Homily
Given by the Very Reverend Canon Donald Fraser
In 1975, as a newly ordained priest, my first assignment was here at Our Lady of the Lake. I vividly remember one particular day in September of that year. Autumn in these mountains is a spectacularly beautiful time; when the very earth, in its final weeks before winter, bursts forth in glorious colors of red, yellow and chartreuse. On such a day, a group (I might say, a “gang”) of teenagers knocked on the rectory door. They asked me to accompany them across the street to the hospital. Their grandmother, Elsie Thompson, Pat’s mom, was gravely ill and near death. The image of that day is indelibly clear in my mind because the atmosphere in the hospital room was so intensely peaceful. Sad as the occasion was, the love, mutual support, prayerfulness and even serenity of this family was so impressive. Now, these many years later, the family, increased in number by spouses and grandchildren, continues to exhibit the same spiritual strength. I attribute the cohesiveness of the family not only to Pat, but in a most special way, to the man whom we have come today to remember and to commend to the Lord.
John was a big man, in more ways than one. As we will hear later in this Mass, he led an extraordinary life. And lived it to its fullest. I know his obituary was a collaborative family effort, and I am in agreement with the following list of John’s virtues: “love, courage, creativity, honor, humor, loyalty, tenacity.” While I would not disagree with the list, I would have changed the order and put “tenacity” first.
John was born in the first quarter of the last century and saw more change in his lifetime than at any other time in recorded memory.
Growing up during a world-wide economic depression, participating in the most terrible war in history, witnessing human beings on the moon and beyond, seeing technology unimaginable even by the most imaginative; and, among so many other remarkable events, seeing the election of an African-American as President of the United States. Remember, John was born only 56 years after the end of the Civil War. Not even three-score years.
Through it all, John remained as tenacious a man I have ever known. An anchor for his family with an enthusiasm I would have to characterize as “child-like,” in the most positive sense of that word. This is the reason I chose the gospel passage from Matthew where Jesus says that the Kingdom of God is revealed to the merest children and hidden from the learned and clever.
Technology and politics are not the only, nor even the most dramatic changes that occurred in John’s life. Since the middle of the 20th Century, there has been a revolution, or renaissance if you will, of insights into God. We are living in a Golden Age of theology, even though not everyone is aware of the remarkable new glimpses we are gaining of the living God in fresh and unexpected ways.
We are not discovering a new God, but rather a fresh experience of long forgotten revelation. The depths of divine compassion are being appreciated in new ways that ought to be seen more clearly, but are not always understood by the “learned and the clever.”
As the 5th Century North African bishop, St. Augustine, wrote, “O Beauty, ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you.” Augustine wrote these words as the city of Rome was being destroyed and the 1,000 year Empire was crumbling. Many people of that time and place thought the world was literally coming to an end.
We gather today in this sacred place, where so many, including many of you, first entered the church in the waters of baptism. We have and we will hear many words spoken and sung today. Every word, every song will remind us of John. But there is no one word, no combination of words, no song that will be the man himself.
And so it is with God. The prophets of the Old Testament would not even dare to say his name; and Jesus would not tell us who God is. Jesus spoke in parables. He told stories, the favorite experience beloved by every child in every age.
The Kingdom of God is like ten bridesmaids; or like a mustard seed; or like a sower who went out to sow. Since Jesus himself was God, why did he not simply tell us in clear and unmistakeable words who God is?
It is because God is ineffable and there are no words to capture that which is beyond human senses. Words are one-dimensional and have no substance or meaning except what we might give them. They are letters on a page or in the measurable waves of sound.
Thus, we cannot see or touch or hear or smell a “tenacity” or a “courage” or a “creativity. Show me a “love.” What does it look like, how big is it, what is its taste, its smell. Yet, we all understand what love is because we have all experience it.
We have to pay attention in life. We have to open our eyes and ears to see and hear the wonders that surround us and the ineffable presence of God, who has no name we can speak.
I know John understood this. The War changed him from a left-brain civil engineer to a right-brain artist. His intimations of the divine found expression in his art and his almost frantic insistence that his children and grandchildren, his students and his friends see what he saw and hear what he heard.
