Eulogy For My Dad

Somewhere around October 1st, 1963, my dad enjoyed a nice evening out with friends. Several people from the high school attended.

My dad was starting his senior year, his eyes distracted by a beautiful sophomore girl. Unfortunately, in 1963, good Catholic girls did not date Lutheran boys. So my dad made sure he was at gatherings where my soon to be mother attended.

My dad was 17 at the time, the beautiful girl 15. Love and a wandering mind led to the consummation of their relationship. And as luck would have it, my life started the cool autumn evening.

Forbidden love by age and religion created friction. High school girls that got pregnant in 1963 were expelled from school. My mother had to get her high school education much later.

High school boys that got a girl pregnant were also expelled. My dad pleaded his case. He wanted to complete his high school education. The school relented and my father was the first boy at Chilton High School to get a girl pregnant and not get expelled.

Nine months later I cried in the real world for the first time.

My mother’s family refused to pay the hospital bill. My dad, now 18, went before the judge. Once again he pleaded his case. He wanted to raise his son. He wanted to spend his life with the mother of his child. But there was the issue of the hospital bill and the hospital was getting impatient.

The judge asked my father if he would pay the hospital bill. Only if he could marry my mother, my dad replied.

My mother was 17 by then. Not old enough to marry without signed consent by a parent, which was refused.

The judge did not need consent and the hospital needed some money. So the judge ordered my parents to get married. And so my dad’s family life began.

Early Years

Love could not be denied. Poverty either.

Growing up in the backwoods of northeast Wisconsin on a dairy farm was not the lap of luxury. I don’t remember this, but have been told there was a time when the kitchen table my parents used were two sawhorses from the barn with a sheet of plywood laid on top.

My first memory came when I was four years old. I am under the kitchen table playing with toys. The sawhorses were back in the barn as this table had the sliders underneath so a leaf could be added or subtracted. The chairs were pushed in so it was like a fort for a four year old boy.

My mother warned me to be careful. I didn’t listen. I stood up and bumped my head. I remember my mother checking to see I was okay. I was. Only surprised by the bump to my head.

My second memory now haunts me.

July 20th, 1969 is a special day in history. On this day men walked the surface of the moon for the first time. My parents were watching the incredible news on an old black and white TV. I did not understand the significance. I do remember dreaming that night of two astronauts floating outside my bedroom window. I got out of bed and ran down the hall, screaming, but nothing came out. I was really still in bed, experiencing night terrors.

Fifty-five years later to the day my dad died.

Learning From Dad

My dad was an avid hunter and fisherman. He loved the outdoors.

One day we were hunting pheasant in a group that included the pastor from our church and his son. My dad shot a pheasant that was flushed by the dog. A hunter on the other side of the stone fence turned and saw the pheasant. He raised his gun and followed the bird down, pulling the trigger when he got to eye level.

Five of the seven people in our part were hit. Me worst of all.

I was shot at point blank range by a 12 gauge shotgun. One of the BBs hit me dead center of the Adam’s apple. I was ¼ inch away from leaving this world, or at least losing my voice forever.

But from tragedy comes miracles. How else can God show his majesty?

At the hospital the BBs were removed. The doctor noticed I had an unusual heart murmur.

It was discovered I had a serious coarctation of the aorta, a congenital heart defect where the aorta narrows. It was estimated that sometime in my 20s I would die from a heart attack due to the defect if not corrected.

My parents, still poor backwoods farmers, faced a massive medical bill to pay for the surgery I needed to live a long, normal life.

Once again my dad fought with all he had to save his son.

And he won the battle, which is why I am here writing this eulogy.

It took my dad years to pay that bill in full.

The End of a Way of Life and a New Beginning

The 1970s were not kind to dairy farmers. The decade started with the family farm debt-free and my grandfather had money in the bank.

By 1982 the money was gone and the farm mortgaged to the hilt. 1970s inflation and farm prices that failed to keep pace destroyed many family farms. Ours was one of them.

I graduated high school in 1982, the year the farm bankruptcy was final. The economy was so bad in our Rust Belt county that employers would not waste the paper taking your application. The answer was no.

My dad needed a job to survive. All he knew was dairy farming.

We had HARVESTOR® silos on our farm and my dad knew how to fix them. He decided he would start a business fixing said silos.

