomplishmentsbut for who he was as a man and a father. Dad loved us dearly, too. (Shari will never forget the time they were discussing how parents today tend to prefer knowing the gender of their baby before birth. With tears in his eyes, Dad said he was glad he never needed to know, because each of us was always exactly what they wanted.) We each have countless memories of Dad that will always bring us great pleasure whenever they come to mind, we are only going to share a few tonight.

Dad made the most out of his education, having won a four-year scholarship to DeLaSalle Collegiate, a prestigious all-boys high school. Then, after serving his country in the Army Air Corp during World War II, he used the G.I. Bill to attain a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Detroit. This allowed him to enjoy a 35-year career as an electrical engineer with the Fisher Body Division of General Motors.

Both Mom and Dad insisted that all five of us children continue with our educations after high school, as that was very important to them both. Dad told us to worry about our schooling and that he would worry about how to pay for it, enabling all five of us to obtain bachelor degrees, even two master's degrees.

Dad would have made a good teacher. When he helped us with our homework, he would explain things so that we would understand clearly what our teachers sometimes could not get through to us. Class awards for math and physics received by the Head kids were a result of his fine coaching. He also helped with the usual science fair projects: for Kathy, it was a model of the San Andreas Fault. And when Jeanie had to think up a how to topic for a composition project, Dad gave her an idea and served as technical consultant. Jeanies How to Groom an Elephant received an A+. And, even though not a big sports fan, Dad would be there in the stands with Mom at Ken's high school basketball games. Since his hobbies kept him at home after work and on weekends, Dad was always there for us.

Dad was the kind of dad who would play with us on the living room floor when we were small (no family rooms in those days). Delighted cries of Daddy, make like a horse and crawl! and peals of laughter regularly rang out from the Head household. Dad was also the fun dad among our many friends. He would take us, and our friends, to Cedar Point and plot a strategy for getting the most rides in. We were often the first visitors to arrive and the last to leave at closing time. Every week saw Dad and his girls skating at the Motor City Skating Rink, where he taught us to skate dance (and how to fall properly so as to not break any bones!).

Dad and Mom gave us the gift of travel, and they took us on many family vacations in the 1950s and 1960sreally fun and highly enriching to our education. It always amazed us how Dad could keep his cool and drive thru all kinds of roads and weather, with restless kids in the backseat, toys and games flying off the shelf of the back window every time the car came to a stop. He never even complained about the bare feet propped up on the back of the driver's seat. Dad could cover 600 miles a day, and we spent those hours looking out the window watching the American landscape change before our eyes. Dad piloted us to interesting places like the arid southwest and sunny Florida. We hit Disneyland and Storybook Gardens, but these vacations were mostly filled with stops at the Grand Canyon, the Lincoln Memorial, what felt like every Spanish Colonial mission in California andof courseCircus World Museum. Dad loved to tell how he overheard 9-year-old Shari debating with a friend about where a certain place was in the U.S. and how he got a kick out of hearing her stating with surety, I knowIve traveled. Dad was also proud of Sharis ability to seek out trusted adults to help her find her lost family on vacations in Florida and Baraboo.

Dad was a fabulous mentorso natural in fact, that we didnt always notice we were getting a life lesson in the things he told us. Dad told us stories of his parents and grandparents. These stories were interesting and helped us know them betterbut they also gently taught lessons on doing the right thing, having a warm and generous spirit, and playing well with others.
During his years at GM, Dad was known for his ability to get along well with his colleagues and with workers at the auto plants. Apparently, when problems at one of the plants required a visit from a Tech Center electrical engineer, plant engineers often put in a special request for Dad. Not long ago, a former GM plant worker who knew Dad told Ken how incredibly nice Dad was. Dad was a real hands-on engineerand the union electricians would let him do whatever he wanted. He treated them with respect and worked in a collaborative way to get the job done. Dad gave us a roadmap that we have tried to follow in our own work lives.
Dad was also full of practical advice for organization and efficiency: if you dont make a mess, you dont have to clean it up; dont move something twice if you can move it only once. And I think weve all tried to emulate Dads extraordinary ability to pack efficiently and safely using every ounce of space.
One of the best gifts Dad ever gave us was choosing Mom for our mother. Mom and Dad were a great team, both as husband and wife, and as parents. They worked hand-in-hand to shape our characters into the people we became. We grew up wondering how we could ever have deserved to have the set of parents we have been blessed with.
As everyone knows, Dad loved the circus. Not just the glitz of the acrobats, trapeze artists, and exotic animals, but the seamless efficiency with which the railroad circuses of his youth could set up and then tear down to move on to the next town. As a youth, Dad had dreamed of being a lion tamer or a calliope player. On that first career choice, he settled for raising five kids. (More on the calliope player dream in a moment.)

