"He Told The Story" -- Eulogy of an American
He told the story of, at age 7, accompanying his father through the windbreaks, sloughs, and culverts of his neighbors and schoolmates, as his dad led the volunteer effort to bring the fruit of President Roosevelt's Rural Electrification Act to Kittson County, Minnesota's northwestern-most.
He told the stories of his one-room country schoolhouse and his older brother, Alden, wearing a tie to school every day, thus earning Alden the title of 'professor' among friends. He told of their country church of mostly Swedish farmers and their families, and how he and his kid-brother, Paul, would help their dad team up the horses when it was still dark on savagely cold, winter Sunday mornings, so that they could get their sleigh and the family it carried to church early enough to start the fires in the furnace, an hour or more before everyone arrived.
He told the story of the time he was standing next to his father, who was talking to their new pastor, and being struck by the firmness of how he spoke to the young clergyman, “Pastor, if I'm teaming up my horses in 50-below weather, I expect more than a 30-minute sermon,” proud of the fact that it was he and his brother who had helped their dad feed and yoke the horses that morning, in the dark. He would tell the stories
of hours spent at church, eating, playing, and enjoying the one day farmers didn't work;
of his dad's weekly one-hour, Sunday nap on the sofa;
of the big family meal that followed;
of the family later gathering in the parlor to stand around the piano and sing hymns, many times the three boys singing with their sister, Eleanor, who would often play the accompaniment; and
of all three generations sitting together on sofa or floor as his grandfather read to them one of Martin Luther's sermons…in Swedish.
Reverend Avis Benson, who, for years, had been a pastor in that Swedish country church, decades later told me, “I have never been in a home where there was so much laughter and so much music.”
Dad told story after story of coming of age during the Great Depression and working their 1600-acre farm and their on-site machine shop, where they also built grandpa's US Government patented plant dusters (which used the exhaust of the tractor as a propellant to deliver dry pesticide to the crops) to ship, generally to the south where they were used by cotton farmers. He spoke of harvesting potatoes on the back of a long trailer grandpa had rigged to lift, sort, and bag the spuds, right in the field, with dad as lead bagger. The bagger, I would later discover from their fourth brother, Erland, had to be the strongest of the brothers, because repetitively sewing, lifting, and stacking 110 lb gunny sacks full of potatoes was no small feat. Dad's raw, physical strength was confirmed by Paul – the real kidder among the brothers – who relished telling of how two of the oldest three boys would often chase the third, pin him down, and suck on his nose, which was the farm-kid equivalent of total domination and humiliation. Dad, Paul confirmed, was always one of the two – ie always Paul or Alden on the receiving end, never LeRoy. (Baby brother, Erland, was still too young to be involved in such highjinks.) That training with his brothers, who were neither slight nor shrinking violets, themselves, served him well when he later briefly wrestled for the University of Minnesota, while attending agriculture school.
But one of my favorite stories was a wartime one. Through his teen years, production had been at full-speed for the war effort. Dad, like many young men, felt hampered that all he could do was provide food for the soldiers and sailors. So, at 17, dad insisted that his mother drive him to Grand Forks to enlist. He'd heard the Navy had the best food, so that was his direction, even though he had never seen the ocean. Because it was the spring, grandpa had to stay behind, working day and night, tilling and planting. This was no good, because LeRoy discovered that to enlist at 17 he had to be accompanied by his father. Just a couple months later, V-E Day happened, quickly followed by V-J Day. (That same spirit carried over to his oldest son, Kent, who enlisted in the Vietnam war and followed with 30+ years in the Air Force Reserves.)
left to right: Alden, Paul, Alric (LeRoy’s father), Erland, LeRoy
He told how the family farm/shop were so successful that his dad bought his mom lavish gifts, which she would often insist that he return and put the money back into the farm or the offering plate. The wealth was confirmed by the well-circulated picture of the four boys, as late-teens in the 40s, in the yard, each standing in front of his own new Buick, bought with their own money, earned by their sweat and strong backs.