Such a man was not easily tamed and I know that the last years were an increasing frustration for him. He thought he was losing his mobility and as his faculties were diminishing that he was losing everything. Sometimes we have to listen to ourselves and be reminded that he was losing nothing, but rather being prepared for that which no eye has ever seen and no mind has ever comprehended.
John was always a delight to be with. He was ringmaster, scout leader, conductor all in one. He was also one of my best cheerleaders. Although he always had a certain mischievous twinkle in his eye as if to say somethings are not worth worrying about, he could be rather direct and unambiguous, especially when the world seemed like it was falling apart all over again.
I remember one day he told me after Mass, “I really like your sermons.” Just as I was beginning to formulate an appropriate expression of gratitude, he spoke right over me in that booming voice, “Because I can hear you.”
Well, I believe John can hear me now as I speak in the name of the Church and commend him to everlasting life.
During World War II, John served aboard the USS Tunny (as in tuna fish), a gallant submarine with a complement of 6 officers and 54 men, as the Navy then expressed it. The Tunny was awarded 9 battle-stars and 2 Presidential Unit Citations. One can hardly imagine the nearly unbearable conditions of submarine service in that war in which 4 out of 10 submariners did not come home.
What may not be as well known is the motto of the USS Tunny. With a nod to the classics, the motto was in Latin:
Illigitimi non carbo/ar/undum.
Don’t let the bastards get you down.
Eulogy
Given by Robin, Ryn and ShawnOn behalf of our family, we’d like to thank all of you for being here. Father Fraser has given us the gift and honor to celebrate the mass. We yanked him out of retirement, (and he had just had surgery) to fly up from Boise this morning. Thank you, Father.
Our family is keenly aware of all the love and support of the broader family, our friends, neighbors, church community, especially Father John Gathungu and the staff at St. Luke’s McCall hospital. We thank you.
We want to thank our incredible children with all their varied gifts and talents; electronic, musical, organizational, emotional, on and on! We could not have gotten through the last four days without you. And the tribute you have given to Grandpa with the slide shows, posters, songs, and your offers to help, or say “yes” when asked to help...Grandpa would be so proud of you.
And to our spouses, whom we have leaned on and who have held us up during this time, there are no words, except we love you. And we know, he was a dad to you too.
We have the honor of delivering the eulogy for our family. It was a collaborative effort among dad’s seven children and creating it gave us the chance to share wonderful memories of him. Thanks to Father Fraser for the time limit. This started out 15 pages long. There were lots of memories.
Dad may be understood the best as an artist. And using the language of painting to describe his life, it was rich, multi-hued, filled with grand arcs of adversity and triumphant joy. He was ahead of his time, often controversial, certainly parodoxical, always pushing the envelope and exploring new territory.
There were dark colors in the early years, poverty and family hardship.
Dad was the eldest of three children. He was called “Jack” by his sisters Diane and Gerry, mother Edith “Bussy”, and ”Baha”, his Dad Oliver, also known as “Chief.” His father was Chief Petty Officer in WWII. Dad was born in 1921, the first son of three children, which put him right in the middle of the Depression. He came home from school one day and found all the family possessions loaded up on a truck, everything repossessed.
He was deeply affected by the financial difficulties his family experienced, and we saw that in daily life in so many ways:
“CUT THE TOMATOES THINNER, dammit, they’re only for color!”
“THOSE HAMBURGER PATTIES ARE TOO THICK!”
The lack of material wealth gave him deep resourcefulness, and he was the epitome of American “can do.”
If Dad wanted something, he found a way to make what he couldn’t buy: he built our first waterskies, we all helped build the fiberglass canoe we still love, Mom & Dad built our cabin with Mom’s Mom Elsie Thompson, whom we called Mor Mor (Far Mor for some of our cousins), helping to hold up the beams (along with anyone else who was visiting!)
Like many bold planners, he had no fear of enlisting others in his wild plans. Dad’s little sister “Squirt” (DeeDee) was 8 (dad was 9 years older) when he decided she should learn to surf. He made a wooden surfboard, painted a hula girl on it, and sent her into the water. She said she almost drowned. Squirt adored her older brother and stalwartly followed him along.
