Ralph F. Mintert

August 30, 1919 - October 24, 2002

Our Lady of Loretto Catholic Church
Spanish Lake, Missouri
October 28, 2002

On behalf of our family, thank you for coming this morning. I want to start off by saying thanks to all of you who were so good to my father for so long. Although many people did many things for my father over the years, several people in West Alton deserve special recognition for all the help they provided my Dad, especially in recent years. Tim Meyers and his family, Larry Brunstein, and Brian and Meredith Boschert all helped my Dad in many ways and for all your help we are especially grateful. Right now you’re probably thinking about the various things you did for my Dad over the years such as helping him work on the combine, unloading the grain bin, or planting corn for him when he hurt his shoulder. But I’d also like you to know how much he appreciated it when each of you took the time to pull in the driveway at the farm, shut the pickup off, ask him how he was and spend a few minutes just visiting. I know because he told me how much he enjoyed it later, when I spoke to him on the phone.

I also want to thank my in-laws, Leon and Barbara Mercer of Carbon, Indiana, for accepting my father into their extended family with open arms. My Dad looked forward to his many trips to Indiana and truly loved spending holidays at your home. Good company, great food, and spirited conversation. And once in awhile we even found time to discuss Agrigold seed corn over a glass of Maker’s Mark. It doesn’t get any better than that. Leon, my Dad also enjoyed your trips to St. Louis when you introduced him (at the age of about 75) to the world of sprint car racing at Tri-City Speedway. And I always heard how the Kinsers did at the track the day after the race!

Well, how does one pack 83 years of living into a single speech. It’s hard, but I’ll try. And so to start off, during the first two hours of my remarks I will…..

Actually, as I reflected on my Dad’s life over the last several days, the titles of a couple of books popped into my head. Books that you’re probably familiar with as they’ve both been on best sellers’ lists in recent years. The first book is Tom Brokaw’s The Greatest Generation. Brokaw argues that the generation of Americans born in the Teens and Twenties, reared during the Depression, who left to fight World War II, and returned to America following the War to marry and raise families were America’s greatest generation. Greatest because they faced down adversity and helped make the world, and the U.S., a far better place than when they were born. That’s a perfect description of my Dad.

Born on a farm between West Alton and Portage Des Sioux on August 30, 1919, my Dad and his family endured floods, severe droughts, low commodity prices, a lack of credit because of the Depression, and their house burning to the ground in 1934. Despite all that, his parents were still able to send my Dad and his sisters to Marquette High School in Alton and my Dad graduated from Marquette in 1937. He earned scholarships to both St. Lous U. and the Missouri School of Mines at Rolla and elected to attend college at Rolla for several semesters before health problems led him to withdraw. He then worked as an engineer for the Curtiss-Wright aircraft company, which led to his being transferred to Buffalo, New York where he met his wife-to-be, and my mother, the late Charlotte Strong.

But by then the War was looming and my father enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1942. He was selected for officer training and flight school, ultimately reaching the rank of Lieutenant J.G. and became a Navy PBY (flying boat) pilot. Upon completion of his training, my Dad took off from San Francisco Bay in early July 1945 in a Navy flying boat so heavily ladened with fuel that it barely had enough horsepower to clear the Golden Gate Bridge. Their destination was Hawaii and the South Pacific war theatre.

In hindsight, heading to the South Pacific in July 1945 doesn’t sound so bad because we all know the war ended in early August of 1945. But in July 1945 when my Dad and the rest of his crew took off from San Francisco Bay, their prospects looked dim indeed. Douglas MacArthur was pursuing his island hopping strategy to conquer the Japanese and the biggest island, Japan, lay waiting. It looked like the loss of life would be staggering, both on the ground and in the air, and the odds of survival for anyone assigned to the South Pacific war zone were not good. Fortunately, President Truman helped bring the war to an abrupt end with his decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, otherwise my Dad’s story might have ended in 1945 and I wouldn’t be here to tell it to you.

But more about that romance with my Mother that began before the War. My Dad was discharged from the Navy in 1946 and returned home to West Alton. Now that the war was over, my parents could finally plan their wedding and so the date was set for June 30, 1947. That date turned out to be a problem.