I recall him saying, “The three most respected men in town were the doctor, the banker, and the pastor.” He told of how he and his siblings walked away from the wealth of their large family farm, all three of the oldest brothers becoming Lutheran pastors, Eleanor becoming a singer and long-time parish treasurer, and youngest Erland pursuing a successful career as the county's respected photographer.
Dad went to Lutheran Bible Institute (L BI) on Portland Avenue in Minneapolis, where one fateful Saturday morning, while returning from the basement laundry room, he met a smart, pretty girl, named Charlotte. She was the young woman with whom he would spend the next nearly 70 years. After LBI, it was college. His entire life, he proudly wore on his right hand ring finger his 'G-ring' from his halcyon days at the Swedish-Lutheran college, Gustavus Adolphus, in rural Minnesota.
He told of greatly disliking the study of Hebrew in seminary, even though by the time he got to Augustana Theological Seminary in Rock Island, IL, he was fluent in Swedish from his home, as well as German from high school and college, and had been a Greek major in college. But, as he told it, Hebrew class was at 8am, and he worked quite late, each night, at the hospital as an orderly. Hebrew was not his idea of a pleasant alarm clock. And so, it never came easily or stuck.
LeRoy Arthur Erlandson served parishes in Kennedy, MN, and Oberon, ND, where he raised sheep to augment his country pastor income. He pastored a young and growing suburban Lutheran church in Irving, TX, with parishioners who were on staff at Parkland Hospital when President Kennedy was brought there. He told of one of his church-members thinking it was such a cruel joke, when she overheard on the elevator, en route to the OR, that the president had been shot.
He moved his family back to rural Minnesota in the late-60s to pastor a three-point parish. By this time, Dan, Karla, David, John, and Sven had joined Kent. And Charlotte, his wife, both raised the children and was a leader in LeRoy's parishes, as well – teaching classes for adults and teens, leading Bible studies, counseling endless people in the evenings or middle of the night, just as dad did. She had been trained as a schoolteacher and was quite successful as such, but she, too, had a calling to serve God and His people in the church. She was the wise woman every parish needs and every husband needs. Her work ethic rivaled his, exceeding it, at times. She would later go on to have her own career as a Director of Education for large churches, teach at the graduate level, and author countless articles in the field of early childhood education. She carried him; he carried her. They both carried us and every hurting soul who crossed their path. They never bickered in front of the kids. They took graduate classes together, after the kids were all born and even though he had long prior finished grad school, to nurture their own relationship. Together, they showed us what a steady, patient marriage looks like, even as they would gently needle each other and he would regularly poke and laugh with us.
I recall phoning him, a couple of years ago, and the first words out of his mouth, after being asked how he was doing today, were, “Not so good. I was facing the wrong direction, this morning, and put my shirt on backwards.”
LeRoy ended his parish work at another growing suburban parish, Redeemer Lutheran in Fridley, MN. But, he would go on to spend 12 more years in ministry as a Protestant chaplain at the Twin Cities VA Hospital. It was from his daily interaction with veterans and staff that his favorite story comes, the one that would cause him to beam, while telling, right up to just months before his death, at age 92. Across the giant atrium of the Vet's Hospital, some salty, old vet sighted dad's white coat and Roman collar, and hollered, “Hey chaplain, saved any souls, today?” To which, Dad immediately and loudly quipped, “No, Jesus did that 2000 years ago. I just get to tell people about it.” No small amount of shirt buttons were lost in the telling of that story, notwithstanding the fact that immodesty is easily the most disdained of all sins among his Swedish-Lutheran-Minnesotan people.
And therein is the rub. I've spent decades – a pastor and spiritual counselor, myself – examining and contemplating my father's life, as son's do. While it may sound sentimental, even dopey in this era, he had
no avarice, even eschewing wealth for a life of serving God and His people;
no gluttony – he ate hearty and worked hearty, but never to excess, and was for most intents and purposes the classic Scandinavian-American teetotaler;
no lust, as he adored his wife of 66 years, Charlotte, and did everything he could to serve her;
by any metric, he was humble; no over-weaning pride, except in those rare moments of relaying an especially deft rejoinder,
no anger or hate, never speaking maliciously or ill of anyone;
he envied no man, as his own hard work provided a roof and a full table, which, for him, were themselves markers of good health, abundance, and happiness; and
as a man known for stories, good humor and hard work, he could never be accused of anything remotely resembling sloth.
