With great sadness and emotion I regret to inform you that on March 3, 2009 David Stewart has left this world to join his creator and loving wife Fran Stewart. David passed away in the evening with his loving family Melody (daughter), Melissa, David, Ann (grandchildren) and Randy (nephew) at his side.
I am sure David's genuine grace and goodwill has touched all of you receiving this email, your thoughts and prayers will be heard through Gods power and wisdom in the coming days as we all remember the good man David was to all of us.
Details of the funeral services are underway and will be released via the Sioux Falls Argus Leader newspaper on Wednesday, March 4, 2009. http://www.argusleader.com/obits Our thoughts and prayers are with all of you during this sad time.
Sincerely yours,
Dave Roberts (grandson-in law)
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Sioux Falls - David W. Stewart, 80, of Sioux Falls, died Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at Dougherty Hospice House. David W. Stewart was born April 28, 1928 at Faulkton, South Dakota to Albert O. (A.O.) and Lillian (Wik) Stewart. He lived on the family farm and attended rural schools in the area. He graduated from Cresbard High School in 1946. Following high school, he entered military service in November of 1950, and served in the U.S. Navy. While in the Navy, David served as a Flight Engineer. He received his honorable discharge from the Navy in August of 1954 and returned to the family farm for a short time. He attended the Virginia Farrell School of Cosmetology in Michigan. It was there that he met Fran Attilio. They moved to Sioux Falls where they were married. He and his brother, Gordon Stewart started Stewart Enterprises. David won several awards in artistic hair design. He was also a cosmetology teacher, and spoke to many different organizations. His passions include personal flying for over 30 years, leather tooling, photography, chain saw sculpturing, metal engraving, gun finishing, golf, fishing, dirt biking and artistic woodturning. Above all else, his greatest passion was for his family. He was a devoted father to his daughter, Melody, and spent an inordinate amount of time and energy on the younger members of his family, starting with his nieces and nephews, and extending to all his grandchildren and great grandchildren. He was lovingly called papa by all of his immediate family, including his three grandchildren, Melissa (Mike) McMunigal, David (Julie) Mickelberg, and Ann (Dave) Roberts; and to his seven great grandchildren, Maxwell, Dunnavin and Franne McMunigal, Zoe and Ben Roberts, and Margaret Ann and Peter Mickelberg. David was active in many different organizations including being a very active member of First Baptist Church. He served on the Board of Trustees at the church, of which he was a past chairman. He had also served on the board of the Girl Scouts, Sales and Marketing, South Dakota Cosmetology Association, and the Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce Education Committee. He was a member of the El Riad Shrine Temple where he served on the Divan and was in the Rickshaw Unit. David was part of the Cosmetology Crediting Inspection Team and the Governor's Education Oversight Committee. He was also a past member of the Optimist Club. Grateful for having shared his life are his daughter, Melody Mickelberg, of Sioux Falls, SD; his three grandchildren and seven great grandchildren; two brothers, Gordon (Dee) Stewart and Roger (Carol) Stewart, both of Sioux Falls; and two sisters, LaVonne Griffith of Sioux Falls, and Betty Fillbach, of Ipswich, SD. He was preceded in death by his parents; and his wife, Fran on September 15, 2008.Memorial services will begin at 2:00 pm Friday at First Baptist Church. Private interment will precede the memorial service at Hills of Rest Memorial Park. The family will be present to greet friends from 5:00 - 7:00 pm Thursday at Miller Funeral Home, Main Avenue location.
The family requests that memorials be directed to the El Riad Shrine Building Fund. For obituary and online registry, please visit www.millerfh.com.
Betty T. O'Shea, nee Caplis, of Chicago, beloved wife of the late James O'Shea, C.F.D.; loving mother of Bonnie Johnson, John, C.P.D./C.F.D. (Kristin), James, C.F.D. (Julia), Marilyn Libaris and Kevin O'Shea, C.F.D.; like a mother to John Murray, C.P.D.; proud Nana of Billy, Aimee, Erik, Michael, Erin, Jimmy, Katie, Michael, Timmy, Kevin, Grace, Patrick, Liam, Ryan and the late Kimberly; great-grandmother of Brendan; fond sister of the late Tom, C.F.D. (late Helen) and late John, C.F.D. (late Gen) Caplis; dear aunt of Mike, G.F.D. (Kathy), Tom, C.F.D. (Joan), Mary Caplis, Betty (Pete, C.F.D.) Lazzara and the late Johnny and Maureen Caplis; great-aunt of Tommy, Danny, Katie and Patrick. Betty is also survived by many cherished and beloved friends. Visitation Friday from 3 until 9 p.m. at The M.J. Suerth Funeral Home, 6754 N. Northwest Highway, Chicago. Funeral Saturday, family and friends meeting at Saint Eugene Church, 7930 W. Foster, Chicago, for Mass at 10 a.m.
