A personal column by Ray Mueller, a correspondent from Chilton.
Perhaps it’s only fitting, this year anyway, that November – a month with several memorial themes – follows a month that was characterized by the longest period of dank, dreary and dismal weather most of us in Wisconsin and beyond can recall. There were only a few hints of the so-called Indian summer for which October is often treasured.
November, typically one of the darkest months of the year, starts out with religious observances of All Saints Day and All Souls Day on the first two days of the month. Veterans Day on the 11th evokes a great panorama of memories and Thanksgiving does, too, but from a different point of view.
To tie in with the November mood, I’ll share a few memorials of my own. This was a year in which I lost too many people, and during which I made far too many trips to funeral homes or to memorial services.
The year’s trend started in January when an 86-year-old woman friend of nearly 30 years with whom I had a great personal and ideological rapport died quietly and somewhat unexpectedly at her Sheboygan County home. Her late husband had been the business manager for the Milwaukee public schools for many years.
I met the couple when they moved to Sheboygan County for retirement. We kept in touch with visits and letters and then by e-mail. We had last exchanged e-mails about a week before she died. There was no hint that her passing would be the first of many in my circle of friends and relatives this year.
A major loss early in the year was a man who was the spark plug for our county historical museum, the author of a book about the history of the city and the former mayor. He also had a large collection of photos, including glass plates, of life in the area up to a century or more ago.
Another death in January at age 66 was one of my dozens of second cousins, an area farmer who had battled cancer for many years.
March brought the death of the widow of a retired farmer widely known as “Mr. Kite” for his collection of kites and for flying them at all kinds of events, including farm activities. He and I also had a special rapport, usually having to do with our somewhat amateurish attempts at humor.
The brother-in-law of one of my first cousins died during the spring. The year’s losses also included two retired farmers who were in their 90s. Just over 26 years ago, the son of one of them suggested that I should check on becoming a correspondent for the Wisconsin State Farmer – a suggestion that I obviously pursued.
In August, the local farmers market community was shocked by the sudden death from a heart attack of one of our regular vegetable vendors. This group has lost one of its own for three consecutive years.
But the greatest loss, not only for me but for many people in the local community, was the death on July 22 at age 67 of one of my hundreds of third cousins. Our great-grandmothers were sisters, born in the mid-1850s to parents who had come from Prussia – a part of Germany – in about 1853.
For starters, let’s just say that Leo Hanke was a character in the good sense of the term. A lifelong farmer who milked a dairy herd for 30 years before switching to cash crops like sweet peas, snap beans, sweet corn and winter wheat, he had a personality which endeared him to people in his local Charlesburg community in Calumet County and well beyond.
On Sunday, July 26, a memorial service was held in the former dairy barn that he and his wife Kathy and their family had turned into a well-decorated museum of the home farm and decades of life on the farm. They did it in large part to honor a request more than a decade ago by a future daughter-in-law who wanted a unique setting for her wedding party.
At the memorial service, members of the clergy and longtime friends pointed out how Leo had a way of making nearly everyone he met feel like they were the most important person in the world. One of them surely was my maternal grandfather, who was approaching 103 when he died 11 years ago.
Grandpa’s second wife was an aunt of Leo’s wife Kathy. That created an acquaintance but Leo’s affection for Grandpa was greater than that. Leo was always there when we had a birthday celebration or some other event for Grandpa.
The memorial service attracted a crowd of about 750 – some estimates were up to 1,000 – on one of the warmest days of the summer. The inside of the barn was packed and many people had to stand outside, straining to hear the accolades and memories.
Leo’s rules of life were still in effect that day. One of them was that SunDrop was the only soft drink that was served to the crowd.
A memorial card titled “Life According to Leo” was distributed to the memorial visitors. It contained Leo’s expressions, witticisms and words of wisdom like “I represent that,” “Too much is not enough,” “I love it when a plan comes together,” “Attitude is everything,” “Life on the farm is the best life for a family,” “You have to have milk to dunk your cookies,” “If you hoot with the owls, you can’t soar with the eagles” and “Money is just like manure – it’s no good unless you spread it out.”
On the front of the card, just below Leo’s vital dates, was the comment “When I count my blessings, I count you twice.” I’m quite sure that this was directed not only to his wife, five children and eight grandchildren but also to the hundreds of people he had befriended.
Some of my first-hand encounters with “Life According to Leo” came when he bought up to 30 pounds of potatoes from me at a time. He always declared that the potatoes were going into the cooler immediately. I don’t know how cool his cooler was but if the temperature was too low the sugar in the potatoes would convert to starch – not a good thing. But, as with other things, Leo was certain about how he wanted to store his potatoes.
Another piece of advice on the memorial card was “If you have the queen of clubs, you gotta pick.” That was a reference to sheepshead, Leo’s favorite card game, in which that card and the other three queens are the highest cards in the deck.
I never played cards with him but I wonder if he ever questioned why queens rather than kings are the highest cards. If I or someone else had asked him, he might have suggested that women rather than men must have devised the game which is a favorite among people of German ancestry.
Leo also held part-time jobs as a school bus driver and road foreman for the town government but he wasn’t someone who often served on committees or assumed leadership in organizations. One of his card-playing buddies – a group that stayed together since high school – told me Leo didn’t relish putting up with the one or two people who always seem to want to delay and derail whatever an organization hopes to do. One of Leo’s avocations was the Green Bay Packers; he was a longtime season ticket holder.
Back in 1983, when the first national dairy herd buyout or retirement program was being rolled out, Leo attended an information meeting. I told him then that if he decided to sell out (he didn’t), he should turn his farm into a golf course. The family’s Rock Bottom Farm had an ideal setting, an adjacent woods, a series of rolling hills and lots of decorative rocks that area residents were invited to pick for free.
Another example of Leo’s wit and outlook on life was in his obituary. It was a tease which suggested that the many genuflections required while he was an altar boy at church were why he needed hip replacements some 50 or more years later.
Leo died of unexpected complications 9 days after his second hip replacement. If I had seen Leo after his hip replacements, I would have called him a hippie, the term I use the first time I talk to someone who’s had a hip replacement.
Obviously, I never had that chance. But, Leo, you were “hip.” Oh yes, the “pie” portion of “hippie” does apply because Leo also expounded the belief that one should eat dessert, pie in many cases, to start rather than to top off a meal.
Jean, Rod, Bob, Evelyn, Arlyn, Leonard, Arnold, Al, Leo – you’re worth remembering. That’s what this month is for.
