Storyshare

“Who is wise and knowledgeable among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.” (v. 13)

Dad called me from the farm in the fall of 1981 with that urgent, somber tone in his voice he always had when he was about to share bad news.

“Frank died,” he said.

“Frank Brown?” I asked, shocked.

“Yep, Virgie called,” he said. “He has been sick for quite a while.”

Frank Brown had been our cattle trucker for as long as I could remember. Everybody knew Frank; one couldn’t miss him. He was a big strapping guy; he wore bib overalls and a faded-blue engineer’s cap. Frank was kind of a quiet guy, but I once heard him cussing out a cow who was resisting his suggestion to climb into the truck. He could spout a stream of salty language with the best of ’em.

When Dad needed a milk cow, he would call Frank and tell him what he wanted. Frank went to all the farm auctions and usually came back with the goods. He would back the truck up to the barn door, step down from the cab – cattle cane in hand – spit out some of his chew, and say, “There she is, Leonard, the best milker in the sale.”

At auction days at Equity Livestock Sales in Richland Center, Wisconsin, he would make several trips to town and back. At Orrin’s gas station in Loyd, Wisconsin, the old boys sitting around the pop cooler would tell about the time Frank was coming back from town. After eating his lunch in the cab he threw the wrappers out the window. Then he happened to glance in the rear-view mirror – and saw a state trooper right behind him. Frank quickly threw his cap out the window. He stopped the truck, got out, gathered up his hat and the wrappers, climbed back into the cab and went on his way. That was Frank.

Frank was a long-time bachelor; everybody assumed Frank would never marry. At 43 years old he seemed well past the marrying age. When he wasn’t trucking, Frank was working the farm with his prize Percheron horses. Frank’s Percherons were the most beautiful draft horses I have ever seen – shiny-black and more than 16 hands high, they weighed in at about 2,000 pounds; they were a sight to behold. Frank loved those horses more than anything else in the world.

When word came that Frank had married Virginia – “Virgie” – from over by La Farge, Wisconsin, the party lines were buzzing for days; everybody was shocked. They were even more astonished when they came to know her. Virgie went to church every Sunday while Frank never darkened the door of the church. He’d hardly go to a pancake supper let alone a Sunday service.

Before long Virgie was teaching the adult Bible class. She was an “accept the Lord as your personal Savior, tee-totaling, clean-talking, cut your hair, dress right, and sit up straight” God-fearing woman of faith.

Frank spent Sundays with the horses. And let’s just say that when they acted up, Frank spoke to them in a colorful way.

It was a mixed marriage!

My colleague, the Rev. Judie Jacobson, married Virgie’s son. Judie told me one day, when their four-year-old daughter was staying at the farm with her mother-in-law and Grandpa Frank, Virgie looked out the window and saw that the Percherons had gotten out into the yard. They were nibbling on one of her beloved flower beds. Little Susie was shaking her fist up and down and shouting at the horses.

Virgie ran outside and Susie said, “It’s okay Grandma, I sons-a-bitched them for you.”

Judie said, “Frank was a very good grandpa. Every year at Christmas time, if there was snow, he would get the bobsled out with the horses and take the children for a ride. He would sometimes babysit Susie by plopping her up on top of one of the great big Percherons.”

The last time I saw Frank was at the Godager Funeral Home in Blue River, Wisconsin, when Jay Murley died while I was pastor there back in 1977. Jay was also a legend in the cattlemen’s world. He owned the stockyards on the north edge of Blue River, not far from the Wisconsin River. Like Frank, Jay was recognized by all as a good and honest man, as nice a fella as one would ever want to meet.

Unlike Frank, Jay was in church every Sunday. So when I went to the visitation the night before the funeral, the viewing room was packed with both church people and cattle people. The first thing I saw when I came outside, after saying a prayer with the family, was Frank’s truck parked across the street. Frank was sitting in the cab with the window down, holding court. He never went inside.

It was just four years after that when Dad called with the news about Frank. I wasn’t able to attend the funeral but Dad called me first thing afterward.

He said, “Be sure and turn on the TV news tonight. Channel 3 was here from Madison to cover the funeral.”

Dad said it was the biggest funeral he had ever seen at our little church in Loyd. Virgie saw to it that Frank’s casket was placed on the hay wagon and drawn up the hill to the cemetery by his beloved Percherons.

When Virgie died 11 years later, in 1992, she was buried on the hill beside Frank. Her stone is etched with the words “Lover of Flowers” and a picture of irises. And etched on Frank’s stone are the words “Lover of Percherons” around a large horse’s head.

I have always wondered if they went to the same place, the faithful churchwoman and the cow-cussing salty trucker. Surely the “God of the living,” who brought them together against all odds, would not separate them in eternity.