Lost a Mentor

[Timothy W.]

Yesterday at approximately 11 a.m. central time I got the call that my grandfather, Paul Wieneke, had passed away at the age of 80. He is the man I have often spoke of in posts here as the grandfather who taught my dad real estate investing. He had been a real estate investor for over 40 years and spent the last decade of his life doing missions work, building churches and church schools all over the US and in Africa through the program known as RV Maps. He passed the way he wanted to, quietly, with his wife there, in the home he built with his own hands.

I'm not going to get emotional about this here because he was a southern Illinois german protestant and we're not about emotions as much as we are the end results and what can be learned. I will tell you I am immensely proud of the life he lived and the legacy he left to my father who, is himself a highly successful investor, and myself who will one day be as successful as my father.

I could not be more thankful that my last memory of him took place when we sat down at a simple family restaurant in Jerseyville, IL and talked for a couple hours about real estate investing. After 40 years, the advice he gave to me was to buy distressed single family houses, repair them, tenant them and manage them. Get enough to support yourself then take the cashflow and do what you want - either build more business or do missions work. 40 years of success and a life he lived on his terms were no more complicated than that. When you consider that this man's advice came from having survived the double digit inflation of the 1970s (during which he lost a large commercial property on an adjustable rate commercial mortgage - but didn't quit), the recession and S&L fallout of the 1980s and the most recent meltdown and ever smaller boom and bust in between - this advice is not to be taken lightly.

80 years of work and an excellent legacy he has left. He's earned the rest. Few men's lives embody the phrase, "Well done thou good and faithful servant" like he does. I just hope God has a big enough task list to keep up with him. :-)

Tim Wieneke