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.