He never broke the Commandments, either. He was just this classic, WWII-era man, in whom there was no guile, who never really left the farm or departed from what that huge farm was about – hard work, horseplay, laughter, hard work, music, God, servant-leadership, good food, and hard work. And he was, most assuredly, a man who defined himself by his people – Swedes, Augustana Synod Lutherans, Minnesotans, farmers.
I recall flying to Minnesota in his final year to join mom and him for breakfasts and morning devotions, as this was Karen's and my favorite ritual of theirs to witness and be part of – scripture reading, food for thought from a devotional tract, sing a hymn from the hymnal, Lord's Prayer, the Benediction, Amen. It had been there, every morning of my life, before running to the bus for school. We would complain, as kids, but we did it. Now, to share that with them was pure gold.
And on that particular visit, I got to attend church with them, as well. Coming from my hotel, I recall sliding into the pew next to dad's wheelchair. He pinched my leg as I stooped over to kiss his cheek. He elbowed my ribs and, needling me in a whisper, said, “You gonna stay awake for the sermon,” even though we both knew darn well that his was the best preacher in the city. Then I reached over the pew end to shake his hand and, once again, despite a lifetime spent in the gym lifting heavy weight, my grip was no match for his farmer's hands, even in his 90's – the same hands that gave the most ferocious of back rubs between matches at my wrestling tournaments, in my teens. Like every other time, he crushed me and he knew it and relished it, with a twinkle and a smirk, as I laughed. It was the in-church equivalent of sucking my nose, and we both knew it.
The real truth is, I spent a lot of years, in my teens and twenties, annoyed by my father's seemingly incessant storytelling. And others, too, seemed frustrated with his loquaciousness. But, as the decades rolled, I reflected on those stories more, finding their wisdom, hearing the whispers of my own story's precursors. There was so much unintentional guidance in them. It's odd how a story and a voice can provide direction and grounding, connection to roots.
It was in those oldest of stories that he sought refuge, more and more, as the tunnel of his mind grew tighter and tighter with Alzheimer's. It was a return to the beginning. That which was most distant was most familiar and soothing. His grandparents had been dead for half a century; his father, who held his hand slogging through those fields in '35, died when LeRoy was in his 30’s; his mother, who had spoken those fateful words to him in the kitchen on the farm, when he asked her how you know when the girl is the right one (“Du vet,” she replied in Swedish. 'You'll know') had died, back in the 70’s. Since then, the professor, who had in fact gotten a PhD and served several parishes, was gone, as was the kidder, who had faithfully served his family and parishes. The photographer had died decades ago, sorely missed by the younger generation. The only ones left from the farm were his ailing, younger sister with her beautiful voice and LeRoy, himself...........and the stories of all that was. Those glorious stories.
He pulled his last breath on Palm Sunday, 2020; fitting for a country pastor, who was really just a farm-kid, at heart. Like Jesus, he had lived his life humbly, a servant of men, and without any fanfare. It is right that such a man should enter the gates with fanfare, like the one he spent his life following. And there he now resides. If anyone ever deserved such a place, it's LeRoy. Good, decent, generous in spirit, playful, and, ultimately, a pure instrument of God's love in the world.
****Quite unrelated, yet related: In 1962, a traveling salesman, whose wife was often comforted and put to sleep by the gentle hum of the air conditioner, invented what came to be known as the white noise machine. It soothed people, calmed them, helped them sleep.
I've often thought about that invention, these past ten years, as we've witnessed the slow approach of dad's end. It was the incessant patter of dad's voice, his playful laugh, and those stories that I've pondered most. Yes, they guided me. Yes, they gave me grounding. Yes, they gave me history. But, they were more. Those seemingly endless stories were the soothing white noise of my life. They calmed me. They reminded me that there has been worse, and that this, too, shall pass. And now that white noise of my father's patter and never-ending stories is gone. Only deafening silence in the middle of winter's cold night.
How will I sleep?
SvenErlandson, MDiv, BadassCounseling NYC/Stamford CT
