#843 – Dick Bernard: Valentine's Day 2014

(click to enlarge. Stella and Verena were on neighboring farms, perhaps first grade age, when this card was made and delivered about 1920 or so.)

Homemade Valentine from Stella to Verena Busch about 1920, ND.

Homemade Valentine from Stella to Verena Busch about 1920, ND.


Today is Valentine’s Day. I wish you a good day today. For us, life has other plans, and the dinner we’d planned to have at a local restaurant is replaced by an unplanned trip to LaMoure ND for the funeral, on Saturday, of my Aunt Edith Busch, who died at 93 early Wednesday morning.
Such is how life often goes, unplanned. Hard as we try to control things, things happen. Usually we dust ourselves off, and some semblance of normal reappears. For Edith, life’s troubles are behind. At the funeral, those of us in attendance will try to put ourselves in the shoes of Edith and her brother, Vincent, who occupied the same space with her for all of his 89 years, most of those years on the Pioneer Farm where their parents broke the first ground in 1905 (at top left of the below photo you can see a portion of Grandma and Grandpas wedding certificate, which still hangs on the farm house wall 99 years later.
Grandma Rosa and Uncle Fred married in rural Wisconsin near Dubuque IA, Feb 28, 1905, and within a month took the train out to their undeveloped piece of land in North Dakota. They were 25 and 21 respectively, so the hard work was an adventure of youth. Together they raised nine kids, all but one surviving to old age.
Daughter Verena died in 1927 at age 15 from a burst appendix. Edith was 7 and Vincent 2 at the time. This was a hugely traumatic life event for the Busch’s. When I was checking on burial plots in the country cemetery in nearby Berlin, I found that Grandma and Grandpa had purchased ten adjoining plots then, the first for Verena, later for the two of them, and the rest of their other children living at the time.
Edith, and sometime in the future Vince, will be the 4th and 5th occupants of the space at St. John’s Cemetery. All the other siblings are buried elsewhere.
Here’s the photo I’ve picked for this Valentine’s Day.
(click to enlarge photos)
Edith and Vincent Busch, December, 1996

Edith and Vincent Busch, December, 1996


(The photo is as photos were in the pre-digital age, when you didn’t waste film and didn’t know what you got till it was developed, and that included expressions. The photo was taken in December 1996. I picked this photo specifically because of the heart on Edith’s Christmas sweater. You can click to enlarge it. You’ll see it has an American Gothic kind of theme, appropriate to Edith and for this occasion.)
Their town, LaMoure, is a town of about 1000, like all small towns so familiar to me on the midwest prairie. Those of we nephews and nieces who can make it to the funeral will have dinner at the local restaurant, Centerfield, which is, true to it’s name, just beyond the center field fence of the local Baseball diamond. It is a nice restaurant, and it will probably be packed. Probably Uncle Vincent will join us, then we’ll go back to the Nursing Home with him to just sit and reminisce, and have some dessert, brought ‘potluck’ by the guests.
Then, the next morning we go across the street, literally, to Holy Rosary Catholic Church for the funeral; the Church Altar Society will have lunch and there will be more visiting, and back in the car for the 315 mile trip back – that is always the constant.
None of Vince’s close relatives live in the town, and he’s now the last sibling, and only one sibling spouse survives. His “children” are we nieces and nephews, far flung as we are from the area he’s lived his entire life.
Sometimes we don’t think about that. The St. Rose Nursing Home staff and the local LaMoure caring infrastructure now become Vince’s family for his difficult emotional times ahead. I’m grateful that Vince and Edith lived there, and previously at Rosewood Court Assisted Living next door.
Valentine’s Day is today. I can’t say that it is a “Happy” Valentine’s Day for us, but then it is a day for friends and family to gather and remember.
Farewell, Edith.
All best wishes, Vince, as a new time in your life begins.

0 replies

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.