Dec 27, 2004 By Lori Goodwin For The 5 min read

PERRYOPOLIS -Adam “Fritz” Hoholick is a simple man. He has a small Christmas tree adorned with small bottles of Black Velvet and Crown Royal. A few pictures of family sit atop the television and nightstand, and a few Christmas cards are hung on the wall. And, he is rubbing snuff – one of his favorite pastimes.

“It’s the first thing the doctor prescribes for me when I visit him,” he says jokingly.

He sits in a wheelchair in his room at the Parish House and watches television, his wife, Anne, sitting on the bed nearby. A blanket covers his lap but not the artificial limbs that reside where his legs once did.

Hoholick is a simple man, but he definitely is not ordinary.

The 91-year-old man probably has endured more than 10 people combined. But in his eyes, his life, while filled with one ordeal after another, has been well worth living, and he has served as an inspiration to his family and his friends at the Parish House.

Hoholick was born and raised in the Star Junction area. After working in the coal mines all his life, he suffered a stroke at age 57 and was forced to retire.

“He was able to drive and enjoyed his retirement by tending his garden, fishing, and in the fall made his own homemade wine,” said his daughter Connie Fuller of Perryopolis.

“I also was a good grass cutter,” Hoholick chimed in.

Hoholick has black lung, diabetes, poor circulation and a bad heart. In 1999, he had a pacemaker put in after he suffered heart failure, and it was not long afterward that he developed ulcers on his feet due to poor circulation. According to Fuller, doctors tried for six years to save her father’s legs, but eventually he lost them.

Because of his poor health, Hoholick was in need of around-the-clock care, so he and Anne, who will be 93 in January, went to live at the Parish House.

“He wouldn’t go without me,” she said. “So I went, too.”

In December 2003 when he had his legs removed, an arterial line that was placed in his wrist threw a blood clot and he had to have all his fingers and thumb removed from his left hand. He then went into pulmonary edema and was not expected to live through the night.

“I slept in the ICU all night, and the next morning he was still here,” Fuller said.

But his setbacks didn’t stop him. He regained strength and was fitted with artificial legs. He spent several months at Mon Valley Care Center learning to walk and use his new limbs – something the doctors said could not be done. So, at the age of 91, he can walk the halls of the Parish House with minimal assistance.

“I have a will to live,” he said in a loud, thunderous voice about emerging from his life’s troubles with a smile on his face.

Fuller said her father never complains. He also never questions why everything has happened to him, but has maintained his strong religious faith. She added that the priest from St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church visits Hoholick every Sunday and gives him Communion, and he watches Mass on television.

Hoholick and Anne’s friend Charles Sweitzer, who also lives at the Parish House, said that Hoholick is his “number one buddy.”

“If he can do it, anybody can do it,” Sweitzer said. “He is really someone to look up to.”

Sweitzer added that he, Hoholick and a couple of others are the only ones able to walk at the Parish House.

Hoholick said his goal in life was to see the year 2000. Now he has set his sights on living to be 100.

If he does, it’ll mean another nine years of good-natured hooligans from a man who prides himself on being a prankster.

“One time I was lying in bed and the nurse came in to check on me, so I just lay there and held my breath. Then I started laughing,” he said with a chuckle.

His wife said he also likes to hog the television.

“I love westerns and the Steelers,” Hoholick said.

He also enjoys reading – Louis Lamour is his favorite author – and was thrilled one evening when Fuller brought in a Reader’s Digest with enlarged lettering.

Family also is very important to Hoholick. The great-grandfather said his daughters, Connie and Lois, who visit him and his wife every day, are angels.

“They’re the best daughters any father could ever have,” Hoholick said.

Because of the loss of his fingers on his left hand, he was not able to make his wine this year. Knowing how much he enjoyed making it, Fuller helped him and allowed her father to be the supervisor.

“He told me exactly what to do,” she said, noting that Hoholick is planning to give out a few bottles to the staff at the Parish House.

“Dad is not remarkable,” she added. “To some he may be, but my dad has always been a very strong person and never let things get him down. He is an inspiration in that he may give hope to those going through ordeals such as he had.”

After stopping for a visit, Sweitzer left the room and said to Hoholick, “We’re going to make it, kid.” And in his loud, strong voice, Hoholick repeated the same phrase.