Things started slow. Money was all but gone.

I remember the day, burned into my memory. My dad took the last few dollars from his pocket and handed it to my mother, telling her to use his remaining funds to feed my brother and me.

Then he informed my mother, “If I don’t sell something today I don’t have enough gas to get back home.”

I watched my dad leave the driveway from our shotgun shack in an old beaten up van. The back of the van had some parts and tools. No more.

I have no idea what my dad said to farmers that day, but whatever it was, he pleaded his case once again for his family. He sold a single cutter chain link for $50. My dad returned home that evening.

That was the beginning of a seven-figure business years later. Yet, once again, my dad came this close from losing what he most valued. And prevailed. My dad never knew or understood quitting. He fought, and never quit fighting, for what mattered most.

Glory Days

The Good Old Days were not always that good and our best days are before us.

This could be my dad’s mantra. He fought for the love of his life and to raise his son. He fought to finish high school and did. He fought for my life when a medical condition threatened. And my dad walked out the door with all remaining options gone. Like Cortez, there was no going back. Forward was the only way.

His business grew and grew. My dad built a reputation for quality work at a reasonable price. He loved, I mean really LOVED, to compete.

Farmers wanted his business to fix their silo unloaders. Farmers bought other equipment from my dad, too.

For the first time in my dad’s life he had money. Not only survival money, but real money to explore his dreams.

Over several years the home we lived in, a remnant from the farm of our childhood, was remodeled and expanded.

We did a lot of work ourselves. My dad had a powerful knack for design.

He later turned that knack to the 15 acres surrounding the house. Low, swampy land to the east of the house was dug out for a pond. The remaining land was turned into gardens and woods. A smaller upper pond was later added.

Jimmy, one of the neighbors, worked for my dad. His wife, Bev, worked in my office for over a decade.

Jimmy and my dad were friends. Jim just happened to work for my dad as well. Where one was, the other was close by.

Late at night they would check out the neighborhood on a utility vehicle called a MULE™. Down the road and in the fields, to the creek, and everywhere else they could get to. The neighborhood was never better patrolled.

Jim died of cancer. For the first time in my life I saw some of the light go out in my dad’s eyes.

Humor

My dad’s wit was singular. No matter how hard you tried, the humor broke through any attitude. It also was the secret sauce in his sales ability.

Before they changed the name of Farm Progress Days to Farm Technology Days, my dad’s business had a large booth with new and refurbished equipment on display. I would attended some years out of nostalgia. Best of all, if I got tired of walking the farm show I could get a seat in my dad’s tent versus a general area.

I worked in my dad’s business for maybe a year and a half after high school. Tax and accounting were more my line than fixing silos. My dad hated bookkeeping so that became my job. It was the beginning of my career.

During that year and a half I fixed silos, too. I got to know many of the farmers.

One year, while visiting my dad’s tent at Farm Progress Days, a farmer I knew came to the tent. His farm was southeast of
Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

The farmer noticed my dad’s barn fans. These fans stand about 5 feet tall and are about 18 inches thick.

The farmer said, “So and so over there has barn fans with four blades. How can your barn fans be as good if they only have three blades?”

With missing a beat, my dad said, “Airplane propellors have three blades and they can fly. These fans will move enough air in your barn.”

I laughed so hard I had to take a knee. Everyone in the tent was also laughing, even the farmer.

My dad went on to explain why a three-bladed barn fan was just a good as, or even better than, one with four blades, but lower in cost.

As memory serves, my dad sold a lot of barn fans the rest of that day.

Good Game

Entertainment in the backwoods of northeast Wisconsin was different. Sheepshead was the card game of choice.

My dad loved that game. Not nearly as many play that game anymore. But Friday night cards was a staple in our hood for many decades. It was there when I was a child and there until today. My dad sought out Sheepshead games his entire life.

The jokes and good times while Sheepshead was played are countless.

The table is now quiet.

The End

Time counts, and keeps counting.

My dad was always there. He loved my mother every day. He loved my brother and me.

He loved.

A series of strokes took their toll. A hospital visit followed by a short return home. Then another stroke. My dad’s life went from the hospital to an assisted living facility with hospice care. There would be no more MULE™ rides. No more card games. No more jokes at Farm Technology Days.

