(click to enlarge photos)

Yesterday was Aunt Edith’s funeral. My post on February 14 as preliminary is here. It was an inspiring two days. Seven of we nieces and nephews made it to LaMoure (and skated part of the way home afterwards!) and in all about 40 or so attended a most appropriate funeral, and a wonderful lunch followed, as always. Three of Edith’s nieces remembered how she impacted on them, individually, as a role model. For a sad occasion, nothing much could be better.
Our family is a far flung crew, so relatively few could make it back for Edith’s funeral.
My sister, Mary Ann, left a phone message from Vanuatu in the south Pacific, where she is serving in the Peace Corps.
Vince and Edith’s “double cousin”, Mel, who grew up next farm over, wrote from Eureka CA on funeral day, and summed things up well:
“Thanks for the update on the funeral plans. I hope that you realize that we could not attend due to time and distance , but my thoughts were there remembering the youth times of our lives and the great memories of that special time. I am sure that Vince will sorely miss the love of his sister for all of these years and [we] will keep both of them in our hearts and prayers.
As the passage of time is inevitable we will sometime all be together again. Of the original 21 young people reared in the old homestead, only 3 of us remain, Ruby, Vince and myself.”
Re “double cousins”: the “old homesteads” were adjoining farms, ten miles northwest of LaMoure. Brother and Sister Buschs and Sister and Brother Bernings in the country neighborhood between Cuba City and Sinsinawa WI married in 1905 and 1906 respectively, and took up farms very near each other. Thus all their kids were “double cousins’.
One of Mel’s nephews in Iowa, in another e-mail, described the close relationship well: “Regarding Edith’s photo in the obit … it was quite a shock to see it for all of us. She resembled our sister Marianne so much … Marianne passed away a few months ago at the age of 79.” Edith and Marianne’s mother, Lillian, were “double cousins”!
Below is my favorite photo of Aunt Edith with her sisters, in 1968, at her sister Florence’s farm near Dazey ND. There was a sixth sister, Verena, who died at age 15 in 1927. All of the five knew her as well. (There were three brothers, two younger than Edith). Bernings were similarly a family filled with girls, and only two boys. Another “double cousin” trait.

Death is the great leveler. None of us escape. Funerals are reminders of deaths inevitability. They also remind us of coming together: community.
Twenty-one years ago we had a Berning-Busch family reunion at the Grand Rapids ND Park (a photo of most of us who came is below). You can find Edith in the front row towards the left; Vincent is near the back on the right side. Family members who look at this photo will find a great many pictures of people now deceased. It is a reminder that if you are thinking of doing a reunion, do it now.

But “community” is far more than just family. We all know this.
Friday night, Valentines Day, we arrived and gathered for dinner at 5:30 p.m. at LaMoure’s Centerfield Restaurant We had no reservations. No room at the inn, so to speak.
The hostess didn’t know us, asked why we were in town, “for Edith Busch’s funeral”, and said “wait a minute”. They set up a special table for 11 of us in the back of the restaurant.
I could relate many other similar happenings in these two days, and at other times, and so can you. A list would start with the personnel at St. Rose Care Center, and Rosewood Court, and Holy Rosary Church, but would go on and on.
In our polarized nation and world, where we are separated so often into competing “tribes” of all assorted kinds, the fact remains that we are really one community, and we never know when we will need that “other” who we choose not to associate with.
All best wishes, Vincent. Your sister, Edith, is at rest.
And if you’re ever in LaMoure, stop in at the Centerfield Restaurant, where hospitality is at home.


POSTNOTE:
The front page commentary of the Basilica of St. Mary newsletter this morning seems to fit the “community” theme: Basilica Welcome 2 16 14001. And Fr. Bauer’s commentary on the todays Gospel, Matthew 8:20-37, the business of laws and lives generally, seems to apply as well. I always hesitate to interpret others expressed thoughts, but will take the risk here. As I heard the gist of Fr. Bauer’s remarks, the Law is fine, but essential is one one lives in relation to others. So, he seemed to call into question anyone who has a pure idea of what is right, and what is not…. But that’s just my interpretation.