Uncle Perry Graduates
On the first long dark Sunday evening of the season, I'm well-rested from an afternoon nap, and I'm at home. This is time made for blogging.
*****************
Before a second week passes after the funeral of my uncle Perry Miller (94), I want to record a few details about his remarkable life. This morning in church his son Gary spoke of his father's final days. He told Gary on one of his visits that all of his caretakers were believers, except for one he was unsure of. Later, Gary overheard the tail end of a conversation in which Perry had apparently inquired about the faith of the one he was not sure of.
Gary also recounted how, at the age of 16, when Perry was in a Wichita hospital for about six weeks, he spoke of spiritual matters to his roommate, another young man. The story is preserved because of what happened about four years later when Perry got a letter from this former roommate. He told of having become a Christian, a journey which had begun during the time he shared a hospital room with Perry. Seventy-eight years of caring about the eternal destiny of people whose path crossed his own is a remarkable legacy.
Perry had a career as a teacher and school administrator. He started teaching in a two-room country school (Elmhirst) after having earned a two-year certificate, and then got more education outside the school day or the school term for many years, eventually earning a Master's degree from Fort Hays State University. I witnessed him being awarded that degree.
My pastor brother Ronald, who spoke at the funeral, highlighted something that I had never processed in this way before. He noted that when Perry pursued the teaching profession, he expressed a value that had probably never been openly affirmed before in the culture of our Amish community. Teaching was not manual labor and certainly not a job in agriculture, construction, or craftsmanship. Throughout his many years of service to the community via our school, he showed us all that good and necessary work sometimes requires education beyond eighth grade and does not necessarily involve manual labor. This was probably the beginning of what eventually became a significant cultural shift. I've always known that our community viewed higher education differently than is true in many Amish communities, but I had never traced it back to Perry's influence as Ronald did.
Perry's physical limitations because of contracting polio at the age of one necessitated a career path different from the farming one his identical twin brother pursued. The time he spent in a Wichita hospital occurred because of surgeries that were needed to straighten his leg bones, which had grown crooked during the years he moved about on crutches.
During the Depression years, his parents could not afford the leg braces that would have been more ideal, so Perry hooked the foot on his short, weak leg into the crutch to aid his mobility. I don't know how much my grandparents verbalized their regret at not having been able to provide more adequately for Perry's needs as a young child, but I can imagine that this was a grief to them. Perry and his twin were the third and fourth children in a family that grew from no children to twelve children in 16 years--between 1921 and 1937. 1929 was smack in the middle of that time period. This explains the crutches instead of the brace.
Only since Uncle Perry's death did I learn that a local person with a career in banking credits Uncle Perry with having helped turn his life in a constructive direction. He was apparently in his "wild Amish" phase when he bought a car and came to Perry to purchase insurance through Goodville Mutual, a Mennonite-owned agency. I don't know what all transpired between them, but Perry apparently talked about more than insurance to the young man, and he was profoundly affected. The relationship between them must have grown after that, judging by the note that he wrote to the family after Perry's passing. It was read at the funeral.
When his grandson Tim shared memories at Perry's funeral, he asked all those present to stand if they had been a student of Perry's. Many in the audience did so, but another really big event in Perry's honor had occurred in the summer of 2017. It was a reunion for those who had attended Elreka Grade School while Perry was teacher and principal there. I don't have exact numbers, but I believe more than 300 people were expected for that reunion. Offered for sale there was a booklet that my composition class students had written a year or so earlier, centered on Perry's life. The person who initially had the vision for the reunion and got the ball rolling for the reunion was Ervin R. Stutzman, who graduated from Elreka and went on to become the executive director for Mennonite Church USA.
I loved hearing from Perry's daughter-in-law Shirley how it happened that she and her husband Wilbur were able to spend the last hour of Perry's life with him. They live in Ohio (and Canada?) and had planned some time ago to come to Kansas for a visit before it turns cold. Then they heard that Perry had been hospitalized and began a leisurely trip to Kansas in their Conestoga, a motor home. The plan was to spend Thursday night in the Kansas City area, and then drive the rest of the way on Friday. When they got to KC, however, it seemed like the right thing to do to keep on driving all the way to Reno County, so they did. They walked into Perry's room at the manor (MFC) around 2:00. An hour later Perry was gone.
"Graduation" is exactly the right term for what I believe happened at Perry's passing. I have no doubt that he finished well, as he had often said he wanted to do. The degree awarded at FHSU pales in significance compared to hearing from the Lord Himself: "Well done, good and faithful servant. . . . Enter . . . into the joy of thy Lord."