In lieu of flowers, memorials to Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, 150 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 400, Chicago, IL 60601 appreciated. Interment All Saints Cemetery. For information, 773-631-1240, 847-823-6540 or www.suerth.com
David Weidenmoyer passed from this life at his home on January 1, 2009.
Mr. Weidenmoyer was of the Protestant faith and was a Dialysis Technician with DaVita Dialysis Center of Ocala, FL. Mr. Weidenmoyer moved to Ocala from Berlin, NJ in 1991. He enjoyed Country music, Bob Dylan, and The Grateful Dead. He enjoyed playing guitar and singing Karaoke. He is survived by his mother Edith Weidenmoyer of Ocala, FL; sister Joyce Wik and husband Paul of Downingtown, PA.; sister Kathleen Bommer and husband Wayne of Laurel Springs, NJ; brother James Hamilton and wife Anna of Pine Hill, NJ; and sister Valerie Lindsay and husband Craig of Cedar Brook, NJ; and many nieces and nephews.
He was predeceased by his father, Roy Weidenmoyer in 2001.
Frances Marie Stewart died Monday, September 15, 2008 at her residence after a long illness. Public visitation begins at 2:00 PM Wednesday, September 17, 2008 at Miller Funeral Home, 13th & Main Ave. with the family present from 5-7. A private family committal will be at 12:00 Noon, Thursday at Hills of Rest Memorial Park with a public memorial service to follow at 2:00 PM at First Baptist Church. In lieu of flowers memorials may be directed to the Heartland House or the Shrine Transportation Fund.
Frances Marie Stewart was born April 29, 1923, in Beyer, PA, to parents who came from Italy through Ellis Island along with two brothers and a sister. Fran was the 8th of 11 children. Her family and she were very Mediterranean in their way of thinking, talking and doing for others. She always had a hug and kind word for everyone she encountered; be it family, friend, acquaintance or perfect stranger that she thought needed it. She will be remembered as full of love and concern for others. Her family traditions were extremely important to her….spaghetti at every birthday celebration.
Frances was united in marriage to David Stewart on October 18, 1957 in Sioux Falls. Fran was a loving homemaker and wife to David; a dedicated mother to Melody; grandmother to Melissa (Mike), David (Julie), and Ann (David); Nana to seven great grandchildren - Max, Dunnavin, Franne, Zoe, Ben, Margaret Ann, and Peter; and sister to surviving siblings Mary Deluca, Frank Attilio, Tony (Helen) Attilio, and Viola Gett.
Her parents, brother’s Floyd, Ernest, Peter and John and sister’s Jean and Pauline preceded her in death.
She was a woman with a broom or a dustpan or a washrag or a mixing spoon in her hand. You saw her cutting pie crust in the morning, humming to it, or you saw her setting out the baked pies at noon or taking them in, cool, at dusk. She glided through the halls as steadily as a vacuum machine, seeking, finding, and setting to rights. She made mirrors of every window, to catch the sun. She strolled but twice through any garden, trowel in hand, and the flowers raised their quivering fires upon the warm air in her wake. She touched people like pictures, to set their frames straight. But, now? . . .
“Grandma,” said everyone. “Great-grandma.”
Now it was as if a huge sum in arithmetic were finally drawing to an end. She had stuffed turkeys, chickens, squabs, gentlemen, and boys. She had washed ceilings, walls, invalids, and children. She had laid linoleum, repaired bicycles and stoked furnaces. Her hands had flown all around about and down, gentling this, holding that, throwing baseballs, swinging bright croquet mallets, seeding black earth, or fixing covers or dumplings, ragouts, and children wildly strewn by slumber. She had pulled down shades, pinched out candles, turned switches, and—grown old. Looking back on 30 billions of things started, carried, finished, and done, it all summed up, totaled out; the last decimal was placed, the final zero swung slowly into line. Now, chalk in hand, she stood back from life a silent hour before reaching for the eraser.
