I am going to start this essay with the eulogy delivered at my Grandpa Andy’s funeral, which I just came across in my late mother’s papers. I didn’t even know this was there and then I sorted through her papers (again) and there it was. If you knew my Grandpa Andy, I would be grateful if you might read this essay and share with me your memories of him. I did attend his funeral in Bowman, ND and the family gathering at his house, but I don’t remember every single little detail. My siblings remember details that I don’t recall. Which is normal. In these moments in life everyone has a different experience and hears different things and remembers different things.
In Memoriam
C.A. Silbernagel
July 11, 1987
1 Peter 5: 6-7
“Changing with the Times”
A lot of changes can take place in 94 years. Andy saw a lot of changes in his lifetime. He literally came from the horse and buggy age into the space age. And the amazing thing about it was that he never really got left behind. He changed with the times.
He remembered those early years when he arrived in Rhame with his brothers and sisters from Minnesota in a boxcar. [Minor editorial note from me: Andy had one brother and two sisters.] And how they built a sod house for the family’s first dwelling. And of having to hire out as a sixteen-year-old to earn money for his family. He saw a lot of changes. He could remember when a trip to the County Seat took two days because, before Slope County came into being, the County Seat was in Medora. And a trip there with a loaded wagon and a team always meant an overnight with bedrolls at the Logging Camp Ranch.
Andy lived through a rugged and exciting chapter of history in this country, although at the time I’m sure it seemed more like work than excitement. And work was something Andy never shied away from. As he worked and as he grew, he watched this country out here grow up with him. And he used to like to say, “This is a young country. Things are just getting started.” And he wanted to be sure he kept up with things. He wanted to keep up with the times in his farming and ranching and in the education of his children. He worked hard for those things, not only at home, but in the public sphere as well, serving on school board and township boards and being a charter member of the Little Missouri Grazing Association.
Efforts like these represented his desire to change with the times. You could say Andy was an optimist and change, as he saw it, could be healthy as it forces us to read and think and keep up with the times. But, of course, not all change is good. There are lossed that we experience in life. The death of a loved one. The end of a relationship. The demise of a town or a school or way of life. And these changes can try and test us, just as we are being tried and tested today as we contemplate life without Andy.
He is going to be missed. Not only by you, his family, but by all of us who have grown accustomed to his winning way with his good-natured humor and his warm, friendly smile. He knew how to be a good neighbor and a good friend and those are hard to come by. So, we experience the sadness that comes with change and loss and death.
Oh, I know, we are not really sad for Andy today because we know his life has been fulfilled and he is going home to be with God and his Lillian. And we wouldn’t want it any other way. In our minds eye we can already see him playing pinochle with those who went before him. We’re not sad for Andy, but for ourselves because we are still here. We must still continue to face the changes and challenges of life. And we are going to miss not having him as a part of things.
There is a challenge and a comfort in the words of St. Peter who said, “Humble yourselves…under the mighty hand of God, that in due time he may exalt you.” And who said, “Cast all your cares on him, for he cares about you.” (1 Peter 5:6-7)
Andy might have said something like this that himself because there is an optimism born in the midst of trials and tributations that we are able to live through and overcome that enable us to say, “This life is still young. Things are just getting started and there is a lot of living and a lot of changing and a lot of testing to be done. And as we face those tests and trials the secret is not to try to avoid them or to try to hang on to them, but to take them as they come and put them behind bus, one step at a time. To let go of the trials and tribulations and leave them to God.”
We call that kind of optimism faith. It is faith that enables us to put our trials in God’s hands and let him take care of them and leads us through the challenges and trials of life.
The God who gives us work and grants us rest and who will one day judge and forgive each of each is the One to whom we commend our brother and friend, Andy, for his rest. Andy’s roots were planted firmly and deeply in the soil of Slope County that he loves so well. And yet those roots reach far beyond the borders of North Dakota to the homeland of Andy’s parents. From their native Germany a prayer has come to us as part of our “Prayer at the Close of the Day.” It can serve well our prayer now. Let us pray:
Oh Lord, support us all the day long of this troubled life, until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes and the busy world is hushed, the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then, Lord, in your mercy, grant us safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Richard Kraiger, Pastor Bowman Lutheran Church
My brother Thomas Crook remembers that the pastor said that our Grandpa had “made it rain that day.” If my brother says the pastor said that, surely he said it. I didn’t even remember poor Pastor Richard Kraiger and surmised earlier this summer when we attended Dorothy Pearson’s funeral at the Bowman Lutheran Church that it must have been Jerry Erickson or Galen Strand.
What I do know is that our Grandpa Andy missed Grandma Lilly every single day since she died in June 1970.
Andy and Lillian Silbernagel farmstead before 1947, one mile west of the homestead of Anton and Magdalena Silbernagel, which Andy and Lillian bought in 1920 from Januszewski and in 1947 they added on the north side bedrooms and bath.
Henry Silbernagel, Andy Silbernagel, Annie Silbernagel Hendry, and Lillian Hovick Silbernagel. On the piano are photographs of some of the grandchildren.
I’m fairly certain that Dorothy Pearson made this cake for Lillian Hovick Silbernagel’s March birthday.
40th Wedding Anniversary
The “Little White Hill” on the Slope County place. Not called this because of snow in the photo, but because the soil on the top was white. Also on top was a prairie rattlesnake den.
Playing cards in Slope County at the Henke place. That’s Junette’s organ in the other room.
That’s Junette Henke, probably typing pages for The Slope Saga or her column that ran in The Bowman County Pioneer. This is the kitchen in our Slope County place and I’m studying while Aunt Junette types. By this time Junette had retired from teaching. Classic 1970s photo. My Dad also used a typewriter like this so it is possible that she was using Dad’s, but also possible that she had a portable typewriter.
Another classic early 1970s photograph.
The rock house on the top of Bullion Butte, near the Logging Camp Ranch.
The Silbernagel and Crook family papers are in a collection at the ND State Archives. You can view that online here.