If you know much about the history of West Alton, you know that there was a lot of rain and, ultimately, a flood in the late spring and early summer of 1947. The rain delayed the wheat harvest and it looked like the rest of the crop would be lost to the flood. So, my Dad stayed in West Alton to help his father try and finish the harvest. He stayed so long that he and his sister Evelyn arrived late in Buffalo, missing the wedding rehearsal and just barely making it to the wedding, which made my mother furious.

In another omen for the young couple’s future, after the wedding was over, they went to the Hotel Buffalo for their wedding reception. It was a beautiful room with beautiful decorations complete with a beautiful wedding cake to share with all the guests. Unfortunately, just as the reception was about to get underway, the ceiling fell in. Literally. So, the reception was moved to another room, but without the cake which was covered with plaster.

After the reception they left on their honeymoon in the Adirondock Mountains. The first night they stayed in a small roadside motel with a fold-up Murphy style bed. Unfortunately, when they went to fold out the bed, it collapsed on the floor. What a way to start a marriage!

Well, my parents marriage survived those early travails and they settled down in West Alton. My Dad started working at McDonnell Aircraft Company as an engineer and kids started to arrive. The Fifties and Sixties were happy times as the family expanded, a new house was purchased in St. Louis County, and Pat, Kathy and little Jimmy started off to school.

Education was very important to both of my parents, but especially my Dad. Since my Father did not complete his college education, he always thought it imperative that his children complete theirs. Dinner table discussions often reached the same conclusion; education is important, you need to go to college. And so there was never any question about us going to college. Instead, it was just a question of where we would go to college. My Dad (and Mother) so impressed us all with the value of education that we not only went to college, but my sisters and I all completed graduate degrees.

Well, I mentioned at the outset there were two books that came to mind when I was reminiscing about my father. The other book was Everything I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten. Except in my case, the title should actually be Everything I Really Need To Know I Learned From My Dad. Over the years, I learned so much from my Dad that it’s impossible to expound on everything he taught me. But I’ll try and share a few things with you this morning.

One problem my Dad faced was that I made teaching harder for him than it otherwise might have been because he had to keep teaching me the same things over and over. Things like don’t hit telephone poles with farm equipment. Unfortunately, he was never completely successful in teaching me that one.

One of the first things my Dad taught me was the importance of overcoming adversity. Oddly enough, he chose to embark on this while I was in kindergarten. While sledding near our house, I was hit by another sledder. My Dad brought me home, using the sled as a stretcher, but refused to believe I was seriously injured. So, for a full day he simply admonished me to “walk it off” as I howled with pain. Well, I finally walked it off all right. But it was 6 weeks later, after the doctor took the cast off my broken leg

Later he tried to teach me the importance of knowing how to stop a piece of farm equipment as well as start it. So, when he was teaching me how to drive the old Massey-Harris 60 combine, he made sure he showed me how to stop it, if necessary. Then, I suppose to reinforce the lesson, my Dad opted to fall off the combine while I was driving it. Fortunately, I remembered what he told me about stopping the combine.

My Dad also taught me the importance of checking a piece of equipment when you run it. When I was in high school he told me to sow wheat while he combined soybeans. So, I did. Sort of. After I ran the grain drill for about two hours, he stopped the combine and walked over to see me. When he got to the back of the drill, he threw open the lid and asked me if I knew the difference between actually sowing wheat and just dragging a grain drill across the field. Unfortunately, I was sowing wheat with an empty drill box. After that, I was more careful about checking equipment, especially grain drills and planters, when I ran them.

But of course what my Dad really taught me and my sisters was far more important than how to run farm equipment. He taught us so many of life’s important lessons. My Dad was a devoted family man, before that term became popular. He focused his energy on his family, his church, and his work. And in doing so, he taught us by example.

He made sure that we had a solid foundation to build on. He and Mom taught us about God, honesty, and the importance of treating other people with respect. And he taught us early on that life is not fair. But instead of worrying about that, he taught us to deal with the hand we had been dealt by working hard every day. And the next day, coming back and doing it again. And that’s exactly what he did, right up to and including his very last day on Earth.

So, in short, my Dad was a devout Catholic, a devoted husband, a great father, and a wonderful grandfather. I can pay him no higher tribute.

We are all going to miss my Dad very much. But you know, whenever I drive down Red School Road past the farm, I’m sure that when I look back over my shoulder, I’ll still see Pop sitting on his Farmall H giving me a wave.

I love you Pop. We all love you. God Bless You.