“Let me see now,” said Great-grandma. “Let me see . . .”
With no fuss or further ado, she traveled the house in an ever-circling inventory, reached the stairs at last, and took herself up three flights to her room where, silently, she laid herself out under the snowing-cool sheets of her bed and began to die.
Again the voices: “Grandma! Great-grandma!”
The family surrounded her bed.
“Just let me lie,” she whispered.
Her ailment could not be seen in any microscope; it was a mild but ever-deepening tiredness, a dim weighing of her sparrow body; sleepy, sleepier, sleepiest.
“Great-grandma, now listen—what you’re doing is no better than breaking a lease. This house will fall down without you. You must give us at least a year’s notice!”
Great-grandma opened one eye. Ninety years gazed calmly out at her physicians like a dust ghost from a high cupola window in a fast-emptying house. “Tom? . . .”
The boy was sent, alone, to her whispering bed.
“Tom,” she said, faintly, far away, “in the Southern Seas there’s a day in each man’s life when he knows it’s time to shake hands with all his friends and say good-by and sail away, and he does, and it’s natural—it’s just his time. That’s how it is today. I’m so like you sometimes, sitting through Saturday matinees until nine at night when we send you dad to bring you home. Tom, when the time comes that the same cowboys are shooting the same Indians on the same mountaintop, then it’s best to fold back the seat and head for the door, with no regrets and no walking backward up the aisle. So, I’m leaving while I’m happy and still entertained.”
Douglas was summoned next to her side.
“Grandma, who’ll shingle the roof next spring?”
Every April, as far back as there were calendars, you thought you heard woodpeckers tapping the housetop. But no, it was Great-grandma singing, pounding nails, replacing shingles, high in the sky! “Douglas,” she whispered, “don’t ever let anyone do the shingles unless it’s fun for them. Look around come April, and say, “Who’d like to fix the roof?’ And whichever face lights up is the face you want, Douglas. Because up there on the roof you can see the whole town going toward the country going toward the edge of the earth and the river shining.”
Her voice sank to a soft flutter.
Douglas was crying.
She roused herself again. “Now, why are you doing that?”
“Because,” he said, “you won’t be here tomorrow.”
She turned a small hand mirror from herself to the boy. He looked at her face and himself in the mirror, and then again at her face as she said, “Tomorrow morning I’ll get up at seven and wash behind my ears; I’ll run to church with Charlie Woodman; I’ll picnic at Electric Park; I’ll swim, run barefoot, fall out of trees, chew spearmint gum . . .Douglas, Douglas, for shame! You cut your fingernails, don’t you?”
“Yes’m.”
“Well, consider then, boy. Any man saves fingernail clippings is a fool. You ever see a snake bother to keep his peeled skin? That’s about all you got here today in this bed is fingernails and snakeskin. One good breath would send me up in flakes. Important thing is not the me that’s lying here, but the me that’s sitting on the edge of the bed looking back at me, and the me that’s downstairs cooking supper, or out in the garage under the car, or in the library reading. All the new parts, they count.” “I’m not really dying today. No person ever died that had a family. I’ll be around a long time. A thousand years from now a whole township of my offspring will be biting sour apples in the gumwood shade. That’s my answer to anyone asks big questions! Quick now, send me the rest!” The entire family approached, like people seeing someone off at the rail station.
“Well,” said Great-grandma, “there I am. I’m not humble, so it’s nice seeing you standing by my bed. Now next week there’s late gardening and closet cleaning and clothes buying for the children to do. And since that part of me which is called, for convenience, Great-grandma, won’t be here to step it along, those other parts of me called Uncle Bert and Leo and Tom and Douglas, and all the other names, will have to take over.”
“Yes, Grandma.”
“I don’t want anyone saying any thing sweet about me tomorrow; I said it all in my time and my pride. I’ve tasted every victual and danced every dance; now there’s one last tart I haven’t bit on, one tune I haven’t whistled. But I’m not afraid. I’m truly curious. So don’t you worry about me. Now, all of you go, and let me find my sleep . . .”
Somewhere a door closed quietly.
“That’s better.” Alone, she snuggled down through the warm snowbank of linen and wool, sheet and cover; and the colors of the patchwood quilt were bright as the circus banners of old time.
