An Angel Food Cake Baker in Heaven

Vacation is almost over.  I'm regretting it, but I'm sure that as soon as I'm in the vehicle headed for school tomorrow I'll be glad I'm going there.

I'm teaching Child Development next semester, beginning the "applications" part of the typing class, and preparing the materials for January's current events (C.E.) topic.  We're studying gun violence.  When I told my comp class about the next C.E. topic just before vacation, I think I saw some eager gleams in a few eyes.  I think that's a good sign that there's some spirited debate coming up.  As always, the goal is not to promote a particular position, but to encourage becoming informed, especially being able to identify defensible (Ha.  I made a pun.)  underlying principles that should inform any chosen positions.

In an environment filled with budding rednecks, philosophers, disdainfully-above-it-all academic individuals, and a certain number of fairly clueless or predictably agreeable souls,  seeing students produce good, solid, well-researched and thought-out presentations is always rewarding.  Thankfully, that is often how it turns out.  Many students grimace at the demands of doing these reports, but I suspect some of the best learning experiences of their high school career happen during these projects.   Correct me if I'm wrong--that is, if you're a current or former student.

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We buried Fannie Helmuth today.  She was a widow from our church who died less than a month before her 89th birthday.

I loved hearing some of the details of her life, like the fact that she donated 90% of her social security check, and how attending the monthly sewing was a carefully guarded priority for her.  I especially enjoyed the story about the time when she wasn't feeling well the day before the sewing and then had the horrifying thought that maybe if she went downstairs where the sewing was held she might not be able to get back up.  So she did a practice run on her own basement stairway at home the night before.  The effort exhausted her, but she didn't get stuck in the basement, so she forged ahead the next day and went to the sewing as usual.

With an invalid husband to care for (He had multiple sclerosis.), she worked incredibly hard to provide for their family, choosing money-making projects that her five children could help with.  They did some market gardening.  Keeping chickens fueled several enterprises:  an egg delivery route in town, raising and butchering fryers to sell, custom butchering chickens for others, and, most notably, baking tens of thousands of angel food cakes and making oodles of noodles to sell at Farmer's Market and elsewhere.  She baked four angel food cakes last week, before the sudden illness that took her life.  Two of them were served to the family in the meal following the funeral today.  During the obituary/eulogy, Richard Graber pulled out one of those cakes and placed it on the casket--a more fitting tribute than flowers, because of all it symbolized about Fannie's life:  cruel necessity met with resourcefulness, courage, excellence, and faith.

I remember one bleak day after Eli, Fannie's husband, became ill, but before they knew what was wrong, when Fannie stopped by our place. We children should probably have disappeared and given Fannie and my mother some privacy, but we didn't.  Fannie had one thing on her mind:  "I feel so weak," she told my mother tearfully.  "I need people to pray for me."   I don't remember what happened immediately after that, but I do know that people found ways to show care and compassion, and Fannie found ways to cope.  Mom would have told Dad about the conversation with Fannie, and Dad would have told the other ministers, and the ministers would have considered the matter and mobilized the church as needed.  By this means, and by the action of individuals, the needs were shared and met.

David, our bishop, said that they have frequently received anonymous money gifts from someone--from Fannie Helmuth, they suspect.  Susanna thought she recognized the handwriting.  Thinking of Fannie Helmuth giving  away money is profoundly moving.  She was the last person anyone around would have thought should feel obligated to do so.  She lived ever-so-frugally, and worked ever so hard, and even then, in the early years after her husband became ill, there was barely enough money to go around.   They sold the farm where they lived,  and, probably with that money, were able to pay for the materials for a new house that was built on land from the farm where Fannie grew up.  Church people provided the labor.

Two days after Christmas, Fannie had gone to Tennessee where her son lives, and had a pleasant evening with most of her gathered family.  The next morning she became ill with congestive heart failure and was taken to the hospital.  At one point she rallied enough to converse, but then lost out again and slipped into an unresponsive state.  She died late Wednesday night.

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At the cemetery, I noted an unusual number of graves marked with wooden "stakes" with a handwritten name on each one.  They mark the location of future gravestones.  LaVon Bontrager's was placed about a year ago.  Quite a few have died in the past year.  One of them marked the grave of Barbara Nisly, Fannie's sister, who died only five weeks ago.

Elizabeth H., who was walking out of the cemetery with me, put it succinctly when she said, "Well, this means we'll all have to move up a notch [to fill the empty spaces].  I'm so glad we moved here in time to learn to know all these wonderful old people."

These wonderful old people.  Here today.  Gone tomorrow.  I can't feel happy about that prospect, but thinking again today about living and dying well gives me hope that future partings will not be entirely without underlying joy.  That's how it was today when we buried Fannie Helmuth.