In high school, he bought an old model T, and sawed off the top to make a convertible. He found some “vile” yellow paint so they called it the “Yellow Peril”. One day he was out with his mom driving down Wilshire Blvd. When the throttle broke, Bussy sat on the hood of the car so she could manually control the gas while Dad yelled “faster” or “slower.”
Gerry and Dad are one year apart, and she remembers that Jack drove them to their jobs. He filled the “Yellow Peril” with gas once a week after pay day. Sometimes, by the end of that week, they’d end up having to push that car home.
DeeDee missed her big brother and father terribly when they went off to war. Dad found a way to buy her a horse to help comfort her - and Dee loved, and lived on, her horse “Quita.”
Dad was an officer in the US Navy during WWII. He chose the Navy because they had the best “chow.” He chose submarines because you don’t get seasick under water.
Dad was on one of the very first subs that went into Tokyo Bay to map mines for the planned invasion of Japan.
One day when he was inside inspecting a torpedo tube, the general alarm sounded. They slammed shut the tube door and closed him into utter darkness, sealed off from the rest of the boat with limited oxygen, while they dived and were depth charged. It left him with lifelong claustrophobia and hearing damage. Their sister ship hit a mine during that mission and there were no survivors.
Like so many of that generation, his war experience dramatically changed his life. Sitting on a sub in San Francisco Bay, at the end of the war, his palette turned lighter: he realized he wanted to be an artist, not an engineer which was his major before he left to serve.
The exuberance of coming back alive, with all his saved pay, was like winning the lottery for Dad and he could bring himself to splurge. He bought two horses, one for his mom and another for himself, with a new horse trailer to tow behind his brand new car- a REAL convertible, and on top of that, a camel’s hair coat.
This shining moment of new-found wealth had to last a long time, because it wasn’t so long after that he became a husband and the babies came fast and furious.
Dad was always there for us. He was a full partner with Mom, sharing the burden of child-raising, along with working outside the home. We remember him waking us up in the morning to drive us to school on his way to work, sometimes sprinkling water on our faces to get us out of bed, and singing, “Cantaloupe for breakfast, honey in a bun, get your shoes and stockings on and run, run, run!”
Mom and Dad ground whole wheat way before the health food craze, our friends would ask what was for dinner before they agreed to stay over. They called our soaked wheat breakfasts “birdseed”.
“Ryn and dad’s bread” was great when fresh out of the oven, but as for sandwiches, unless it was saturated in honey, it disintegrated into crumbs held together by globs of “natural” peanut butter.
He didn’t always make Mom’s life easier... Although Mom thought that 5 kids in a modest house was sufficient, Dad reassured her that the small dog he brought home was a new breed from China that - despite having enormous paws - would never grow larger. This breed was a “Panda” breed that, due to some unexplainable reason, morphed into a St. Bernard. We loved that dog!
He had a special signal to gather us together or let us know he was there. Robin remembers walking out of the Louvre in Paris and all of a sudden she heard this loud piercing whistle. She had no idea dad would be in Paris that day. Whether it was on the beach in Topanga or Torremolinos, or San Marcos Plaza in Venice, or a volleyball game, we were never lost. When we heard that whistle, we knew Dad was there.
Dad was constantly in action. For years he worked at least two jobs. Along with teaching, at various times he ran a lawn-mowing business, taught night school, worked for the Forest service surveying Kleinschmidt grade in Hell’s Canyon, or Paddy Flat Road during the summer - which explains why those roads aren’t straight!
His commitment to Mom and her deep faith meant a combined 72 years of Catholic school tuition.
He traded paintings for music lessons, painted store windows in exchange for Christmas presents, and cut out colored cellophane to make “stained glass windows” to remind us of the cathedrals in Europe.
He was also constantly on the move at home, and was happiest when there was a big pile of dirt, sand or rocks that needed to be moved or used. In fact we have his latest pile of rocks outside the garage right now - Come on over!