A long time back, she thought, I dreamed a dream, and was enjoying it so much when someone waked me and that was the day when I was born. And now? Now, let me see . . .
She cast her mind back. Where was I? Ninety years . . . how to take up the thread and the pattern of that lost dream again? She put out a small hand. There . . . yes, that was it.
She smiled. Deeper in the warm snow hill she turned her head upon her pillow. That was better. Now, yes, now she saw it shaping in her mind quietly, and with a serenity like a sea moving along an endless and self-refreshing shore. Now she let the old dream touch and lift her from the snow and drift her above the scarce-remembered bed.
Downstairs, she thought, they are polishing the silver, and rummaging through the cellar, and dusting in the halls. She could hear them living all through the house.
“It’s all right,” whispered Great-grandma, as the dream floated her. “Like everything else in life, it’s fitting.”
I believe that mom is in irreversible decline. But, in the meantime, she needs to be comforted and be kept comfortable. Since she cannot feed herself and since it is not the job of the staff there to feed her, it looks like family members will need to feed her. It is a cruel death indeed to die by thirst or starvation. It brought a wave of indescribable sadness to see mom lie in a wet mattress, shivering because she was too cold, and barely able to sip water from a straw. I think we also need to recognize that people work through grief in different ways. Grief has many masks and some people express grief through laughter or numbness, by maintaining their routines, by emotional disengagement, or by spiritualizing. This is a difficult time, and we need to be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has forgiven us. We also need to recognize that we have our own limits and priorities, and we need to protect ourselves from taking on more than we can or should handle, sometimes by saying no and sometimes by asking for help.
Finally, we need to come to terms with mom's imminent death. It may be days or weeks or months, but it may be that we're seeing mom's final battle. And the great gift that God has given us is time to reconcile us to her death. It's hard to do so, but for our own sake and the sake of our families we must do so. As she said to me "I know where I am going" and we need to be happy for that.
Anne has asked on more than one occasion the eternal why-- why this good woman of faith spent the last half decade in such pain. I think of C.S. Lewis who aggressively promoted the classic Christian answer to evil and suffering in The Problem of Pain. You may remember the movie “Shadowlands”, played by Anthony Hopkins as Lewis, in which he had a crisis of faith when he watched his young bride die of cancer. At the end of the day, there are no satisfactory answers—only the consolation of faith in the One who also suffered-- and our friends and family. In one of the last scenes in “Shadowlands,” we see the professor hugging his young step-son after his wife had just died-- both in tears. Perhaps that is the only real answer in the face of the silence and distance of God.
Faith is not all green pastures and still waters. The comforters in the Book of Job put forth their rational arguments, and at the end Job—without an explanation but with the real experience of God—turns from questioning to wondering silence: “I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.” In this fragment of time on this planet, we are in this together and we must help each other out. Suffering is inextricably part of the human condition, and if there is one thing we must believe in, it is that we can make a difference. To live is to suffer. To suffer is to find meaning. And, if there is purpose in life, there must be purpose in suffering and death. The Psalmist said that “My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.” It did not say, “My tragedy comes from the Lord.” The bad that happens in our life has no meaning. But we can redeem it by giving it meaning. When I have felt sad, I have taken solace in the familiar prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi: “O Divine master, grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
My mother is currently at Dresher Hill Health & Rehabilitation 1390 Camp Hill Rd. Dresher, PA 19034
The office number is (215) 643-0600. She is in room 233, bed 1.
Mom is currently unable to sit up and is weak. She has difficulty speaking and wouldn't be able to respond to a telephone conversation. Mom cannot read nor write and she has lost much of her memory. Mom does recognize faces and takes pleasure in visitors, although she tires easily. I think she would appreciate cards and of course your prayers and best wishes. Mom's future is in God's hands, but I believe that mom may be fighting her last battle.
Last week, I flew out to visit mom and I just returned home last night. The train arrived at the Roslyn station at about 10:30 pm and Tim picked me up moments later. Dad greeted me when we got home but Mom was slumbering. The next morning, I awoke and Mom was in the kitchen. I was immediately struck by the fact that she was almost completely doubled over, with a height perhaps now no more than half mine. Nevertheless, she pealed an orange with a knife and turned on the gas stove for a breakfast of shredded wheat with steaming water. Mom was grateful for Nancy's stained glass Serenity Prayer, and later that day I hung it in the kitchen window where it can catch the light.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference.
