I wanted to archive the Jerry Schaubert obituary from WJBD as well as my father’s post as well as share some of my own thoughts — in case any of these websites ever crash, at least we’ll have backups of grandpa’s obituary:

Wilson J. “Jerry” Schaubert, 86, of Salem, IL died December 22, 2018, at home in the care of his loving family.  Following graduating from Odin High School. he completed Carpenters School Apprenticeship Program.  He was the owner of Schaubert Construction Company formerly located in Salem. His memberships included the Carpenters Local #646 for 65 plus years, The Salem Elks Club, Salem Lions Club and was a former Jaycee.  He was a faithful member of the Salem First Christian Church, and had served as a Trustee and a Deacon.  In retirement, he and Peggy enjoyed traveling.  Never meeting a stranger, A friend made the comment, “every time I talked to your grandpa, I always walked away with a smile on my face.  I will forever remember his amazing wit and sense of humor.  To say he’ll be missed is an understatement.”Funeral services will be 1:00 P.M., Thursday, at the First Christian Church in Salem with Phil Martin, minister officiating.  Burial will follow in the East Lawn Cemetery.   Visiting hours will be from 5-8:00 pm on Wednesday at the First Christian Church, and from 12:00 o’clock noon, until the service hour on Thursday at the church.   The family suggest memorial in Jerry’s memory be made to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, or to the Oil Belt Christian Camp and will be received by the Rankin Funeral, entrusted with the family’s care.‘Jerry’ Schaubert was born on September 13, 1932, in Sandoval, IL, he was the son of Ervin J. and Violet (Fite) Schaubert.   He was united in marriage with Peggy A. Meigs, November 19, 1952, in Salem, and she survives.In addition to his wife, he is survived by his children, Pam Bandy and husband Steve of Alma, and Steve Schaubert of Altamont, along with his grandchildren Eric (Kelly) Bandy, Adam (Jayme) Bandy Lance (Tara) Schaubert, Heath (Ashley) Schaubert, and Lauren Schaubert.  Also, 6 great grandchildren including Tessa, Logan, Alek, Aubrey, Cooper, and Cormick.Also left to mourn his passing is his sister, Shirley Coffey of Salem, and several nieces and nephews. In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his infant son, Michael Lee Schaubert in 1953.

from the Jerry Schaubert Obituary on WJBD filed under “Wilson J. ‘Jerry’ Schaubert”

Personally, this is the third or fourth Christmas in a row where we’ve had something hard happen. Last Christmas my dad had cancer for two months and my aunt went in as well for a stretch and dad only got out on Christmas eve. The year before was grandpa Wiggins’ death. Other things have happened, so it’s been hard.

Grandpa Jerry died on winter solstice, which is the longest night of the year. From AOL:

…full moon and a meteor shower are set to coincide on Friday night, making winter solstice 2018 an extra special occurrence. The annual Ursids meteor shower, which began on Dec. 17 and will last until Dec. 24, will reach its peak between Friday and Saturday nights in the Northern Hemisphere, with up to 10 meteors entering Earth’s atmosphere per hour, Space.com reports. Although the “Cold Moon” — a name given to December’s full moon by Native American tribes due to the month’s frigid weather — will not reach its peak until midday on Saturday, it will still appear full by Friday night, the longest night of the year, rounding out the winter trifecta.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/12/21/winter-solstice-2018-full-moon-and-meteor-shower-to-coincide-in-rare-display/23624750/

From Earthsky:

December 22, 2018, will bring the final full moon of the year, falling less than a day after the December solstice. How close are the solstice and full moon in 2018? The solstice is December 21 at 4:23 p.m. CST (22:23 UTC). The full moon is December 22 at 11:49 a.m. CST (17:49 UTC). So the solstice and full moon fall less than one day apart. That means that – although the Northern Hemisphere had its longest winter night on December 21 – the lamp of a nearly full moon lit up the nighttime from dusk until dawn on solstice night. On December 22 – the night after the solstice – the moon will be technically past full as seen from the Americas, but it’ll still look round and full in the night sky. On December 22, the moon will appear skirting near the upraised Club of the easy-to-spot constellation Orion the Hunter, as shown on the chart at the top of this post. The last time the December solstice and full moon happened less than a day apart was in 2010, and the next time will be 2029.

