My Mother and my Brother Duane
In memory of their lives
September 15, 2007, my Mother passed away at 10:25 this Saturday night, in her bed at the Nursing Home where she had been for the past 11 years. We were expecting her to die soon. The Nursing Home called me the day before to come as she was fading. We talked to her and she acknowledged our presence. This past year Mom's wishes were to pass on, she wanted to go home, to Heaven. Mom had accepted Jesus Christ as her personal savior when she was a young girl. Her parents did not attend church but they allowed her to walk to the little log Wood River Baptist Church east of Grantsburg, Wisconsin each Sunday morning. Mom died less than a week after after her third son Duane had died last Sunday morning.
Mom lived a good long life, she was 89 years, 5 months and 27 days. It seems like we lost Mom some years ago as her memory went but her body was strong. A few years ago she was concerned she would loose her mind as her mother had, then she stopped talking about that as she was now like her mother. Mom's mother Minnie died at the age of 81 years, 3 months and 22 days. Her father Ernest lived to the age of 81 years, 3 months and 13 days, but he died three years earlier. They had been married just over 60 years.
Both Mom and Dad were born into a family of 11 children. Mom was number 6 and my Father was the youngest. Mom was born at Grantsburg, Wisconsin. Mom's parents lived next to her father's family, Albert & Anna Anderson, one a descendant of Sweden and the other of Norway. Mom's family had lived at Grantsburg since 1869. Mom and Dad eloped to get married on January 12, 1935. The first that my Grandfather knew of it was when it was time to milk the cows, he said where's Norma? But Mom's mother knew. Dad was 25 years old and Mom 18, he was 6'3" and she was 5'3". He looked much older as his hair turned gray by the time he was 30. Mom and Dad set up housekeeping north of Grantsburg six miles, kitty corner from Dad's parents, Simon & Dora Simonson. Dad had started building his house in 1930. He said he had the house paid for and his 1929 Ford Model A Roadster, and he had $17 dollars in his pocket.
I first got to know my Parents on June 21, 1936 when I was born at the Grantsburg Hospital. After the usual ten days in the hospital with my Mom I went home in a 1935 Ford Sedan as Dad had traded his Roadster for a family car. Dad was a logger and we moved often to the jobs. It wasn't long before I had a brother Jerry, born in 1937, then Duane in 1939 and Michael in 1942. In 1942 my Dad became a Christian through listening to a minister on his car radio, he now knew how to accept Christ as his Lord and Savior, he started reading the Bible as he wanted to know more about God. He then started taking his family to Church as he wanted us to know about the Lord.
Mom's whole life was her family. She baked bread two or three times a week to keep us growing boys fed and she was a very good cook. My Folks always got involved in a good Bible teaching church in each community we lived in. Mom loved teaching Sunday School classes of little children and she also enjoying going with others to invite people to church. It was a wonderful family to grow up in and I honor my Parents for teaching me early about the Lord and the plan of Salvation as recorded in the Bible.
When Dad died in 1989 Mom was very lonely and soon her mind was a problem. She could not live alone. My brother Duane wanted her in the Buchanan Nursing Home as he liked that place and he was working at Chisholm. It was so hard seeing Mom in nursing care but we could not handle her as she wanted to get outside and walk away as she did a few times. She required full time care and we were very pleased with the nursing homes she lived at for the last 11 years of her life. What a blessing to see her finally leave this earth. I will see her again.......
This memorial I wrote less than a week ago
September 9, 2007, my brother Duane passed away at 0615 this morning from this earth, he stepped into eternity at the age of 68 years, 6 months and 14 days. He first contacted Leukemia nine years ago. The doctor gave him a week to live without treatments. He was in the hospital for six weeks and was in remission. The doctor told him if the leukemia came back he would be a goner, it did come back and he survived that again. Last March he started having a problem walking, seeing and talking and he had a headache. A cancerous tumor was found in his head pressing on his brain. He had treatments to shrink this tumor but was told the leukemia had returned and they could not operate, it would be a matter of time. Duane's wife Sherry worked very hard to take care of him at home as he did not want to stay in a hospital for his last days.
I have known my brother all of his life, after all I am the oldest of the four boys and Duane was number three. My first memory of Duane was the day he was born at our home on highway 70 a mile east of Grantsburg, Wisconsin. In those days rural homes did not have running water. Most people had a five gallon slop pail where table scraps and so on were dumped and emptied frequently. I remember when the doctor carried Duane from the bedroom and he laid him on the dinning room table, he was all messy and I thought he had fallen in the slop pail being I did not know how a baby looked before being cleaned up.
We grew up in a very good family, my Parents always took us to Church and we were taught about the Lord at an early age, they were good examples to us. We enjoyed having each other to play with, as some places we lived there were no other children or we did not live there long enough to make new friends.
Dad was 29 years old when Duane was born and our Mother was 21 years old. I was born in 1936, my brother Jerry in 1937, Duane in 1939 and Mike in 1942. Dad was a logger and moved often to new jobs. Each place we moved to we took our beds with us, we slept in two metal double bunks. My brother Jerry and I slept in the bottom bunks and Duane and Mike in the upper bunks. We were crowded in one room but that was never a problem.
When Duane was a year old we moved to Trego, Wisconsin to log, then to Nevis, Minnesota. When Duane was two years old we moved to Chetek, Wisconsin and then to Fall Creek. In 1943 we moved back to our home on highway 70 east of Grantsburg, that Fall we moved to Staples, Minnesota. When Duane was eight years old in 1947 we moved to Bozeman, Montana where Dad had a logging job in the mountains. Dad's health became a problem so we moved to Thermopolis, Wyoming where Dad started building a tourist cabin court. We lived next to Dad's brother Oscar and family in the Wind River Canyon. In December of 1947 we moved back to Staples and Motley, Minnesota. When Duane was nine years old in 1948 we moved to Pine River, Minnesota. In 1950 Dad moved his 30 lumberjacks to Forest Center which was a Tomahawk Timber Company town. It was located 20 miles south of Ely and 18 miles back in the woods east of highway #1. We attended the Company one room school. That summer we moved back to Pine River. We attended many schools and it was my job to help my brothers get settled in their classrooms.
When Duane was 14 years old in 1953 we moved to Wirt, Minnesota which is 18 miles west of Big Fork where Dad had his crew of men. In the summer of 1953 we moved to Orr, Minnesota for three months. In September of 1953 when Duane was 14 years old we moved to Cook.
Duane worked at the Miller's IGA and the Sorvari grocery store as a meat cutter while still in school . He worked in many places over the years including the building of the pipe line at Prudhoe Bay in Alaska. Duane was an exceptional mechanic, equipment operator, meat cutter and cook. He loved working in the woods building roads and repairing equipment until last winter when he could no longer work.
Our Folks left Cook in 1968 and moved back to their hometown of Grantsburg, Wisconsin. Dad passed away at Grantsburg on June 24, 1989. Mom moved to an apartment complex in Grantsburg until she was not able to care for herself. Our Mother has been in the Chisholm Heritage Nursing Home for the past 11 years. My wife and I continued to live at Cook. Brother Jerry (Irene Edblom) moved to Silver Bay in 1962 and my brother Mike (Mary Geib) moved to St. Paul in 1960. Duane moved many times to many places but came back to Cook in the mid 1970s and had lived here ever since.
Duane loved working on equipment, being it repairs or operating. He was liked by all. He enjoyed his family and spending time with them. He was a good brother, all of these years.
Duane, I will miss you. Your brother Don.
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