The sentiment is much like Mom's favorite Bible verse from Proverbs 3.
Trust in the LORD with all your heartand lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him,and he will direct your paths.
Dad and Mom both had bad colds, so it was somewhat unfair to assess Mom's mental state. However, we did talk and I treasure that those moments at the kitchen table.
At sometime after eight, I heard mom call me from the bathroom. She was lying prone with her head on the bathtub about two inches from the floor, having tripped on the floor mats. Mom had a golf-ball-sized bump on the back of her head and, although I didn't know it at the time, her right arm was badly bruised. At about nine, Sherry, the physical therapist, arrived. She was adamant that Mom should be taken to the emergency room because of her being on Coumadin (a blood thinner), and Mom was equally adamant that she wanted to stay home-- fighting like a tiger to not go to a place that has brought her so much pain. About two hours later, Dad finally had me call 911, perhaps when he saw that Mom could no longer sit up. Anne arrived, and at about midday, we went to Abington Memorial's emergency room. Her physical and mental state has waxed and waned.
There are times when she is incoherent-- thinking that the year is 1918 or 1998 or that she needs to now help make the dinner for Dad as she pulls at the wires from her sparrow body. At other times, flashes of wit emerged, as for when Anne asked Mom if she was a tree climber. "Of course," mom said. "The higher the better."
But it was sad to see someone who was once so sharp and capable now hooked up to the same kind of machines that are used to monitor new born infants and also experiencing all the institutional smells, sounds, and sights that comes with that. Mom said of her experience in the ER that "I have been humiliated to the nth degree," and I think as a family we need to do what we can to honor mom's sense of propriety. It is out of that sense of propriety that she has asked for a closed casket funeral and that I suggest that during this time we forgo photos or videos of Mom while she is the way she is now. I know Mom would want us to honor her in that way.
What are the facts at present? Because of ongoing arterial fibrillation-- heart flutters-- her pulse has on occasion exceeded 150. But it is normal now with medication. Yesterday, she wasn't eating. Today, she is eating. Yesterday, she was paralyzed, unable to even sip water. Today, she is sitting up with assistance and eating food. She doesn't appear to be in pain. Mom does recognize faces and can give yes/no/of course answers or short answers. But I'm not sure that the words we're hearing are always associated with cognition.
The doctors reported today that she had another stroke on Sunday-- a TIA-- and is experiencing post-concussion syndrome. My view is that we are seeing a decline with ebbs and flows of mental and physical acuity. The plan is to be in rehab perhaps for two weeks. However, if she does go home, there needs to be a tough-minded review of the house from her point of view-- basically our vision on our knees. I've removed all the throw rugs, but Dad and Tim need to be sure that water is toweled up in the bathroom. There needs to be non-slip mats in the bathtub, better lighting, grab bars in the bathroom, removal of clutter, the habit of using the walker and wearing non-slip shoes, attention to vision and medications that can cause dizziness, and perhaps even sealing the door that goes to the basement. All of this seems like common sense, but the house is filled with stubborn people who for nine decades of their lives have in many matters leaned to their own understanding.
I was planning to visit my parents closer to my mother's birthday in October. However, the circumstances of the stroke and some of the decisions that were made at the time prompted me to come in earlier. I didn't anticipate mom's accident, of course, but I got a much more accurate sense of where things are now. While my parents are still living, I need to forgo other activities such as reunions and what Tim calls junkets, no matter how pleasurable they may be. I am at peace with this and I ask for understanding if I cannot spend more time doing things we have done in the past for fun. The remaining hours I have with my parents are precious. I have lived with mom and dad for no more than ten years. And, the last 25 years, I have spent the equivalent of a half year of my life with them, but spaced out over a quarter century. So the effect is like watching a stop action movie of a flowering and dying plant-- flourishing for a great length of time and then suddenly collapsing.
I would like to especially recognize the Birch family for their hospitality over the last week. Jennie and David are amazing children, bright, loving, and capable, and they can look forward to wonderful futures, and they owe much to their parents. I appreciate Anne's steadfast, tireless love for mom and medical erudition as well. It was a benediction to the soul for Anne and me to be on either side of Mom while we read from the Psalms and sometimes cried. I couldn't have asked for a better sister, and Mom could not have asked for a better daughter. So for Anne and Wayne, a heart felt thank you.
