Mr. Michael Allan Engleman's Obituary
Mike Engleman rocketed off this earth Sunday evening after a brief battle with a heart condition and rapid kidney failure. He refused to die in front of his kids, so he slipped over to the Pearly Gates 28 minutes after visiting hours. He was 85 years old.
He was born in Dallas, Texas on April 29, 1939, to Frank Allan Engleman and Kathryn Wright Engleman. After Allan Engleman returned from World War II, the family moved to FAR south Texas to Mike’s beloved Edinburg, where he learned how to drink in Mexico in the 8th grade and became a 130-pound middle linebacker for the Edinburg Bobcats in high school. He claimed that he started writing once he passed his high school typing class.
With ink in his blood, all he ever wanted was to be a newspaperman.
Engleman’s father was a newspaperman, as was his grandfather. His father Allan owned the little daily newspaper in Edinburg. Engleman’s grandfather, Frank, owned the Tulia Herald, a weekly newspaper in the Panhandle of Texas. Allan Engleman’s older brother, Charley, owned a small-town daily in western Oklahoma.
After high school, Engleman attended The Gentleman’s University of the Southwest (what normal people called SMU), so that he could try and get a part-time job at the Dallas Times-Herald. At GUOSW, the student body elected him editor of the student newspaper.
And yes, he got that part-time job at the Times-Herald, where he worked in the sports department for legends like Blackie Sherrod, Bud Shrake and Dan Jenkins.
Engleman was super-busy in college, as he married to his college sweetheart, Linda Redd. And though their marriage did not last, they were gifted with their first son, Mich, who continues to reign as the King of the Engleman children.
Engleman’s first out-of-college job was also with the Herald, where he began writing obits (which he crafted much better than his youngest son), then advanced to the police beat and then to general assignments.
He worked on newspapers and for the Associated Press until, as he explained, “I got tired of always being broke.”
He left the Dallas Morning News in the late 1960s, where he was an editorial page columnist, to form his own company with $300 in the bank, no clients and brand-new wife.
His company became quite successful, and then not quite so successful.
His biggest success was his family, and that made him a lucky man.
Engleman was preceded in death by his parents, Allan and Kathryn Engleman, and the love of his life, Amelia Lloyd. He’ll be missed by his baby sisters, Patricia Schroeder of Temple, TX and Molly Bell of Jackson, MS. He’ll be quoted eternally by his kids, Mich Engleman of Ft. Myers, FL, Amelia (Doug) Smith of Marietta, GA, and John (Brooke) Engleman of Springdale, AR.
Engleman will continue to torment his unofficially adopted children, Steve Watson of Dallas, TX, and Shawn Orrange of Dallas, TX, from the grave, and they know it.
His legendary status will only grow over the years with his grands, Michael Engleman of Ft. Myers, FL, Marshall Smith and Brandon Smith, both of Marietta, GA.
In one of Engleman’s book bio’s, he claimed, “I have written for so many years, that I don’t view it as a ‘talent.’ I view it as an affliction.”
Engleman also said that he had been “divorced and widowed, rich and bankrupt, proud and ashamed, honorable and not, befriended and abandoned, content and bedeviled.
“And, almost always, consistently inconsistent.
“I have never ‘worked’ nor had a ‘job.’ All of my life, I’ve just gotten out of bed, gotten dressed and gone somewhere to have some more fun.
“I am a Christian by upbringing and by choice. I am a Dad for the pure joy of it. I am a renegade who almost always does, not what he is supposed to do, but what he has to do. I am an optimist because I can’t help it.
“And, through all the things I’ve been, I’ve thought, I’ve felt, and I’ve done...I have written. Most of the time I’ve written because it has been the best way I’ve known to make money.
“Now, at age 73, retired and widowed, I believe I am writing to stay alive.”
In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to the National Kidney Foundation in his honor.
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