Blanche Parkinson Monson Wunderli

Blanche Parkinson Monson Wunderli

Grandma Blanche Wunderli – Funeral Talk

June 21, 2000

Stephen Wunderli

Everything I’m about to tell you is true.  I swear it.  I have been known to exaggerate, but this occasion would not permit it.  If anything, I will constrain myself, relay in a conservative way, a few stories.  First of all, I love Grandma Wunderli.  It’s no secret that she was different, sometimes, eccentric, often self-absorbed. . . OK, always self-absorbed.  Who could forget grandma interrupting the soloist at Jed’s wedding to tell her how beautiful she was singing?  I suppose this self-focus is what made her so interesting to talk to.  She could describe, in the most poetic detail, the delicate lotion she put on her hands or the rationale, however circuitous, for her avoidance of a particular vegetable.  When she talked of the Church, it was as if she were the host on some uncharted and unguided journey into unknown logic.  I often wondered how she would defend herself in a court of law, even over a minor infraction, say a parking ticket.  Can’t you just imagine her wearing out the judge with her defense, how her sophistries would fill the room, surround the listeners, lose them in a labyrinth of language and leave them begging for mercy?  And of course she would call each of them after the trial was over, twice, to make sure she had not been misunderstood.  She would be legendary.  Grandma filibuster.  It’s no wonder Earl and Johnny went into law:  they were fascinated by the endless possibilities offered by language and human rationalization.  It’s what I loved about grandma.  Her surprises.  Her almost compulsive neatness – hand-wrapped caramels.  And she had taste, wonderfully good taste.  She had her own world.  She had her ways.  She was a delight to talk to, most of the time.  And fun to tease.  Actually, irresistible.  In her purple sunglasses, I once told her she looked like Janis Joplin.  She giggled along, probably recognizing the musical name of Joplin, but unable to place Janis.  And she had wonderful children.  Children that were selfless, self-deprecating, nurturing and close, always close as siblings.  No matter what their differences.  And they could laugh, laugh like no other family I have ever known.  Laugh and hang on each other, touch each other in some unspoken language while they laughed until their sides hurt.  When Lida was in the hospital, they were all laughing so loud around her bedside, the nurse had to ask them to leave.

The last funeral grandma and I were together she confessed to me that she had gas.  As always, a conversation with grandma was about her.  And that’s what was happening in her life at the moment, gas.  In hushed tones she whispered to me that living alone had dulled her etiquette.  With no one around to hear her “joyful noise” it became her habit to, as she put it, “not inhibit herself.”  I told her we were all family, and that if she was so inclined, to just sing a song softly to cover up any rumblings.  She giggled like a school girl, with one hand to her face and the other lightly on my arm.  “Oh Stephen,” she said as she always did.  “You can always make me laugh, even at a funeral.”

A family trait, I’m afraid.  We too, grew up laughing at our foibles, our trials, our large Wunderli ears.  Even at funeral.  I guess because we are all together.  Reminds me of that Lyle Lovett song;  “Haven’t had such a good time since the last time someone died.”

I loved grandma’s laugh.  It was guarded, sneaking out from behind her hand as if she were rationing it.  And she would touch me, always a hand on my arm or shoulder or holding my hand.  I loved seeing all those pictures of her at the viewing for the first time.  In her insecurities she had hidden them away.  I touched them, almost like grandma would, more like my father would – secretly, keeping emotions behind the laughter.  Because it has always been the laughter that has kept them, us, together.  Emotions, hard emotions are expressed in that touch.

Grandma called me when I was in high school.  She talked to mom first telling her she had a tree she needed cut down.  Mom volunteered her favorite son, David.  But grandma insisted it be me to help her.  And that I come after dark.  It had the aura of something covert, and I was more than happy to oblige.  Turns out it was her neighbor’s tree, partially growing through her fence.  Grandma was so particular about everything.  She wanted the tree gone because it was unattractive and kept the sun from her flowers.  She met me at the door with a saw and a bottle of tree poison.  We did the deed together, grandma giggling while I whispered mock secret operative code words and commands.  I imagined the neighbor calling for grandma’s deposition and having to suffer through a most eloquent line of reasoning unheard of since the mistrials in Alice in Wonderland.  She held my arm when I left that night.  Walked me to my car, touching my arm.

We loved to have grandma babysit us while my parents were travelling.  Mom and Dad don’t know this, but as soon as their tail lights were out of the driveway, grandma turned to me and Freddy (I think we were 13 and 14 then) and she said: “I really don’t sleep well unless I’m in my own bed.”  Within fifteen minutes she was gone, and we had the week, the house, and mom’s station wagon to ourselves.  We skipped school, stayed up all night, ran wild through the neighborhood and spent the grocery money on burgers and candy bars.  Oh, she showed up once, about midweek with a box full of pies.  Incredible pies, Swiss apple and cherry and rhubarb – each with its perfectly tucked crust, filling that melted in your mouth.  It’s all we ate for days.  Then she disappeared again until the day mom and dad got home.  She straightened up the kitchen, put the cushions back on the couch and greeted my parents with a big smile.  “What a wonderful week we had together!” she said.  My mom, just a little suspicious always asked:  “Really?  Did you have a good week, Stevie?”  “Oh yes mom,” I answered in angelic tones.  “I had a wonderful week.”