Some of the time we spent with Mom was sad-- sad that a woman who was fluent in several languages, who was triple certified in nursing, who traveled the globe and had friends throughout the continents is reduced to such paralysis and dependency. But Mom was never sad and on many occasions she was happy-- positively lighting up when she saw her nephew Frank White from Australia. What a kind man he was to remind us from Job that "I know my redeemer liveth" and mom's days are in God's hands.
The last hour I spent with mom-- possibly the last hour I will have with mom in this life-- was a time of smiles and hugs. Her voice was feathery and fluttery as she said "Philip, ever since you were a baby, I have loved you." I said "I will always love you." "Ditto," My Mom said. "You will always be with me." In 1981, Mom was by the side of her own mother as she died. Shortly after, she wrote this poem "in loving memory of my mother." It's the way I want to remember Mom, not the way I see her now, but in her vital and beautiful prime.
O Lord, Thank you for today and for the happy memories of yesterday. Help me to understand the mysteries of old age and to rejoice in your countless favors. I am keenly ware of my limitations and dependence upon others, but do give me a kind word and smile for any who may come my way. Save me from the critical fault finding habits into which many old people fall. As my mind takes pleasure in walking through the corridors of the past, only let me go loving, forgiving, and forgetting any who have hurt or caused me pain Help me to be wise, serene, patient, helpful, and unafraid lest self-pity and anger take away the peace of heart and joy of companionship with you my God.
Thank you Lord Jesus.
Sharing as I do Mom's love for literature, perhaps it is appropriate that I close with Prospero’s loving praise of Miranda in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, because it applies perfectly to My Mom: “She will outstrip all praise and make it halt behind her.”
... and is back in the hospital. The nurse confirmed that she suffered a stroke, which "has affected the left side of her body- (speech & strength) because her Coumadin that she takes for her atrial fibrillation was not in the therapeutic range that it should have been in, Thar was what caused her stroke, along with her high blood pressure."
Stroke is the third leading killer in the United States. Preventive screen involves a carotid vascular test with ultrasound technology that visualizes the buildup of fatty plaque in the carotid arteries that may black the flow of blood to the brain and lead to stroke.
My eighty-nine year old mom has been fighting ulcers and cellulitis for several years now and was in the hospital many times last year and more times in previous years. But her systemic illnesses hasn't diminished her good cheer, curiosity, and love for people, life, and God.
I was very sorry to hear of the death of a distant cousin Paul Stahl, 25, in South Dakota. The first paragraph is from my uncle and trhe remainder appeared in local newspapers.
I don't know if you have been informed that Janet & Robert Stahl's only son Paul died Oct. 9th. He had contacted hantavirus. It is a virus which can be inhaled from deer mouse dropppings; urine or saliva & there is no known cure for it other than one's own body being able to fight off the virus. He had not felt well & began to run a high fever later turning into nausea & flu like symtoms. He & Megan have a 6 mos. old little girl. They have been advised not to enter their manufactured home ,as they have no idea of where he might have contacted the virus, so are temporarily staying at Jamet & Roberts. Paul Stahl, 25, of Bridgewater, died Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2007, at Sanford Health in Sioux Falls of a sudden illness.His funeral will be Friday at 10:30 a.m. in the Bridgewater gym.Burial will be in Bridgewater Cemetery.Visitation will begin at 4 p.m. today at Zion Mennonite Church of Bridgewater with the family present from 7 to 8 p.m.He was born July 27, 1982, at Sioux Falls to Robert and Janet Stahl. He attended Lake Area Technical Institute and farmed in Bridgewater with his family.He married Megan Juhnke in 2004. She serves on the South Dakota State Fair Commission.He is survived by his wife; parents; grandparents, Paul and Hulda Stahl and Betty Fillbach; and parents-in-law, Kent and Sandy Juhnke.He was preceded in death by his grandfather, Myron Fillbach. Paul Stahl, 25, was working in his machine shop in Emery when he felt light-headed and dizzy Oct. 2.Within days, he felt sore muscles, a tightening chest and spiked a fever of 103.8 degrees. Stahl of Bridgewater went to a clinic in Salem on Oct. 5, then to Sanford USD Medical Center's emergency room that night. Hospital tests showed he had a virus, but doctors said it would have to run its course, Stahl's wife, Megan, said.When Stahl had nausea, a constant fever and deep muscle aches last weekend, he returned to the E.R. on Sunday, where he was admitted and had several tests for meningitis. They showed nothing abnormal.
