We didn't want to miss the funeral of one of the figures of our past when we heard about his passing. Actually, he wasn't a close friend, but as the adult son of our long-ago pastors, we felt like we knew him. As a young man, he had presented a visitation seminar at our church when we were young marrieds. Living away in the south for a lifetime, we had heard snippets of his rise to prominence in his career, but it seems his overwhelming attribute was his love for his fellow man.
Well, I should say, first was his love of God, as testified to by several speakers at his services yesterday. One even drew an analogy to Abraham, establishing altars wherever he went, as this individual was active in church work, as well as community service, wherever his career for the oil company took him.
A particularly telling incident shared yesterday was this gentleman's response to the passing of a sad legend in our community. Lydie Marland, girl-wife of an Oklahoma governor and oil magnate who had lived briefly in the Marland mansion erected for her here by her husband, had returned in her last years after living anonymously in hiding, unable to face the disgrace of lost fortune. She had come back to the only security she had, Lydie's cottage, the one piece of real estate left for her on the mansion grounds that she had paid taxes on over the years from different mailing addresses around the country.
Old and tattered, her youth and beauty gone along with her most of her teeth, she wandered waif-like around the grounds, occasionally spotted as a fleeting shadow. This friend, a vice-president by then of the company her husband founded, directed his wife to see that the flowers and arrangements at her funeral were befitting of the First Lady of Conoco and a First Lady of Oklahoma.
Included in the modest funeral program handed to us was a folded sheet of paper with a poem written years ago by the deceased to his wife. It was a beautiful tribute of devotion and appreciation on their 30th anniversary. His love for her was a theme repeated often in the
service. In one of the eulogies, a former pastor of the departed related a story of when they were invited to a picnic by the older couple.
"At last, some home cooking!" the young pastor exclaimed on seeing the elaborate feast being taken from the picnic basket. Our friend took him aside and instructed him that his wife was his dearest friend and greatest blessing on earth, and he should treat her as such and be careful of her feelings.
One of the loves of his life was mentoring young couples and and conducting marriage seminars. Evidently, his own worked out well, as attested to by adoring grandchildren whose voices broke in giving fond memories of a grandpa-built tree house, his encouragement of
their youthful dreams, and prayers and example he set over the years. "When I woke up at their house, Grandma would be in the kitchen making a huge breakfast, and I would find Grandpa in his study reading the Bible," one spoke.
A victim of Alzheimer's in his last years and resident of a nursing home, he was still communicating his love for his wife on her visits. She had been trying unsuccessfully for some time to sell their substantial home, keeping him abreast of the progress. It seemed fitting that when at last she was able to give him the news that it had sold and that the transaction was completed, the brilliant financier, his earthly house in order, in a few minutes departed to his heavenly home, moving to the place prepared for him, not made by human hands.
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