In Memory of Gerd Van Steinfahren

“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.” — Jane Howard

We made our annual trek to visit cemeteries this weekend. When you are young it is inconceivable why old people do this. While I’m not sure that I would say that I “enjoy” it, as I grow old it is something that I find, I’m struggling to find the word, fulfilling is the best that I can come up with. The tradition of Memorial Day was born out of a desire to honor the dead of the Civil War. It was first observed in 1868 and was widely observed by others for decades until Congress passed the National Holiday Act of 1971 to make it officially a holiday to be observed on the last Monday in May, to honor our military men and women who have given so much to keep our country free. I would never want to detract from that primary purpose. But the day has grown to also be a time for remembering ALL of our loved ones who have gone before, usually our family members. When I walk through the cemetery and see the graves of my grandparents and my uncles and aunts, memories (nearly all GOOD memories) flood into my mind. I haven’t lived in my little farm community for more than fifty years and yet when I go to the cemetery, there is a strong feeling that this is where I belong, this is where I came from, and this is where I should end. Given that apart from one of my brothers, I have no immediate family that lives in the area, this is a bit irrational. But despite the many friends that I have made throughout my life and my departure from this geographical area, as Johnny Cash said, these are my people.

When I retired a few years ago, I felt compelled to take stock of where I had been in my life and to offer some wisdom to those who thought I should have learned something after all of those years. I struggled to sift through all of those experiences to identify what is really important and came up with three things:

1. God – the need to BELIEVE
2. Family – the need to LOVE
3. Hard Work – the need to SERVE

At my retirement gathering I said the following about family. “We are not alone in the world. If we try to be we will be so much less than what we could have been. We can say in our anger and foolishness sometimes that we don’t want or need anyone to love. We all know that is silly. Humans were meant to be with other humans. And families are our first ring of those we must love.”

Remembering this I had such an empty feeling when I came across Gert’s tombstone in our little country cemetery. You see, Gert is not laid to rest among a huge number of Van Steinfahrens as is commonly found with families in our cemetery. Indeed, his is a little stone and it was found far off in the corner of the cemetery all by itself.

Our part of Gert’s story goes like this. Sometime in the early 1900’s Gert came to the doorway of my Grandpa Wilber’s farmhouse. He was tired and hungry and was looking for work, looking for shelter, looking for food. Wilber was a young farmer with a wife and children struggling to make it, out on the Southwestern Minnesota prairies. Why did Gert pick Wilber and Frauke’s door? Maybe he had tried lots of other doors and theirs was the first one that was opened. Maybe he saw “Ebeling” on the mailbox and thought that perhaps these people might speak “Low German” or Dutch which was probably his nationality. There is a lot we don’t know about that first meeting. But this much we do know. Wilber explained to Gert that he had no extra food and although he desperately needed help on the farm, he had no money to pay him. And then he made this offer to Gert instead: “If you will work with me on the farm, you can live with us, you can stay in our home, eat what we eat and live as we do. Additionally, I will buy you one new set of clothing each year.” This apparently was acceptable to Gert, for he moved in with the family and stayed with Wilber and his wife and his children until he died in 1927.

It’s hard for us in the affluence of the 21st century to grasp that an adult male could be that down on his luck to need to randomly knock on a door to look for food and employment. And how many of us in these days would take someone who is obviously down on his luck, whom we know NOTHING about, and take them into our home, and let them stay for twenty years?!?!? What a kind and generous man Wilber was. What a sad state of affairs Gert found himself in. He was apparently far from home with no ties to anyone, bereft of family and loved ones. And now he lies in his grave, with a small stone in the corner of a windswept little country cemetery. It seemed so “SAD” was the best word I could come up with.

But then I remembered something else that I said about families at my farewell event reflecting on how my first wife Pam was taken from us at age thirty-eight and how Janice took us on as a part of a new family, blending her children with mine. “Ours is not exactly a “normal” family. And yours might not be either. But DON’T be without a family. Your family may not even be biologically linked to you or related to you in the traditional way at all. But as we have demonstrated in our little assembly, that really isn’t what it’s about. You may have known each other for decades or months. Do NOT deprive yourself of others to love.” And then I went over to Wilber’s gravesite and realized that his cemetery plot had not been purchased until 1954. When Wilber paid for Gert’s funeral and burial in 1927, he wasn’t thinking about his need for his own burial site, or having Gert next to him, he was just trying to do what he needed to do, what he could afford to do, with a wife and eleven children. It hit me: Gert DID have a family. He was part of Wilber’s family. He is part of MY family.

On this day when we reflect on our loved ones who have gone before, I recite again the words from my farewell event. May you never be deprived of a family to love and to be loved by, however you define that family. Happy Memorial Day!!