A chest X-ray on Monday pointed doctors in the right direction when it showed that Stahl had interstitial pneumonia in both lungs - which is less common. An infectious-disease doctor began exploring whether hantavirus was an option, Megan Stahl, 25, said.After being put on a respirator to help with breathing, her husband died the next day in the intensive care unit.
"There is no way to pinpoint exactly where he contracted it," Megan Stahl said, adding her husband hadn't been out of state. "He loved the farm. He enjoyed being outside with the cattle, dogs and horses. ... We want to prevent this from happening to someone else."South Dakota has seen 13 cases of the disease since 1993. Of those, four have resulted in death, including one a year for the past three years.State Epidemiologist Lon Kightlinger said hantavirus can strike any time of the year. It's caused by a virus carried by rodents, primarily the deer mouse, and results in hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. That causes the lungs to fill with fluid and can cause respiratory failure.
The virus is found in mouse droppings, urine or saliva, which release the virus into the air when disturbed, Kightlinger said.It's best to treat mouse droppings or nests with bleach and water - and to let it soak - before carefully wiping it up and bagging it for disposal, Kightlinger said.
Hantavirus is not contagious or transmittable from human to human. Researchers don't know why some people exposed to the virus get sick while others don't, Kightlinger said.There have been 465 cases of hantavirus diagnosed since it was first detected in 1993 in the southwestern U.S. Deer mice are located throughout South Dakota.Symptoms usually appear within two to four weeks of exposure and include fatigue, fever, muscle ache, coughing, vomiting and diarrhea.
Paul Stahl was laid to rest Friday, with services at the Bridgewater gym. Along with his wife, he is survived by a 7-month-old daughter, Sydney; his parents, Robert and Janet; three grandparents; and his parents-in-law.
Just a week ago my dad spammed out an email to me and other relatives about his discoveries and studies about "Creation Science", I was appalled to see glaring straw men like Pascal's Wager and other things that no body uses as "evidence" anymore. I have always been proud and respectful of my Dad. I wrote a response to each one of his "evidences" but that email is still sitting in my outbox, I just cannot bring myself to send it. I think there is a point where confrontation would serve no purpose.
I think your approach was ethical and respectful of your dad. I've encountered the same situation with my father, who is a life-long Christian with strong convictions, especially on creationism, pre-milleanialism, the immorality of gays and the ACLU and the morality of the Bush family. I think disputation and defending one's point of view has its place. However, with my own father, I ask the question: to what end? as I know minds won't be changed although feelings could get hurt.
I remember the story of a great Hasidic rabbi whose mother went mad when he was a teenager. She would go out into the streets shouting and he would go out, find her and gently guide her back home. While she walked with him, she would insult him loudly and mock him to those he met along the way. He grew up exquisitely sensitive but he never, ever spoke badly of her. The more she acted horribly, the more protective of her he was. He may have been relieved when she died but he mourned her as if she were the greatest mother on earth.
This was one of his greatest merits. He honored his mother even though she did not honor him. In that, he was doing the mitzvah, "honor thy mother and thy father." He honored her in two ways. One, he covered her madness by removing her from a situation of shame. Had she ever become sane again, she might have been ashamed of her behavior so he stopped her behavior being a scandal to the neighbors. Then, he never complained that she was shaming him.
The balance is hard to reach. If your father is sending you input that erodes your respect for him, you find ways to replenish that respect from other sources. You don't respond to the messages that make you angry. If he insists on bringing them up, you shrug and change the subject to something about which you two can meet. Tell him you respect his opinion (not the contents but his right to hold it) but do not share it.
I had a father who loved to argue with me. Gawd, he had so much fun getting me riled up. But when he was sick at the end of his life and I knew I had to make sense of our time together, I realized that he had done me a favor by making me learn about the world just so I could argue with him. I became a ravenous reader and avid learner. I was able to thank him for the rancor of our earlier relationship. Maybe your father has made you a more aware skeptic along the way. Find ways to thank him for that.