Dad was well-known for his Head Bros. model circus, a near exact replica of the Cole Bros. circus of the 1930s and 1940s. Dad added to and improved upon his circus for over 70 years. To make all that stuff, he needed lots of skillswhich Dad had in abundance. He could build wagons, carve human and animal figures, paint hundreds of faces on his Big Top audience, and even sew his own tents on an antique Singer treadle sewing machine. Dads corner workshop in our basement seemed a magic place where Head Bros. circus components sprung forthalong with a wooden dollhouse for Kathy and a small covered wagon for Jeanies 5th grade school project. We always knew where we could find Dad, and he often commented that from that corner of the basement he could hear the everyday sounds of his family on the floors above. Whenever we played with our friends in the basement, we could feel Dads presence nearby. He always said how he enjoyed working in his workshop while listening to his children playing school in the little schools desks around the corner. When the Praetorian Guard, Kens rock band with his high school buddies, was practicing in our basementtrying to learn a new song by listening to a record Dad was sometimes called out of his workshop when they couldnt figure out a particular chord. Standing there, with a carving in his hand, he always solved the dilemma without hesitation.

Each year, the Head family puts up Dads model circus on a near legal holiday (at least, to us) known as Circus Day. Not only is it fun, but it is the ultimate team-building experience. We all work together to carefully unload and setup, then take down and carefully repack everything on the circus train. To this day, the Head kids (and grandkids) can quickly mobilize to carry out moving, setting up, or packing projects with speed and efficiency. Dad was very proud of his crew and that Circus Day was a family affair.

Dad was quietly proud of having played the America steam calliope for 35 years in the Great Circus Parade held in Chicago, Milwaukee or Baraboo. It was the same calliope used on Cole Bros. circus during the 1940s and played by Tommy Comstock, a calliope player whose style Dad learned and emulated.

Dad was a natural musician, learning to play several instruments on his own. In high school and college, it was the trombone. Dad also played the piano and the theater organ. The Head kids grew up with a 1920s Wurlitzer pipe organ in the basement. (As very young children, we thought, Doesnt everybody have one?) Dad had rescued his Wurlitzer from the Roosevelt Theater on Gratiot Avenue in Detroit. We grew up to the sound of its pipes vibrating the house as we did our homework or watched TV.

Dad shared his love of music with all of us. He enjoyed recalling how 4-year-old Jeanie would sit for hours listening to him play. For Shari, Dad would point to the words in a songbook in exactly the rhythm they were sung, so that she could follow along, too. Sometimes Dad would help us play the organ keyboard, moving our index finger with his right hand while he played the keys with his left hand. To his young children (and, later, his grandchildren), it was incredibly cool to have Dad helping us play along with him.

Its Christmastime, a holiday Dad loved, and many of our memories of Dad have to do with Christmas: sitting on the living room floor watching him carefully unwrap the nativity figures and place them in the stable that he made. Watching him gleefully pose for a photograph in front of the garage in the mid-1960s with the 20-foot Christmas tree he bought for $2. (The nicely shaped middle part went in the living room, the bushy stump he stuck in a snowdrift in front of the house and decorated with a string of lights, and the skinny top graced Kens and my bedroom as a tabletop tree.) The Christmas season unofficially began each year when we heard Dad play Leroy Andersons Sleigh Ride on the organ. The joy he put into those notes was contagious.

Dad had a passion for livinghe appreciated the hard work it took, enjoyed the great and small things, and was imminently aware of lifes tender moments. Dad never had a sense of entitlement, and was always appreciative of and grateful for the good things and opportunities that came his way. This sense of gratitude stemmed, I think, from his love of God. Dads faith was of the more quiet variety, though quite palpable to us, even as children kneeling beside him in church.
Dad was truly extraordinarya unique blend of intelligence, efficiency, resourcefulness, warmth, caring, wisdom, humor, creativity, and imagination. Dad's talents were something that he was very humble about, never looking for recognition or accolades. And, even as illness robbed him of his memory, Dad kept his gentlemanly ways, loving and appreciating his family, and the efforts of his caregivers, all the way to the end.
Dad left many treasures within his children, which they, in turn, have tried to pass down to their own children. With joy and wonder, we Head kids realize how incredibly blessed we were to have Herberth Head Jr. as our dad.