After one such week, my mother discovered a plant in the bathroom had died.  Of course we hadn’t watered it, mom had asked grandma to.  And since she wasn’t there, well, it died.  Mom asked grandma about it.  I remember the accusation in her voice:  “Blanche, did you water this plant like I asked you?”  “Oh yes,” grandma lied, “but you know, Bernie.  The boys don’t always lift the toilet seat when they go to the bathroom in there.  Maybe that killed it.”

Pure genius.  No wonder Johnny and Earl are so successful.  How could you help but learn from logic like that?

We hugged grandma that day.  She touched our faces or shoulders without looking at us.  She talked for a few more minutes, a short conversation that day because she was probably afraid that the conversation might turn to how we spent our week.  She was a master conversationalist. 

But conversing was not grandma’s greatest quality.  No, her greatest quality was her children.  I love them all.  I love how they can be so different and be so close as a family, each occupying their own space, giving and loving unconditionally.  If grandma ever did anything right, it was having wonderful children.

There’s Nancy, the wit of the family.  It was Nancy who told me my first off-color joke.  We laughed.  Then she said:  “now don’t tell your father where you heard it.”  I returned the favor last night at the viewing.  She laughed until tears came to her eyes.  And she touched me on the arm, hugged me, held onto my hand.

Lida.  Lida was, and always will be, the heart of the family.  Her devotion to children, all of them within the family and within her reach were blessed by her touch, her kindness, her pure selflessness.  She was a volunteer at my children’s elementary school.  They loved her.  She often hugged them, and me when I dropped by.  She touched the most in the family.

Earl.  Earl is the mind of the family.  The intelligence.  Irrefutable (just ask Corinne).  Well read, well versed, welcomed at any dinner table for his ability to make things interesting.  Never argumentative, but loves to stir a little spice into any conversation, one-handed of course, because he always talke to you with his other hand holding onto your elbow.

Fred.  My father.  The conscience of the family.  Pop brings common sense to the dinner table.  First to forgive.  First to serve.  Last to lose sight of the steady course.  Always one to poke fun while he wraps his arms around you.  He loved to be around Nancy’s Grant just to hear his booming laugh.  He has a spiritual strength, a strength all who know him count on.  Perhaps more than he knows.  To talk to him, is to be touched by him.

Johnny.  Johnny is the inner-child in the family.  Even though he is not the youngest, he embodies the curiosity, the exuberance, the delight in all things most children lose as they grow older.  He is always happy, lives to laugh, and laughs heartily at every misfire or fortune.  To Johnny it is all the same:  A good life.  To me, he will always be in his mid-twenties, laughing in the bitter cold at my little-league football games, rubbing my hands to keep them warm.

Rick.  Ricky the others call him, because they will always be older.  A fact that he has not let go unnoticed.  He is the restless adventurer, always exploring new places, new thought.  Ever the idealist.  All great adventurers have always been hopeless idealists.  Rick has always been the sarcastic idealist.  His laugh is the quietest, but probably the deepest.  Ricky has always believed he could make something better:  himself, his family, his students.  Imagine how many lives he has succeeded with.

There are some home movies somewhere, transferred to video tape from super 8, or maybe it was just 8 back then.  There are only a couple minutes of footage.  The Wunderli family playing softball together.  It must have been in the early fifties.  The first thing that strikes you is, well, first is how skinny they all are – shirtless men in the summer.  I thought it was an old newsreel from Auschwitz, until I recognized my father.  But watching them, two minutes captured on film, a family forever in that single eternal moment:  laughing, clowning around, arms draped casually on each other, an unspoken bond, a love so pure that it is expressed in nonchalance.  Grandma is there, hiding from the camera, of course, or swatting at it playfully.  And Grandpa Fritz, looking over his family, patting them on the shoulders as they walked by, proud of each of them in their own way, their own personality.  Delighted at who they are.  He touched me when I was a small boy.  His hands smelled like work.  But he smiled, smiled the way he did in that eternal two minutes.  The smile prompted by his children, as if he knows who they would become, how much they would love, and how forever they would be a family. 

My mother was with Grandma in those last days.  Grandma was frail, small as a child.  My mother touched her, stroked her hair the way she would one of her own children.  “Oh Bernie,” Grandma said, “Bernie, hold me.”

