Thema and I were greeted by Ellamae Brandau, wife of the deceased, and their son Allen as we entered the church's waiting room where, the body of Harvey lay in state. Many friends and relatives were gathered there visiting and consoling the family in their loss. After a few minutes visiting we entered the large sanctuary, that was nearly filled to capacity by the time the service began. White hair and bald heads were in the majority.
As we sat there waiting for the service to begin, I thought back to the years of my youth when Harvey's wife Ellamae was among about 18 of us who graduated from the Kendall High School in the spring of 1938. At that time funerals were things that our parents went to unless it was a close relative or very special friend. It was maybe a once in a year occurrence and something that this writer did not look forward to.
Now we have entered that generation were we see the curtain falling on our friends and relatives on a regular basis we wonder if the next call will be ours. Many of us there yesterday have already lived past our normal age. Very few of us there yesterday look forward to that final curtain. But we know that it will eventually engulf us.
It does seem a shame that we are given such a short stint on this planet. We spend 75-85 years getting wise in what life is all about and then before most of us have the time to fully utilize what we have learned and pass it on to others. It is all over. But I for one am glad that I have had this chance to be a part of this planets civilization from 1919 on to this day. It has been a great life.
Yesterday I overheard a couple of people talking at the funeral and they were saying that Harvey had quite a varied life and did not stick to one job very long. That got me to thinking. I too have had quite a varied life for me that is what has made my time on this planet so great.
Harvey was born 1916, 3 years before I was. He graduated from Wilton High School in 1933 and attended Sparta Business College. During the 1930's he was employed by the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Wisconsin Legislature.
He married Ellamae Hoefs, Kendall, Wisconsin on December 29, 1939. After their marriage, they moved to Baltimore, Maryland where Harvey was employed by the Social Security Administration and then by the Navy Department in Washington D.C.
During World War II, he served as a Naval aviator and flight instructor. He left active duty in 1947 and retired as a lieutenant commander in the U. S. Naval Reserve in 1963.
After the war, he formed the Weather Control Corporation in Medford, Oregon and conducted cloud seeding for the United Airlines and fruit growers of the Rogue River Valley. His cloud seeding experiments were featured in the July, 1950 edition of Reader's Digest and August 31, 1953 edition of Time magazine.
In 1957, he returned to Kendall and opened the OK Tire store in Norwalk. In 1960, he sold the business and entered the real estate and auction business. He was a partner in Great Rivers Realty and the Dairyland Auction Service for many years until his retirement in 1988.
Harvey also served as a civilian flight instructor for decades and taught hundreds of students how to fly. Governor Tommy Thompson appointed him to the Wisconsin Council on Aeronautics and the Wisconsin State Trails Council in 1990. He served on both boards until 1997.
In 2001, he was honored by the Experimental Aircraft Association and Governor Thompson for 50 years of flight instruction. Harvey also served as President of the Elroy-Sparta Bike Trail Concessions Board from 1975-1999. In addition, he was an active member of the Kendall Lion's Club. He served as Governor of District 27-D2 from 1967 to1968 and was a recipient of the Melvin Jones Award.
As you can see, Harvey was experiencing an exciting part of ones life. I often thought how depressing it would be to be an assembly line worker for most of your working life. Every day, day after day doing the same monotonous job. With very little chance to be creative. It is true that all jobs that one devotes their lifetime to are not always monotonous. My wife Thema was a teacher for 35 years. Which if far from a monotonous job. And does give better retirement benefits than my often change of jobs.
After the service, we along with many others drove out to South Ridge Cemetery for graveside ceremonies. As we were sort of on the tail end of the funeral procession we ended up quite a distance form the grave side and my wife decided to remain in the car so I was priviliged to walk over with a nephew on Themas side of the family and in our conversation he mentioned that he was a daily reader of this WEB page. "I may not always agree of what you have to say, but it does get one to thinking." he said, As we were leaving after the luncheon, another party said, My wife really likes you WEB page. I wrote articles for the Senior Sampler for four years. I enjoyed doing it and even though I have not written for them since 1996 people still say to me. We sure enjoyed those articles in the Senior Sampler. In some ways I regret that I gave that job up but then again I probably would not be doing this WEB page today.
I don't know what Harvy will be doing for eternity, but I hope he gets as big a bang out of eternity as he seemed to have during his time here. I hope that when my time comes to take that trip that I can spend a few hours reporting back to all of you via this medium or whatever is available at that time.
Thanks to all of you readers of this WEB site for your support, even if some of the
things I put on this site are a bit controversial. You make it worth my time to get up in the middle of the nite and work on it for you to read each morning.
Bill Weber
Editor & Host of:
This WEB Site
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