Time counts, and keeps counting. All we can do is tell the story.

The first day at the assisted living home my dad needed to adjust, but he never lost his love of life, family, and humor.

As the end approached I had to hurry home early from a tax conference as my dad’s health deteriorated faster than expected. When I got to the assisted living home his death rattle was pronounced. Months became weeks, turning into hours. Yet my dad, my father, provided one more opportunity to laugh.

That last morning as I wept by my dad’s side, my wife helpless to ease my pain, the hospice nurse arrived. She had another nurse help her turn my dad so he had a new comfortable position. Then we talked.

She told me the second day my dad was there he needed a shower. He protested the entire way as she wheeled him to the shower stall. He kept wanting to get up. She demanded he stay sitting so he wouldn’t fall. At one point my dad turned to her and said, “You’re a sassy one, aren’t you.”

I can see in my mind’s eye my dad saying this and the tone of voice. I really needed that laugh, dad. I wish you were here to share it with me.

Then the hospice nurse told me about the prior Wednesday.

The hospice nurse got him in the wheelchair and they went down to the corner and back. She said my dad never stopped talking the whole way. No surprise there.

He talked about family and his gardens. About how he planned work so there would be things to do over the winter months. He also said he didn’t feel right. But he did tell the hospice nurse she should get in the wheelchair and let him push her the rest of the way to the building.

She also said it was the first time she visited him where he did not talk about going home. He knew.

Time counts, and keeps counting.

The hourglass was nearly out of sand.

I arrived at the assisted living facility Wednesday afternoon. Between the time the hospice nurse finished and my arrival, my dad had his final stroke. He fell out of his wheelchair and had bruises and a black eye.

He was conscious when my wife and I arrived. He was telling a friend of the family (and employee of the business) he was run over by a moose. He decided to tell me a car got him. Then he finally settled on, “It was something big.”

The Greatest Story Ever Told

My mother has just left before my dad had the stroke and fell out of the chair. She was called and returned at this time.

My dad was put in bed and in a lot of pain. It would be the last time my dad was conscious. But with those last moment I learned the greatest lesson of my life as I witnessed the most touching moment I ever witnessed.

As my dad was fading out he called my mother, “Barbie.”

My mother took his hand and said, “I’m here.”

“I love you, Barbie.”

“I love you, too,” my mother said as she bowed her head in greif.

“I love you, Barbie, ” my dad repeated.

“I love you, too,” my mother said in a quieter voice.

“I love you,” my dad said for the last time. My mother, overwhelmed by too much grief said nothing.

My dad turned his head to the side to rest. Little did we know those where his last words.

In a world where barely half of all marriages survive, my mother and father got married and stayed married. They were faithful to each other from the beginning to the end. The odds were stacked against them every step of the way. Poverty threatened, medical issues with their child they loved so dear. Against all odds my dad never stopped loving his family, especially my mother, his wife.

My dad’s final words to my mother around October 1st, 1963 were, “I love you, Barbie.”

Somewhere in the distance a TV could be heard:

That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

The last grain of the hourglass fell at 3 p.m., July 20, 2024.

Quotes

Somewhere several decades ago I heard Zig Ziglar say, “Dads, you will love your daughters. But never forget to hug your boys and tell them how much you love them too.”

I took those words to heart. From that point on I always left my mother and father with a hug, telling them I love them.

Now that it is over I can’t get the words of the song by Dan Fogelberg out of my head:

I thank you for the kindness and the times when you were tough
And papa, I don’t think I said I love you near enough

—Leader of the Band

I close with a few Bible verses I find comforting.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

John 15:13 KJV

In my father’s house are many mansions;
if it were not so, I would have told you.
I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go to prepare a place for you,
I will come again and receive you to Myself;
that where I am, there you may be also.

John 14:2-6 NKJV

Yea, I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Psalm 23:5 KJV

This I know. The gardens of heaven have never been better tended.

Somewhere in paradise there is a MULE™ where my dad is driving and Jimmy is hanging on for dear life. The afterlife will never be the same.

I miss you, dad. I love you. I will remember you always. All your encouragement and love. See you soon.

Lon O. Schroeder
May 15, 1946 – July 20, 2024