Happy Father's Day

One father remembers another...

When I was in pre-med at Mankato I was already having a problem with weight gain. When having breakfast with Paul and Mary Ann at his house on weekends, I would nibble on one piece of toast and butter and take tiny bites of a slice of braunschweiger. Paul, on the other hand, would regularly consume around a 3,000 calorie breakfast and never gain a pound.

Paul always said that when the time came, he would prefer to die in his house. I recall one day while he was still in his house, Dr. Mills and he having quite a long discussion about how he hoped that he would not havea lot of pain from the pancreatic cancer. Dr. Mills said that he could not promise it, and the matter was not discussed again.

When Aunt Mabel could no longer care for him at his house, it was necessary to move him to the Winnebago hospital. He made no fuss about it, and spent a lot of hours each day listening to baseball.

In the early evening of the day that Paul passed away Mary Ann ann I were called to the hospital by the nurse, who happened to be Dale Ripley's wife.

Paul was very nervous and soon developed an audible rattle in his chest. The nurse and I attempted to suction his lungs to no avail. This was very frightening to Paul. Early in the evening Ray Hansen arrived, and, with tears in his eyes, said that he could not bear to stay and watch,and so left.

As time wore on Mary Ann and I were both very tired. I decided to give Paul some morphine so that he could rest better, and then we left for Paul's house to get some sleep. We regret to this day that we did so,for at about 10 or 11pm Mrs. Ripley called us to tell that Paul had peacefully passed away.

For the wake, we did not have his body sent to the church, but rather had him placed in the room at the house where Paul had sent so many hours reading his paper after the movies were done.

As the body was taken to the the Delavan cemetery, I thought to myself that this was his last trip to Delavan - a trip that he almost daily made to check on his crops and farm.

At the cemetery after after the gun salute I was so overcome that I wandered off by myself weeping, unable to stay at the gravesite with the rest of the family and mourners. I loved Paul more than he probably knew.