“The Long Good-Bye” — Like All Else — Eventually Ends

I extend my thanks to all of you who have expressed such kind thoughts and remem­brances in the past cou­ple of weeks. I appre­ci­ate your reach­ing out more than I can describe and will write more later about “the long good-bye,” as Nancy Rea­gan aptly termed it, we said to my mother over a period of sev­eral years.

In trib­ute to her, I share here the eulogy that was read at the cel­e­bra­tion of her life, a wor­ship in memo­riam, on Octo­ber 19, 2005:

Ethel Hickok, 88, of Lodi, died Octo­ber 13, 2005, in Lodi, fol­low­ing a lengthy illness.Ethel Josephine Haverly was born Novem­ber 8, 1916, near Kid­der, South Dakota to Nor­we­gian immi­grants Joe and Anna Haverly.

She was raised on the fam­ily farm there and grad­u­ated in 1934 from Kid­der High School where she was proud to have been the class Salutatorian.

Ethel’s biggest regret in life was that she was unable to con­tinue on to col­lege. That fact drove her to want her daugh­ters and grand­sons to com­plete their educations.

She mar­ried Ken­neth Hickok on March 18, 1941. One year later, Kenny received greet­ings from the U.S. Gov­ern­ment and was drafted. Ethel returned home to the farm to live with her par­ents while Kenny served in the Pacific The­atre. Fol­low­ing the war, they resided in Brit­ton, South Dakota. They moved to Lodi in June 1957. In June 1959, they moved into the home they built on Cres­cent Avenue.

When writ­ing an obit­u­ary, the ten­dency is to look for tan­gi­ble mark­ers of the person’s life: Mem­ber­ships in clubs and orga­ni­za­tions, com­mu­nity groups, career mile­stones, etc. But Ethel was not a “joiner.” Ethel was a home­maker, mean­ing that her life was devoted to tak­ing care of her home and her family.

Ethel was always busy. She was a fab­u­lous cook who leaves few recipes because they were mostly in her head. “Oh, I don’t know … a lit­tle of this and a lit­tle of that,” she’d say when asked what the ingre­di­ents were. Ethel spent a lot of time in the kitchen can­ning peaches, cher­ries, and apri­cots. She made a bunch of vari­eties of pick­les. She made home­made cin­na­mon rolls, buns, and donuts, and, at Christ­mas, there were lots of dif­fer­ent kinds of cook­ies and other good­ies. The Nor­we­gian treats were the best: Krumkakes, sun­bokkels, lefse … She and Kenny got a grid­dle dur­ing a trip back to South Dakota, Kenny made a spe­cial turner from a yard­stick, and they had a lefse assem­bly line going. They also put together a mean stuff­ing for the turkey every year that can never be pre­cisely duplicated.

Kenny and Ethel worked together on projects around the house all the time. Some­times Ethel would have the idea and Kenny would exe­cute it. It was that way with much of the stor­age in the house: Ethel would say, “Do you think we could put a __________ there?” That would get Kenny started think­ing about it and fig­ur­ing out how to build it … before you knew it, it was fin­ished and Ethel was paint­ing the new shelf or cab­i­net. Because of their team­work, Janie was the only kid who had slum­ber par­ties in the garage: They worked together to build shelv­ing, put tile on the floor and ceil­ing …Kenny even installed a fur­nace. Janie had sev­eral birth­day par­ties there in Decem­ber! (Of course, installing the heater was prob­a­bly also about self-preservation. They couldn’t hear Janie, Robin, Lynette, and the rest of the gig­gling girls – or the stereo — from their bed­room!) It was also much like that when they decided to enlarge the house in 1982. They had an idea, called the con­trac­tor and by the time Janie arrived home from Los Ange­les for Christ­mas that year, they were sit­ting in the new fam­ily room.

Ethel also had a green thumb. Her roses and camel­lias bloomed richly and fully. She had a recipe for that, too. She would go out into the garage, whip up a con­coc­tion of plant food, and the red roses by the front step would sur­vive yet another winter.

