Francis Hardwicke Leake of Louisa dies at age 82

When the fourth of Philip Rusk Leake and Anna Hardwicke Leake's eight children was born at home in Charlottesville on July 7, 1926, the assembled family raised a cheer of "I-S! I-S!"

Because of his gender, he became Francis Hardwicke Leake, instead of Frances, and was called "I-S" by family until he died Jan. 8 looking through the picture windows at the birdfeeders outside his Louisa cabin. He was 82.

Like his mother, he was born with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, or "muscle wasting" as it was then called, as were his brothers Alvin, Roderick and Vincent, and, later, both of his sons.

In 1933, when Francis Leake was 7 years old, his father broke his back in an on-the-job accident. Unable to work, his father was forced to take bankruptcy and the bank repossessed the Leake home at Wilmer and Crenshaw avenues in Henrico County, said Brett Leake of Louisa, Francis Leake's son.

The Leakes, with three of Anna's brothers, retreated to 10 acres on Kain Road in Short Pump, purchased for $10 an acre. "Capable without being able. I began to struggle with that when I observed the best self-trained carpenter I will have ever met watch as others built his house," Francis Leake said in an oral memoir.

In three days, his father oversaw the building of a two-room house that had no electricity and no running water, Mr. Leake said. By the end of their stay it would house 12 people.

They hauled water from a well, raised hogs, chicken, and cows for milking, cooked on a wood stove, fished by the light of smudge pots, hunted and tended a garden.

As his father recuperated, his mother became weaker. Mr. Leake watched his father help his wife by planning one step ahead of her next physical problem.

The three years at Short Pump "shaped me: One could get by with fewer personal possessions. . . . I would leave that time with a sense that one could mold oneself to any environment," Mr. Leake said.

Mr. Leake's family eventually moved into Richmond. He graduated from Benedictine High School in 1944 and served in the Navy during World War II.

Returning home, he spent several unfocused years as a bartender. One day, Mr. Leake, who took one semester of business college accounting, overheard businessmen talking about a project at B.T. Crump Co. and offered his services, his son said. He joined the company and rose to become secretary-treasurer of the business before leaving in 1969.

He then worked 16 years for appliance distributor Goldberg Co. Inc., rising from clerk to secretary-treasurer.

"All along, he has a progressive disability, and he is lifting up the company," his son said.

Mr. Leake retired at 60 and moved to Louisa, where he renovated the ruins of Cloverdale, a home built in 1742. With nascent interest in a vineyard, he bought land that might support grapes -- a project for the end of his life.

But getting grapes to grow from French vinifera root stock proved exasperating. "He thought of burning down the vineyard," his son said.

In 2005, with his physical abilities waning, he discovered he had kidney cancer. After surgery and five weeks in bed, he emerged from the hospital unable to walk and wound up in a wheelchair.

"It's so easy to be immersed in how hard it is in the dark to get out of bed, to get to the table, to potty, to go outside," his son said.

He solicited help from a local winery, and his vineyard made a comeback.

Mr. Leake preferred suspension to immersion. He focused on small moments: the aroma of pot roast on Sunday morning, the return of a Carolina wren a week early in spring. Indeed, he said that he "levitated."

"When I'm dreaming and I find myself in a bad spot, I have always been able to levitate and find my way out," he said.

As he drifted to sleep at night, he allowed: "The lights go out. The room is quiet, and I rise up. No drops need to be added for me to see. No wax needs to be removed for me to hear. I pass through the patio glass and the bed comes with me."

"People say he was confined to a wheelchair," his son said. "Many times he was not touching the ground. He was above the ground."

Survivors include another son, Derek Leake of Richmond; a brother, Charles Leake of Orlando, Fla; a sister, Martha Jane Snyder of Charlottesville; and one grandson.

A celebration of his life will be held today, Saturday, at 11 a.m. at Elpis Christian Church in Maidens.