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May 2006 Issue
by LaRae Free Kerr
My Dad died last Saturday. And I am far from home. I didn’t feel him drift away, and I am already lonesome for him. But as is the nature of our modern world, before I received the news, the documents recording his death were begun.
The nurses in the beautiful assisted living center, which had been his home the last few months, responded to his call and recorded his moment of death: 7:50 AM. Thus began the care facility’s record of his death.
When Sis called with the news, I entered the date into my database with the source: personal knowledge of (my sister’s name), the date and place.
The family immediately began working on his obituary. They called me for input, and in my grief, I gave them the wrong year of marriage.
By 2 o’clock, the obituary with the incorrect marriage year was on its way to the newspapers for the next day’s paper. When Sis called several hours later to get details for the death certificate, my heart had cleared enough to give correct information.
Legal records began soon after with the signing of the death certificate. Sis and I took a copy of the death certificate to the Social Security office, and his death will soon appear in the social security death index on the web. Within hours, notices and records of his death work their way through the world.
We also planned the funeral and memorial services and the printed programs for both.
My brother-in-law called, saying, “Shall we include the names of his descendants in the program?” I agreed.
When the mortician was contacted, mortuary records began. His death was noted in his church records, and soon enough, will be listed at BYU, his alma mater.
As is true for your relatives, most of these records will soon be available for anyone wanting to know more about my Dad. But unless I, or someone like me, writes them, tidbits about his life - like the following - will be forever lost.
When Dad graduated from Lincoln County, Nevada High School, he was student body President, Salutatorian, and the all-state basketball center for the State of Nevada. He was a nephew of Brigham Young.
Apparently, only two beryllium mines exist in the world. Dad prospected, located and sold the Utah mine which is still in production. Year after year, he was a member of the Million Dollar Round Table for Beneficial Life Insurance Company.
He was forgiving and honorable and generous. He and Mom quietly went about helping others. It wasn’t until his three children sat around talking shortly after his death, that we realized the extent of their generosity. For example, just before I returned home from my mission, which they financed, they asked if there was someone else they could support. I suggested a name, and that young lady was able to serve a full-time mission because of my Mom and Dad. Even when they were in their social security years, they sent a certain sum, month after month, to my son, who was serving in Puerto Rico. There were many in between.
Pictures flash through my mind – Dad chasing me, after sending me upstream after a salmon. Dad holding me in his arms and pinching my nose closed when I was eight-years-old and had the measles so bad that my nose bled and bled.
Dad lighting fuses hooked to dynamite in a tungsten mine, throwing us in the ore car and pushing us out to the tailing dump on a run.
Dad knocking on my bedroom door and saying he was leaving for Salt Lake City and the assay office. I could go if I could be ready in ten minutes. And he expected me to look good.
Dad leading us in family prayers, family home evenings before they were popular, church attendance and goodness.
Soon my husband and I were on a plane heading west, and then we were greeting friends, neighbors and relatives at the services who told us stories about Dad and Mom. We invited them to write the stories and email them to us. In fact, we added an email address to the funeral programs for that very purpose. When I arrived home, I discovered several had sent stories.
We stood near the coffin in Panaca, Nevada, visiting with relatives. I patted the coffin and said goodbye, realizing two records will come from this burial – his tombstone and the sexton notations.
In death, there is a harvest of information to be gathered, prepared, and preserved. Even now I sense the value of these painful moments. My intent in sharing such personal pain is not to depress, but to put into perspective the deepest essence of family history itself. That essence is found in the relation of the dead to the living.
Death itself is the passing of life into history, and family history is a way of catching up with the dead and weaving together the gentle fragments of life that remind us of who we are. I hope that this sharing of my life and death fragments inspires you to weave together your own family identity.
LaRae Free Kerr thanks her children, who helped with this column. She can be reached at itsallrelatives@grundyec.net.
