Friday, September 23, 2005
That old empty feeling ...
Subtitle this, good neighbors are among the greatest gifts.
I've
been thinking a lot this morning about Marie Linville, who died Tuesday
at 73 in Chariton and who will be buried on Saturday in the Confidence
Cemetery down in Wayne County.
My goodness, Marie and her
husband, Richard, have been a part of my life since forever. I grew up
south of Russell on the Wayne County line, and just a mile down the
county line road east were Richard and Marie --- down the hill beyond
Cousin Glenn and Pansy Chapman's place on the corner.
They had been married 50 years 7 August, I see --- and I remember
that because suddenly later that fall the old house they had remodeled
into a home was filled with light as we rattled past before dawn aboard
the school bus headed into Russell.
And after that they were
always there. My dad helped Richard and his son, Bruce, wrangle cattle
time and time again. If we went on vacation, they did the chores and fed
the dogs (my dad always called the Linvilles from wherever we happened
to be to check on the dogs. God forbid they should miss us and not eat).
Time
and time again, the Linvilles went up the road, then back,
to-and-froming another of their farms. Time and time again, they stopped
to visit.
Marie had a tough life. Rheumatoid arthritis left her
twisted and in pain --- but undeterred. Pleasures were simple ---
children and grandchildren, old-time country music, some travel, a piece
of pie at Swan's Cafe in Promise City. A great and brave and gentle
soul, hers.
I saw them last, I think, at lunch last fall down at
Hardees in Chariton. Richard carried a little stool in the back of the
battered old pickup so that Marie could step up as he helped her
ever-so-carefully inside.
Grief is a funny thing. This is not the
gut-wrenching accompaniment to the loss of a spouse, a child, a parent,
someone intimately dear. It's an emptiness, a sense that there's
another hole in life now. Blessed be ...
Here's Marie's obituary:
Marie
Elizabeth Scheitel Linville, 73, died Tuesday September 20, 2005 at the
Chariton Nursing & Rehab Center. Services will be Saturday,
September 24, 2005 at 1 p.m. at the Pierschbacher Funeral Home in
Chariton. Burial will be in the Confidence Cemetery. Family will receive
friends from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday at the funeral home. Memorials may be
made to Circle of Friends Home Care in Chariton.
Marie was born
on October 20, 1931 in Potsdam, MN, and graduated from Rochester High
School in 1949. After graduation, she was employed as a radio-iodine
secretary at the Mayo Clinic from 1949 to 1955. She married Richard Ford
Linville of Russell, IA on August 7, 1955 in Milroy, MN. Marie and
Richard recently celebrated 50 years of marriage.
Those left to
honor her memory include her husband, Richard of Russell; two sons,
Bruce Linville of Ottumwa and Dennis Linville of Chariton; two
daughters, Marceline (Dennis) Slack of Mediapolis, and Rhonda (Mark)
White of Chariton; twelve grandchildren and five great-grandchildren; a
sister, Eunice Hadel of Blaine, MN; a brother, Marvin Scheitel of
Rochester, MN and several nieces and nephews.
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