The test of mettle for any suitor of his daughters was that when the cement mixer was turned on, would the boy stay and work or would he leave. Lucky that Marc can build kitchens, David can chop wood, and Chuck knows how to hire people that can do all those things. We’d like to thank all of you out there – friends, visitors, students - who helped build our cabin, willingly or not.
As our family grew, so did Dad’s prayer list - every night before going to sleep Dad prayed for every single one of us. You’d never want to be on the top of the list, because that meant you were in serious trouble in some way.
He did worry constantly about his children and grandchildren, and about them getting a good job. His career advice was consistent: “Join the Coast Guard.”
Dad loved pancakes for breakfast, and over the years the grandkids learned how to make them “thin” enough, just like they learned to make chocolate chip cookies without any chocolate chips - his favorite. The kids loved to share his treats and he adored all his grandchildren, even if the ways he showed his concern didn’t feel like it sometimes. The last few years of his life when he couldn’t go out and play, he simply enjoyed watching them from his chair.
His biggest gift to many was Dad’s love of nature, always reminding us to open our eyes and see!! We used to drive 1000 miles going 35 mph, and every once in a while Dad would urge us kids to look at the scenery, even if Mom had just gotten us to sleep. It would finally be quiet in the car. Dad would say “Look!” and all these little heads popped up.
He was teaching us the importance of seeing and appreciating the delightful color/shape/texture of our world, and he brought that to his paintings. Dad created almost all of his work at his studio in our home, wherever we were, and we all remember shows at home with his good friend and master potter Clyde Kelly, including one to pay for Robin’s wedding.
His paintings are in all of our homes and in 100s of others. He painted until his hands shook too much, and he only stopped when he couldn’t hold one hand still with the other. Dad put his creative hands, heart and mind to wood, furniture, sculpture, ceramics and poetry.
Dad was an amazing teacher, and he was proud of it. He loved teaching and his students loved him.
Here’s what some of them said when they heard the news of his passing:
“You will never know how many people your father influenced”
“He made tremendous contributions to the world”
“He had incredible creative energy. I never forgot once in a ceramic class when he slammed his fist on the desk and yelled “if you don’t learn to improvise you will never become an artist” - I have used that lesson countless times in my life to overcome difficult situations, including saving lives.”
He was doing performance art before it had a name:
Once he had his students put up ladders, and climb up a huge tree to tie little plastic bags of water all over to reflect the sunlight through prisms.
He found 40-50 rusted shovel heads in an abandoned mine and had his students each take one to create their own symbolic grave markers in an installation of a cemetery.
He recreated the caves of Altamira by having his students lay on the floor to see the paintings he projected onto the ceiling.
He salvaged the marble when the school bathrooms were being dismantled, and gave the stone the students to sculpt. He made do with what he had.
Dad was a visionary, way ahead of his time, and he treasured the few bosses, administrators and friends who knew that. One vice-principal said to him, “John, half the time you’re in trouble, and half the time you’re getting out of it.”
He and mom were at a restaurant several years ago with good friends Bud and Joanie Ware. A former principal came up to Dad, put his hands on his shoulders, pressed down and said, “This is the best teacher I’ve ever seen.”
So now we come to Dad’s calmer half, Mom… but she is an adventurer, too (her mother emigrated by herself from Denmark as a young woman). Mom agreed to the year sabbatical in Europe, camping with five children in a VW bus on $5.00/day. While Dad made us walk through every museum, Mom made us walk through every church, and we were very tired little kids. She agreed to dad taking various groups of students on camping trips across Europe (another second job!). One year mom even drove a second VW (he was “Red Dog” and she was “Buttercup”).
The picture of Dad is incomplete without Mom. Mom is a teacher as well, a picture of grace, courage, beauty, love, tenacity, and (above all) patience.
It was a partnership, and they both grew from the strengths and weaknesses of each other. Together, they exemplified love, and commitment, and never giving up, no matter how hard life was at times. Like brightness and contrasts, their life together has been a perfectly imperfect work of art.
Mom, thank you for the care you gave to Dad. He loved you - truly--deeply--madly---and so do we.
We are here for you.