In the end, all we have is who we touch, who we have touched, who we hold onto.

How grateful I am for the children Grandma left behind.  For the ways they’ve touched my life.  My prayer is that they always live in that moment of easy love, accepting each other – laughing, skinny teenagers with nothing to hide and everything to share.  May they always laugh, and may they always, always touch. . . in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Blanche’s Life Story

(given at her funeral on June 21, 2000)

By

Earl Wunderli

I’d like to join John in thanking you who have come to celebrate Mom’s life and mourn her passing:  neighbors (including the Stones next door and the Nortons down the street, who visited Mom at Woodland about three days before she died, brought flowers, and had their 12-year-old daughter, Lauren, play her a violin piece); friends; and even some who knew her little if at all but are here out of respect for her children.

I am going to outline Mom’s life story, the heritage and experiences that shaped her life.  A grandson Steve, and two sons Rick and Fred, will share their reminiscences.  I am the reporter, they are the editorialists.

Mom was born August 14, 1907, to Walter P. and Leona Parkinson Monson in Preston, Idaho.  Her paternal grandfather was a polygamist, and her father probably received only the equivalent of a high school education but continued to educate himself throughout his life.  His spelling, grammar, handwriting, and vocabulary are reported to have been superb, and whether by nature or nurture, Mom was also and always meticulous about her own spelling, grammar, handwriting, and vocabulary.  Indeed, because of mom’s influence, I say, for example, “drahma” rather than “drama,” and “endyure” rather than “endoor.”

Mom revered her parents.  Her father went off on his first mission for the LDS church “without purse or scipt” for two years to Oregon, leaving her mother with one child and one on the way.  As they did in those days, Mom’s mother did such things as make and sell sandwiches and ice cream to a nearby construction crew to support her husband and herself.

After his return, they had a third baby, who died six weeks later of pneumonia.  Her father started a lumber business in Preston, wehre four more children were born, including Mom, who would be the seventh of ten children.  Two years after Mom’s birth, her father was called as mission president in London, and left a thriving lumber business.  His family went with him, and Mom spent her remaining pre-school years in London.

When they returned, they lived in Ogden, where her father managed the Eccles Lumber Company, but two years later he was called as mission president in New York.  There Keyne, Mom’s one surviving sibling and who is with us today, was born in what is today known as Harlem.  The congregation met for a time in a room above the famous Apollo Theater.  They later moved to Brooklyn.  They were in New York for five years, where Mom spent her sixth through eleventh years.

They returned to Utah in 1918 [Kris' note: I think it was 1919, according to other sources] where her father sought work in Salt Lake City.  They had some hard times.  Her parents had lost their life’s savings in a bank failure, and for about four years, her father could find only sporadic employment.  Her father finally found a good position in sales at the Morrison and Merrill Lumber Company, during which time Mom graduated from Granite high School but tragically lost a younger brother to leukemia when he was only six.

Mom went on to finish one year at the University of Utah, and completed a secretarial course at the LDS Business School, during which time she met Dad, who was “block teaching” at her older sister’s home where Mom was visiting.  Then a well-known pastry chef at the hotel Utah, Dad was a widower, having been married to Lida Edmunds, a prominent teacher of piano, who had died from complication of childbirth in 1925.  Her little girl, Lida, whom Mom raised, was nearly three when Mom married Dad in 1928 in the Salt Lake LDS temple.

While Mom was beginning her family, her father suffered a coronary but lived, her mother died, an older brother died from typhoid fever a few months after he returned from his mission, the great depression began, and her father died in 1935.

Mom would have five children of her own from 1929 to 1940:  Nancy, myself, Fred, John, and Rick.  Soon after Nancy was born, they moved to Grants Pass, Oregon, where Dad was offered a co-managership of a hotel.  They returned to Salt Lake City in 1933, and soon thereafter he was offered a partnership in a new restaurant, the Beau Brummel Café in downtown Salt Lake City, where Dad served as operations manager and chef.

In 1936 they bought a house at 65 I Street for $2000.  If I were writing the history of a nation, I would call the next fifteen years or so its golden age.  This is when and where all the kids essentially grew up, going to Longfellow elementary, then to Bryant, and finally to East High School.  Mom and Dad provided an optimum combination of discipline and freedom for the kids; we cleaned our bedrooms every Saturday and did the dishes, but we were free to roam all over the avenues, and we did.  Dad worked a split shift, from early morning until early afternoon, when he would go to the Deseret Gym for a game of handball and a swim and then return for the dinner hour.  But they did what they could with the kids, including Sunday afternoon automobile rides with a stop for ice cream at Fendalls or a foot-long hot dog at the Windmill Tavern in Murray.  We would listen Sunday evening to Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Burns and Allen, and the $64 Question.  We would take short vacations to Como Springs in Morgan, Bear Lake, Yellowstone Park, and Zion’s and Bryce Canyons.  We boated once on Utah Lake in Dad’s butcher’s boat and the annual Executives Club outing at Lagoon was the highlight of our summers.

