Every February 16th I pause to remember a great man who passed away on that date, year 2000. He was named Everett Lyell Elson and he was my grandfather. He was born in 1920 to a farming family here in Chenoa, IL. They had a successful and fairly well-to-do farm. His grandfather had carved the virgin prairie that he grew up farming and built the house that he lived in. He personally saw many modern conveniences and farming advances that we take for granted, come
to the rural community first hand. From the time he starting helping plow with a team of horses, till he retired in 1985 a lot of changes came to rural Central Illinios. Tractors, steel-bottom plows, corn picking machines, combines, gas lights and heat, indoor plumbing, electric lights, rural phone service. He saw his livelihood and his community undergo major, fundamental changes in his lifetime.
Not just his farm and community, he lived through major national and global change as well. He was a boy during prohibition, the roaring 20's and the subsequent crash of the 1930's. As a young man he attended the University of Illinois and was a gifted mathematician. (Later in life, other farmers would come to him to ask for his help in figuring out acreage calculations and other questions). During that time, he saw major unrest in Europe that eventually lead to the infamous bombing of Pearl Harbor. He left the U of I and enlisted in the army. Within a year that farm boy from Illinois, along with a great many others that had never known anything other than farm or factory work, sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge and didn't stop till they got to Okinowa. He, and the other men of the 88th Signal Battalion were not glory-seeking "heroes," they were not career soldiers, they were men doing a job that needed to be done. As I've previously written:
These were men, perhaps, not necessarily trying to do something great, noble, and heroic. They were men doing what was necessary, because it 
had to be done, and they were the more heroic for that fact.
It is one thing to go out and seek to do great things as an end in itself. For glory or recognition or whatnot. It is quite another to stare into the teeth of hell and know that someone has to go in there and push it back. That is what these men did.
After the war, Lyell returned home, but never did go back to the U of I to finish the relatively short time he had left to finish his degree. The war had changed him. The world was different now. I don't know all that he went though at this time. These days he would have full medical and psychiatric support to help him transfer back to civilian life. To help cope with the hellish nightmare he and others had lived through as they lay in the mud of numberless, nameless Pacific Islands... the many memories of those that never got back up out of that mud. Back then there was no such support, he "went to stay with his aunt up North for a while." Whatever that means. I assume he sought whatever passed for professional help at the time.
He returned and married my grandmother, Doris Fosdick. They moved out to the farm where he, once again, took up farming the same prairie that William Elson had begun to tame all
those years before. From there the years are deceptively quick to summarize, 4 children, 12 grandchildren (and had he lived to see them, 10 great-grand children so far) a lifetime of commitment to church, family, community, and the endless cycle of the seasons. His was a life of integrity, simply lived. I realize that he was not a perfect man, but should we not hold up those noble qualities in the ones we loved as we seek to inspire ourselves and others with their memories? To that end, let me share a segment of a piece written by my brother as he was prompted to remember Grandpa's passing this last Thanksgiving:
I didn’t know Lyell as a farmer, or as a soldier, as a high school football captain, a college math wiz, youth group sponsor, or a Sunday school teacher. He was all of those things, but I knew him as grandpa. I remember him as quiet, reserved in public, slow to anger, quick with a smile, quicker to forgive, witty, content to watch the Cubs game with one eye, and chuckle at the grandkids running wild with the other. I didn’t have a lap sitting, story reading, baseball out back kind of relationship with my grandpa but I loved him, and I learned the kind of man I wanted to be through his death.
Forgive me a long story, but I don’t know that I’ve ever talked about all this. I was a sophomore in college and living at home. I came home and checked the messages. There were two. The first was my uncle Stanley calling for my mom saying that their dad, Lyell, had collapsed and being taken to the hospital. The second was also from my uncle Stanley. I remember it exactly, he said, “Jan, this is Stan again, I don’t know how to say this, but dad didn’t make it . . .” I was at home, by myself and found out my grandpa was dead through an answering machine message that wasn’t even for me.
A weird moment. I sat for a minute trying to figure out what to do. I called my mom at work to tell her I guess, or see if she already knew. She already knew and my dad was on his way to pick her up. I called my brother, who worked near the hospital they took grandpa to. I told him. He went to the hospital to see if grandma was still there. I went and picked up my sister at jazz band practice at the high school and told her. There is something ominous about sharing that kind of news. Its an eerie feeling you get, knowing you have news that will bring grief, sadness, and disbelief to the hearer yet you must tell them anyway. An odd day for sure.
The days that followed are a blur of family, strangers, hospitality from neighbors, churches, and friends. I will never forget the visitation though. Four hours of wall to wall people. In that moment I learned what it meant to be a man. Not manly in tough guy sort of way, but a man, a father, a husband, the importance of charity, grace, and forgiveness, the never ending reach of the simplest kindness. Everyone that walked through the doors of Duffy-Pills funeral home that night had a story. Some way that Lyell had touched their life. Many of them had never met him. They had been touched by his children, my mom and her brother and sisters. They had been influenced by his grandchildren, or touched by his faithfulness to the Lord. People drove from hours away to a little town in central Illinois to pay respects to a small time farmer and his family. By the worlds standards he didn’t amount to a whole lot. He didn’t have a lot of money, didn’t have fancy things, never held public office (that I know of), his kids weren’t astronauts or professional athletes and I believe the nicest suit he owned was the one grandma had to buy to bury him in. I’m glad the world’s standards didn’t mean much to my grandpa. He was a just, decent man, who loved the Lord and loved his family...
Not only was the stream of people seemingly never ending that night at the funeral home, the cards and letters continued to come for weeks, from literally all over the world. The simple faith and ministry that he and his wife lived and shared had impacted the world for the better. He was not just a pillar of this community, but far beyond. He was not outgoing and gregarious, aspiring or complex. He was an honest man, that expected others to be also. He occasionally suffered for this. He lost money, he worked harder than he might have had to otherwise, but he was an honest man, sincere and trusting. At the risk of getting too carried away, I summarize with this:
The world, literally, the world is a better place, because this farmer from Livingston County was a part of it. I truly believe that, I miss you Grandpa.
Micah 6:8 - He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
~Gabriel
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