https://earthsky.org/tonight/full-long-night-moon-on-december-22

From our perspective, dad and I had just left grandpa’s sick bed there in Salem to head back to Altamont (about forty-five minutes away) and a block from the house, we got the call that grandpa had passed, so we headed back at midnight and they waited to call time of death until we arrived. So it bridged the solstice and full moon, in a way. We got out of the car and the clouds roiled and boiled heavenward towards the moon in a great spiral. I’ve never seen anything like it. I doubt I’ll ever see weather quite like it again. This is the best picture dad could get:

And it reminded me of ranks on ranks of angels in the second and third and fourth heavens — Jacob’s ladder, the stairway to heaven — spiraling up towards heaven, further up and further in to God:

My father wrote this:

The day you always fear from time you are a child, came to be a reality in the earliest of hours Saturday. Pam and I lost our precious daddy after he battled various medical issues the past year. 

It’s never easy for anyone to lose a loved one, but it’s even harder when he’s been your best friend, champion, teacher and protector for your whole life. We were fortunate beyond all measure to have such a respected man of integrity for our father. He taught me so many things in life, and did his best to teach me many others that I struggled at times to pick up on, but he never gave up. He was still teaching me life’s lessons up until he drew his last breath. 

To my knowledge, he never met a stranger and usually walked away good friends when they parted ways. An ambassador of good will that loved talking with everyone he would meet. 

I got to see all sides of my papa , both as my dad, and as my boss, as I worked for him for many years. He was every bit as wonderful as a boss as he was a father. He ran a tight ship, yet would give you the space and the wings to be creative and achieve great success. I will always be thankful for the extra time we spent together working, that most people never get to enjoy, as their parents are gone all day at their respective jobs. In his last few weeks in the rehab center and hospital he was often very busy with his hands, and when you’d ask him what he was building, he’d reply, “ Well, houses in Heaven, of course.” There’s no doubt in my mind that that’s just what he’s doing now, running a big job, building houses for all of us to spend our Eternity together in Heaven

Glad you are no longer in any pain and are getting to walk the streets of gold with our Savior.

Love you Papa.

— from Steve Schaubert’s Facebook page

I’ll have more to write in the coming months in addition to this, the elegy for a carpenter, and Matt Otey’s story Old Man Chris about Mr. Old Man Winter Solstice that he sent me the night — it’ll probably be a year of remembering him, for me, as I’ve been working with him and the late grandpa Deno Wiggins on a story about them both for the last two years. For right now, there’s a chapter of it published in the New Haven Review out of Yale called “When Timbers Start” and an old poem I wrote him on his eightieth birthday called To Grandpa Schaubert on his Eightieth.

And then with nothing left to do, I wrote down what the last two months was like for us with grandpa dying.

I’ll try my best to do him justice over the next year, but if you didn’t know him, it’s hard to articulate what a loss this is. Flannery O’Conner once wrote a short story titled A Good Man is Hard to Find. Grandpa Jerry was one of those good men. In a world where “all men are beasts” and “all men are perverts” and “all men are trash” and “all men are idiots” and “all men are only out for money” and “all men only want power and to keep women down,” Jerry was a good man. He was interested in deference, in building up the community, and in keeping and preserving the best stories of the best of us so that we all tried to be better.

People these days often wear shirts or sport bumperstickers that say, “Down with the patriarchy,” meaning they want more women in the workplace or in political office. Whether that’s a good idea or a bad idea or just another idea is not the purpose of this piece: my point is that people who say such things, whether for or against, rarely stop to consider that such a wish or statement as “down with the patriarch” involves the death of the best and highest men our world has to offer. If ever any good came from patriarchy — and a case could be made that no good we now enjoy was not at one time predicated on such a system — then it came from good men like Jerry who weren’t out for themselves, who served his family diligently, who pushed us all to be be better, and joked with everyone he met to bring humor to the world even at his own expense.

With the passing of Jerry Schaubert, a good man is even harder to find.