#596 – Dick Bernard: Dottie Garwick, and other deaths

I’m of the age where attendance at memorials and funerals are a frequent activity, while marriages and christenings are uncommon.
We have quite a passel of grandchildren, so maybe this will change in a few years, but for now, that’s the routine.
Yesterday, it was the memorial for Dottie Garwick at Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church. It was a large service. There were hundreds in the Church; they ran out of programs.
I knew Dottie, but not well. I knew her husband, Hank, better. They are (I still prefer the present tense) a remarkable couple who exemplify the phrase, mentioned by someone in the service yesterday: “much is expected from those to whom much is given.” They were almost as likely to be found in India, or Haiti, as in Minneapolis.
Dottie’s obituary says it better than I: Dottie Garwick001
Of course, Dottie’s is not the only recent death.
A few hours before driving to Minneapolis I was reading about the unspeakable tragedy in River Falls, where an estranged Dad, for reasons known only to himself at this point, killed his three young daughters.
One can understand a passage like Dottie’s.
There is no understanding events like the one in River Falls, though it is tragedies like the one in River Falls that get the news…and that has probably always been the case.
We attempt to understand the impossible to understand.
I do family history, and River Falls brought to mind an old very long and virtually impossible to read newspaper clipping I found in a box of old postcards at my grandparents farm in North Dakota. (It’s here, if you want to try to decipher it: Kieler deaths001
It recounted at great length an event in rural Kieler WI, near Dubuque, well over 100 years ago, where, as the news reported it, a farm housewife whose husband was a carpenter killed her four young children with a butcher knife, and then killed herself.)
One of Grandma’s sisters likely sent her the clip from an incident that happened in a neighboring town, and it was one that Grandma allowed to survive, for reasons known only to Grandma.)
For all of us, there is the same destination. All we don’t know with certainty (thankfully) is the when and the how.
(Someone said Dottie and family were told she had two months to live; it turned out to be short weeks.)
July 29 I hope to go to a memorial for an elderly lady, Lois Swenson, who was murdered in her home a few weeks ago. I gather she was much like Dottie Garwick, a pillar of kindness who someone took advantage of.
Where do I – where do we – fit in all of this?
How we live today is an important question.
As Dottie’s service closed on Friday, we sang the hymn “Abide with me”, which was said to be Gandhi’s favorite hymn, and a national favorite of England. A youtube rendition here.
UPDATES:
Lydia, July 14: You pose some important questions, Dick. Lois Swenson’s murder & the deaths of 2 young children by stray bullets in the last 6 months have really thrown me. As peace activists, we focus on the terrible violence perpetrated by our government in other countries…but, what about the “war” in the streets of our cities? What can we do about that? I don’t have an immediate answer…but, the question weighs on me heavily.

1 reply
  1. JIM LOVESTAR
    JIM LOVESTAR says:

    I NOTED YOUR COMMENT AT THE END OF YOUR POST REGARDING VIOLENCE IN OUR LOCAL COMMUNITY. IN NORTH MINNEAPOLIS, WHERE I’VE LIVED SINCE 1988, WE RECOGNIZE THAT ONE OF THE ROOTS OF VIOLENCE IS POVERTY. NOW, RATHER THAN ASK FOR MONEY, WE IN “NORTHSIDE FRESH” WORK WITH PEOPLE TO HELP THEM LEARN HOW TO FEED THEMSELVES. THIS INVOLVES COMMUNITY GARDENS, COOKING CLASSES, FOOD PRESERVATION WORKSHOPS, AND OTHER WAYS THAT PEOPLE DEVELOP SELF-SUFFICIENCY. WE WORK TO KEEP THE WEALTH OF NORTH MPLS IN OUR COMMUNITY.
    NOURISHING PEOPLE NOURISHES COMMUNITY. A WELL NOURISHED COMMUNITY IS MORE PRONE TO HEALTHY CONFLICT RESOLUTION THAN VIOLENCE.

    Reply

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