Hav­ing grown up on a farm, Ethel had a strong affin­ity for ani­mals. When­ever she was near, the fam­ily ani­mals would run straight for her, jump up on her lap, and set­tle down con­tent­edly for the dura­tion of her visit. Richard had to start say­ing “Reg­u­lar and Ethel” when refer­ring to Kenny and Ethel because Sandy, the cocker spaniel, under­stood “Nana and Papa” & would run sit by the front door to wait for them. Ethel was prob­a­bly the only per­son who could prac­ti­cally morph an inde­pen­dent, stub­born house­cat into a well-trained dog: TC’er really didn’t care if she ever went home again or not after stay­ing with Nana. She fol­lowed Ethel around the house con­tent­edly, respond­ing to com­mands, much to Janie’s hor­ri­fied amuse­ment. And then there was Bar­ney. Let’s just say that Bar­ney was very well cared for.

Ethel was an accom­plished seam­stress. When the girls were young, Ethel sewed most of their cloth­ing, as well as her own. They had beau­ti­ful dressy dresses, some­times with iden­ti­cally match­ing ver­sions for their dolls. Ethel made her­self fully lined, tai­lored suits and whether it was wall­pa­per or fab­ric, you could not find the seams. “Tin­kle,” Judy’s favorite doll, had a spe­cially designed satin wed­ding gown and the rem­nants from Judy’s white lace con­fir­ma­tion dress became a wed­ding dress for Janie’s Bar­bie. But Ethel didn’t stop with just the dress: Bar­bie also had a veil, bou­quet that fit into her molded hand, and even a tiny blue garter, com­plete with arti­fi­cial flow­ers attached.

In later years, Ethel took up cro­chet­ing, mak­ing afghans for the whole fam­ily, includ­ing spe­cial white ones in which to wrap each grand­son as he was baptized.

But most of all, Ethel enjoyed her four boys. When Paul, the old­est, was born, Kenny and Ethel were com­pletely trans­formed. Janie laughs that, at first, she would go over to their house, watch them dot­ing on Paul, and think, “Who are you peo­ple and what have you done with my par­ents?” Soon enough, it was also Robert they were ecsta­tic about. Kenny would greet the boys at the door –- no need to ring the door­bell — and then say, “Go find Nana!” They’d run through the house look­ing for her. Judy and Janie laugh­ingly remem­ber that, after the boys were born, their father barely said hello to them any more! Naps were fre­quently taken in Nana or Papa’s lap because after the lit­tle one fell asleep, they would con­tinue hold­ing him, rather than allow him to be laid on the bed. Paul was noto­ri­ous for beg­ging to go home with them when they came to visit, one time even run­ning after the car! Papa stopped & Judy relented.

All four boys spent a lot of time at Nana’s. As you will see at the lun­cheon, there was one type of food Nana always had on hand for them, but she stocked the cup­boards with other treats, as well. They were what mat­tered most to her, and what kept her going after Kenny’s death. She would tell peo­ple, “Sure, it’s hard, but I have four grand­sons and two daugh­ters to live for.”

Ethel was a life-long church mem­ber, bap­tized and con­firmed. And the things she learned grow­ing up in that lit­tle white church stayed with her and com­forted her to her very last hour. Even as her mem­ory and eye­sight were fad­ing, and her grand­sons had to assist her to walk in and out of the sanc­tu­ary, Ethel didn’t need a hym­nal. Sit­ting next to her in church, she was amaz­ingly still able to recite the Lord’s Prayer or Apos­tles’ Creed, or sing a famil­iar hymn. She didn’t miss a syl­la­ble, even long after other mem­o­ries had faded.

In March 1991, Kenny and Ethel cel­e­brated their 50th wed­ding anniver­sary. Ten months later, on Jan­u­ary 18, 1992, Ethel was pre­ceded in death by her hus­band. She was also pre­ceded in death by her two older broth­ers, Melvin and Selmer Haverly.

She is sur­vived by her daugh­ters, Judy (Richard) McK­elvey, and Janie (Robert E.) Siess, as well as those four cher­ished grand­sons who are car­ry­ing “Nana” to her final rest­ing place beside Papa today: Paul Richard and Andrew Ken­neth McK­elvey, and Robert Ken­neth and Matthew Joseph (short for “Josephine,” Ethel’s mid­dle name) Siess, as well as two sis­ters, Gladys Doyle and Alma Ander­son, both of Brit­ton, South Dakota.

Tech­no­rati Tags: Alzheimer’s, Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life, The Spin Cycle

On the Same Topic:

• The Long Good-Bye
• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life: The Merry Christ­mas 2009 — and Final — Edition
• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life — Thank­ful­ness Edition
• I Have a Confession
• Car­ni­val of Fam­ily Life: Happy Hal­loween 2009 Edition