Ed Wallencheck was certainly one of the most dedicated Vizsla owners. He unselfishly ran the Vizsla Club of Greater Cleveland’s field trials for nearly three decades. He lived outside of Cortland, married to Jean on a few acres and had horses, Vizslas and no children. Jean died shortly after he retired. He married again and that did not work out to his satisfaction as his wife would not leave town to live with him.
Ed’s passion was for Cadillacs and he never parted with any he owned—in fact he never parted with anything he bought. He loved Polka music and at one National has an AKC official dancing along with others. He loved to dance and was known to run his battery down at trials dancing on the dirt and gravel at field trials.
He was a one man Field Trial Committee as Chairman, “secretary”, marshal, bird planter and anything else needed doing. He always showed up late on Friday night of the trial as he was one of the supervisors at the GM plant. Co-workers Pat Walsh & Al Sulesky were also early members of MVVC and were instrumental in getting the Vizsla Club of Ohio name changed to Vizsla Club of Greater Cleveland.
Ed loved to attend the Amish auction at Middlefield, Ohio on Monday mornings. After retiring he became less interested in Vizsla activities and could be found there enjoying the simpler life of those people.
Unfortunately for the Vizsla fraternity, Ed passed away about three or four years ago, and my memory fades with age as to the year. Perhaps most who reads this never had the pleasure of knowing Ed. I did, and for some reason the women seemed to think he was me, (maybe there was a slight resemblance, but Ed was taller) and took out their ire on him at the some of the Nationals. Thanks Ed! I appreciated your help. One of the women was May Carpenter who seemed to always have a bone to pick with me or someone else.
Ed had a special place to hunt in Nebraska every year and had free parking behind a local bar. I assume that he took his shotgun and dogs and stayed up late helping the bartender.
Now, you might think that he was a top trainer and field trial handler. Well, the truth is that Ed did get a placement in all those years of serving Vizsla field trialers. He had horses and always walked as a handler and never missed watching all braces from horseback. He entered dogs just to help someone else with a Vizsla in competition.
What he lacked in competition, he more than made up for it when he judged and marshaled. Ed was not bashful, after a few drinks, about stating emphatically that he was the best Vizlsa judge in the business. I have a tape to prove that! I may not have won or placed under Ed, but if I did and earned any placement, for example, I knew it was a first place type performance in his mind. Ed did not pass out gimmies.
One night Ed showed up as usual late at the Killdeer Wildlife Area barn, opened up his trailer to let his horse out & it almost fell out on him, dead! That took the sap out of Ed and he was never the same. When “new” people came in to take control of the Club, Ed was hurt badly from their criticism of his record keeping. Sure, he failed to do something that fell on the new officers just as the MVVC failed to do after I left as treasurer. Well, for the record Ed had every nickel spent by him for the club accounted for in a ledger. He was the definition of “honesty”. It was not too long after that that he lost interest not too unlike what happened with the Miami Valley Vizsla Club’s operation nearly ten years ago, when some of the new members wanted control. That pattern of behavior is common in all kinds of people organizations including religion. Perhaps the average life of a Vizsla club member is approximately five years, but some seem to hang around forever.
We appreciated what you did for us forall those years.
“Ed, rest in peace.”
Clif & Hilda Boggs (and our children)
