From Funeral to Banquet
A distant cousin tracked me down on Thursday last week to tell me of his Dad’s death and the funeral on Saturday. I knew his parents fairly well. John Neudorf was one of my Gr’ma Elisabeth (Friesen)Kroeker’s 89 first cousins on her mother’s side. (She had only 63 first cousins on her father’s side). When I was writing my book, “A Godly Inheritance” to honour my beloved Gr’ma, I made a point of tracing these cousins until I had a fairly extensive genealogy, and of course I made friends with many of that older generation, and I’ve attended quite a few of their funerals.
I hardly felt I had time for one just now with my busy agendas, but Glenn’s only sister died a few years ago, and so I knew this would be a very small funeral, held, not in a church, but in the funeral home’s chapel. A lot of John’s remaining first cousins, (21 if my info is correct, as some may have died in other places and I was not notified), are very elderly and a sudden trip to a funeral on short notice is not always feasible. I did notify a few, but decided to just go myself to make sure someone was there for Glenn. He lives 6 hours away on the other side of Edmonton.
As it turned out he had a number of first cousins from his mother’s side who showed up, and a couple of Neudorf cousins. Glenn was very glad to see me too, and I found myself explaining several times to different people that Glenn’s father, John Neudorf was my Gr’ma’s first cousin, Glenn was my Mom’s second cousin, and I was third cousins with his children. Of those his son, and two daughters were there, and also Glenn’s wife Carolyn. Altogether, I counted about 40-45 people present, so I was pleased for Glenn’s sake.
John’s widow, Helen was there in a wheelchair. I was shocked when I saw her. Although they lived in a nursing home just blocks from my place, I had not seen them in the last year or two, and she had shrivelled up so that it looked like she had only a few inches of back left. She also has some dementia, so that she did not take in that John had died.
At the cemetery she heard the minister (one of her nephews) say that we were laying John Neudorf to rest, and she piped up, “John Neudorf, that’s my husband!” The nieces hovering near her tried to shush her up, but I think that was her first clue that all this was about the fact that her husband was gone. After 66 years of marriage.
There was a small lunch reception afterwards at the Seniors’ centre nearby, and there Helen really became difficult to calm down. I think the whole day had been too unusual and busy for her, and Helen had a “melt-down” as they say. It was time to get her back to her familiar room at the nursing home.
I had committed to being at a fund-raising banquet for one of my ministry clients for which I build and maintain a website, and it was to start at 5 pm. I just took time to get acquainted with one other cousin, Lloyd, the stranger from B.C. I had his name in my database but had never met anyone from his branch. He seemed to appreciate meeting me, and promised to email for more of my data on the larger clan.
There was a photo-op of first cousins, and I lingered with my coat on just long enough to snap a photo there, and then raced off to the banquet. I made it in the nick of time!