*****************
Before a second week passes after the funeral of my uncle Perry Miller (94), I want to record a few details about his remarkable life. This morning in church his son Gary spoke of his father's final days. He told Gary on one of his visits that all of his caretakers were believers, except for one he was unsure of. Later, Gary overheard the tail end of a conversation in which Perry had apparently inquired about the faith of the one he was not sure of.
Gary also recounted how, at the age of 16, when Perry was in a Wichita hospital for about six weeks, he spoke of spiritual matters to his roommate, another young man. The story is preserved because of what happened about four years later when Perry got a letter from this former roommate. He told of having become a Christian, a journey which had begun during the time he shared a hospital room with Perry. Seventy-eight years of caring about the eternal destiny of people whose path crossed his own is a remarkable legacy.
Perry had a career as a teacher and school administrator. He started teaching in a two-room country school (Elmhirst) after having earned a two-year certificate, and then got more education outside the school day or the school term for many years, eventually earning a Master's degree from Fort Hays State University. I witnessed him being awarded that degree.
My pastor brother Ronald, who spoke at the funeral, highlighted something that I had never processed in this way before. He noted that when Perry pursued the teaching profession, he expressed a value that had probably never been openly affirmed before in the culture of our Amish community. Teaching was not manual labor and certainly not a job in agriculture, construction, or craftsmanship. Throughout his many years of service to the community via our school, he showed us all that good and necessary work sometimes requires education beyond eighth grade and does not necessarily involve manual labor. This was probably the beginning of what eventually became a significant cultural shift. I've always known that our community viewed higher education differently than is true in many Amish communities, but I had never traced it back to Perry's influence as Ronald did.
Perry's physical limitations because of contracting polio at the age of one necessitated a career path different from the farming one his identical twin brother pursued. The time he spent in a Wichita hospital occurred because of surgeries that were needed to straighten his leg bones, which had grown crooked during the years he moved about on crutches.
During the Depression years, his parents could not afford the leg braces that would have been more ideal, so Perry hooked the foot on his short, weak leg into the crutch to aid his mobility. I don't know how much my grandparents verbalized their regret at not having been able to provide more adequately for Perry's needs as a young child, but I can imagine that this was a grief to them. Perry and his twin were the third and fourth children in a family that grew from no children to twelve children in 16 years--between 1921 and 1937. 1929 was smack in the middle of that time period. This explains the crutches instead of the brace.
Only since Uncle Perry's death did I learn that a local person with a career in banking credits Uncle Perry with having helped turn his life in a constructive direction. He was apparently in his "wild Amish" phase when he bought a car and came to Perry to purchase insurance through Goodville Mutual, a Mennonite-owned agency. I don't know what all transpired between them, but Perry apparently talked about more than insurance to the young man, and he was profoundly affected. The relationship between them must have grown after that, judging by the note that he wrote to the family after Perry's passing. It was read at the funeral.
When his grandson Tim shared memories at Perry's funeral, he asked all those present to stand if they had been a student of Perry's. Many in the audience did so, but another really big event in Perry's honor had occurred in the summer of 2017. It was a reunion for those who had attended Elreka Grade School while Perry was teacher and principal there. I don't have exact numbers, but I believe more than 300 people were expected for that reunion. Offered for sale there was a booklet that my composition class students had written a year or so earlier, centered on Perry's life. The person who initially had the vision for the reunion and got the ball rolling for the reunion was Ervin R. Stutzman, who graduated from Elreka and went on to become the executive director for Mennonite Church USA.
I loved hearing from Perry's daughter-in-law Shirley how it happened that she and her husband Wilbur were able to spend the last hour of Perry's life with him. They live in Ohio (and Canada?) and had planned some time ago to come to Kansas for a visit before it turns cold. Then they heard that Perry had been hospitalized and began a leisurely trip to Kansas in their Conestoga, a motor home. The plan was to spend Thursday night in the Kansas City area, and then drive the rest of the way on Friday. When they got to KC, however, it seemed like the right thing to do to keep on driving all the way to Reno County, so they did. They walked into Perry's room at the manor (MFC) around 2:00. An hour later Perry was gone.
"Graduation" is exactly the right term for what I believe happened at Perry's passing. I have no doubt that he finished well, as he had often said he wanted to do. The degree awarded at FHSU pales in significance compared to hearing from the Lord Himself: "Well done, good and faithful servant. . . . Enter . . . into the joy of thy Lord."
posted by Miriam Iwashige at
7:18 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home