Dad’s health was tentative in 1946 when the lease for the Beau Brummel expired and he decided not to continue at the café but to look for something less demanding.  Eventually they bought a property on 4^th East with rental units and an opportunity to start Foods by Fritz, which was, ironically, very demanding.  The kids were growing up.  Lida was married, Nancy married in 1950, and I went away to school in 1950.  They sold the Fourth East property, and Mom herself went to work for the federal government, first at the Veterans Administration and finally at the IRS, retiring after 20 years.  They moved into 1764 Herbert Avenue in late 1953, which becamse their castle until Dad’s death in 1965 and Mom’s until she could no longer manage to live there just a few weeks ago.

After Dad died, Mom was to have the home to herself for the next 35 years.  She was always industrious, hard working, strong, and energetic, and kept her castle on Herbert Avenue meticulous inside and out until the years took their toll and she had to hire someone to weed her gardens and trim her bushes.

Dad’s first wife, Lida, as a prominent piano teacher owned a Steinway Grand Piano which stayed with Fritz after her married mom, and that Steinway was one of the joys of her life.  Mom’s older sister, Venna, envied Mom’s ability to play the piano by ear, but mom in turn, who could read notes only with effort, admired Venna, who was an accomplished pianist, having been professionally trained in New York, but could not play by ear.  I still remember when Mom heard of Venna’s tragic death in an automobile accident in the 1940s; Mom was devastated to lose her only sister, whom she loved so dearly. [Kris’ Note:  Venna’s death date is Sept. 16, 1939. Their other sister, Elna Rose, had died as a baby.]

In her long widowhood, Mom learned to drive and bought her one and only car, and red sporty Ford Mustang, of all things.  She was not a proficient driver, especially when she had a passenger to talk to, but so far as I know, she never had an accident.  She finally sold the car and thereafter took the bus all over the valley and even to Ogden and other outlying towns.  She managed some of the technological advances – the remote TV control, a microwave oven, an electric typewriter – but the later ones eluded her – the VCR, the personal computer, tape and disc players, and the automatic sprinkler system – just as the latest technological marvels are eluding me.

She took up traveling, to Europe and on cruises, and even went to Australia in her eighties.  During my career in the east, she would visit us from time to time in Washington, D.C.  or Connecticut, and even in her eighties I took her walking from Grand Central Station up and down Park Avenue and Fifth Avenue, knowing how strong she was.  She reveled in New York City.  On her last visit, we went to Long Island and found the house where she lived as a girl, next door to the then but no longer LDS church building.  It meant a lot to her. [Kris’ Note:  The house and the church building were at the intersection of Franklin and Gates in Brooklyn.]

Mom experienced her fair share of sorrow and tragedies and economic difficulties.  It is difficult to watch your mother die, an experience we can have but once.  These last few weeks have been difficult for everyone.  She was always fiercely independent; moving out of her beloved home of nearly fifty years on Herbert Avenue was something none of us could imagine just a few weeks ago.  But during these past few months, she went to the hospital with a colon problem, and seemed to be strong enough to return home, where she hoped to take up her normal life.  She planned to give up working at reading notes and just enjoying playing by ear.  But her decline was relentless.  Our taking her grocery shopping became too hard for her, and so we picked up her groceries for her.  After a few days she was back in the hospital with the same problem, and then on to St. Joseph’s Villa, where we hoped more work at physical therapy would enable her to resume a normal life.  But even she recognized that she couldn’t go back home, and she actually looked forward to living at the Sarah Daft Home, an assisted living facility.  We set up her corner room with her own furniture and pictures from home, and could she have managed, a long term stay there would have been very pleasant for her.  But after eight days she was back in the hospital and recognized that she needed more help than an assisted living facility could provide, so she went to the Woodland Park Care Center, growing progressively weaker and more confused daily.  Even with all the wonders of modern medicine she was often in pain, not only in her stomach but with the arthritis that had dogged her for years.  She recognized that her time had come and wanted release.  She died peacefully last Friday.  The staffs at LDS Hospital, St. Joseph’s Villa, Sarah Daft, and Woodland were wonderful; it takes special people to care for the very old.

On one of her trips east we had a dinner for her and invited some of our friends.  It was not always clear that she heard everything you said, but somehow she did absorb what went on, and she remembered our friends and often asked about them by name:  Eileen Clawson, Ken and Kate Handley, and Pat and Harbin Googe.  She loved Eileen and could identify with Pat and Kate, who are both performing pianists.  Kate has since moved back to Utah, and we are delighted that she will play the adagio from Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata, which mom would love to have played as well herself.

[Kris’ Note:  Blanche died June 16, 2000]