A Difficult Easter

Easter is often associated with the beginning of spring and the joy and happiness of life.  As someone once said, though, there would be no Easter without Good Friday.  Sadly, Good Friday of 2015 was also the day the our Creator chose to bring an end to the earthly life of  Cathy (Wilber) Madson.   Her obituary can be found here--http://www.fairfaxmemorialfuneralhome.com/obituary/Catherine-Ann-Madson/Fairfax-VA/1497175 


Even though our paths did not cross very frequently in school, we both attended catechism classes together at St. Thomas More in Brookings (Cathy is five days older than I).  Below is our first communion picture.  It was common back then to combine two classes for this rather significant occasion, as our numbers were probably not all that high to justify a yearly ceremony.  In our case, there were some who were two years ahead of us in school.  Although this picture has been posted before, it is easier to post it again, rather than to provide a link to it (have just discovered that the right part sometimes gets cropped.  It seems that if you click on it, it will be enlarged.  Hit the escape button to return to the blog).

Can you identify any of these individuals?  The elder priest is Fr. Francis X. Dooley.  He would retire shortly after this picture was taken, having served the parish from about 1915 through 1959.  He was originally from Brooklyn, NY, and retired there, passing away in 1961. I don't know who the younger, taller priest is.
 I know more of the boys in this picture than the girls.  A few of the boys I do not recall at all.  My best guess is what follows.  Feel free to amend this list. 

Row one on the bottom:  Cheri Ahern or Carol Cole?, Patsy Bates, Kathy Funk, ?, Debbie Shirley, Robyn Connelly, ?, ?, Cheri Ahern or Carol Cole?, Margaret Pearson.

Row two:  Jim Antonides, Mary Lu Shirley?, a Howell girl (from Volga; one was year older than we were, while Judy, I believe, was in our class), Cathy Wilber, Cecilia Kellogg, ?, ?, ?, the other Howell girl

Row three:  Rick Thompson, Mike Braley, Mike McClemans, Pat Durland, John Iverson, Alan Leibel, Stan Skubic, ?, ?, Rocky Watson, Kevin O'Connell

Row four:  Arnie deBlonk?, Jerry Martinson, Dan Holm, ?, Tim Serlet, Jim Springer?, Jon Martinson, Greg Graff, Doug Biggar, Jim Wakeman

The unknowns may be from this list:  Barb Faust, Susan Redmond, Kathy Smith, Diane Sturdevant (all of whom are in our class);  Sally Hoy, Vicki and Becki Knutson, Mary Do Stewart, Judy Gill, Mike Durland, Dennis Fox, John Gill, Steve Kellogg, Greg Moriarty, and Steve Rossman (all of whom were a year ahead of us). 

It was wonderful seeing Tom and Cathy at our class reunion six years ago.  I also saw them four years ago at the funeral of Kevin O'Connell's mother (http://eidsnessfuneralhome.com/memsol.cgi?user_id=375416)  We swapped a number of stories about the good old days.

This obviously is a stressful time for Tom and his family.  The last few years must have even been more stressful for Cathy.  Not only was she battling cancer, but ten months ago, she lost her mother (http://rudesfuneralhome.com/memsol.cgi?user_id=1320423).  One month later, she lost her step-father (http://rudesfuneralhome.com/memsol.cgi?user_id=1353329).  The grief that the family is experiencing right now must be overwhelming.  

I see Cathy's brother Art in church just about every week.  He is often an usher. He also works concessions at some of the high school activities.  He mentioned once that he sometimes tells the people buying snacks at half-time that he used to live right here.  The Wilber family owned the land that would eventually become the high school.  I never knew that.  

Her sister Mary was good friends in high school with one of my sisters.  They both graduated in 1957. 
Mary is married to Chuck Cecil, long-time newspaperman and later administrator at SDSU.  They still reside in Brookings.  Chuck has written numerous and delightfulbooks about Brookings, SDSU, and South Dakota (http://www.goodreads.com/author/list/1337864.Chuck_Cecil).  He also has a regular column in the Brookings Register to keep the public updated.

One vivid memory of Cathy goes back to our first year in the new high school.  She was going with a wrestler (Dan Sterud?), and mentioned to Mr. Sherrill how moody and irritable he could be during wrestling season because he was cutting weight.  Even though Dan was a wrestler, I knew him somewhat because we were on the Teener baseball team that had gone to Hershey a few years before (50 years ago, in fact).

If any of you reading this have some wonderful memories of Cathy, feel free to post them in the comments section.

Please keep Cathy in your thoughts and prayers.  One excellent way to remember Cathy would be to follow the request from her obituary:  "Please make a donation in Cathy's name to your favorite charity in lieu of flowers. Or, should you choose to support Cathy's favorite charities, they are the Fisher House Foundation, Children's Hospital of the King's Daughter or ThyCa – the Thyroid Cancer Survivors' Association."