22 MAY 2024
Though 92, Kate Feist died quite unexpectedly on Saturday evening, May 18th. Her funeral was celebrated by her pastor at Saint Joseph's Father Terrance Klein. Father Michael Brungardt, the pastor of Holy Name in Bushton also concelebrated.
Altar Servers were Ayla Ritchie, Reme Thomas, and Lexi Thomas. At the piano was the legendary Leon Sobba, and Marlene Clayton was the cantor. Extraordinary Eucharistic Ministers were Cami Thomas, Jalayne Ewing, Lori Billinger, and John Clayton.
The congregation was quite large.
A House Is Not a Home |
Funeral of Kate Feist |
Fr. Terrance Klein |
22.V.2024 |
Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31 2 Corinthians 5: 1, 6-10 John 14: 1-6
It was a 1964 ballad, written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, for a movie of the same name. I dare say that all of us have heard the song as it’s now a staple of the Great American Song Book. Here’s the opening stanza:
A chair is still a chair
Even when there’s no one sitting there
But a chair is not a house
And a house is not a home
When there’s no one there to hold you tight
And no one there you can kiss good night.
As a boy growing up in Ellinwood, and living in the mansion I did, I marveled at the first Feist home on East 5th. How could such a small house hold nine people? Back then, there were other large families, but most of those lived in the country. I simply presumed they lived in larger houses.
Now, as an old man in Ellinwood, I marvel at how large that home was. To put it in terms of the Bacharach ballad, that small house was a very large home, a place replete with people and their activities, but, most of all, filled with their love. Lots of people today live in grand houses but their homes, their circles of love, are so small. Along with Fritz, Kate created a very large home.
Kate grew up on a farmstead north of town during the Great Depression. She could make it sound as though she walked uphill to and from school, but those years had to have been harsh. One wonders how her mother could even afford the nail polish, which Kate and her siblings used on their faces for warpaint.
I’m always interested in how couples met. In Kate’s generation, the answer is relatively simple just as the geography is rather limited. Today one might go online to spark with someone across the country. Back then, wagons hadn’t yet completely yielded to automobiles. So, it’s no surprise that Kate and Fritz came from nearby homesteads. They graduated from Saints Peter and Paul, and they were married there. But I was fascinated by what Karen called “prairie parties.” A group of young people picked a pasture, procured a keg, and partied.
Kate always knew how to party, how to have a good time. Her family shared a twist she brought to Halloween. They call it Trick or Drink. While the kids gathered candy at the front door, Kate and Ann Luebers picked up a beer at the back door.
A deep sense of hospitality, which is the heart of a true home, would continue throughout Kate’s life: baking bread every week, canning fruits, vegetables, and even meats, doing their own butchering. Napolean is supposed to have said, “An army marches on its stomach.” So does a family, and it was Kate who figured out the system of supply and clean-up.
And when your family is a small army, even uniforms don’t come easy. Kate was an accomplished seamstress, sewing clothes, blue jeans and prom dresses, for her kids. And for years yet to come, Kate’s family will treasure the Christmas stockings she made for them.
In the words of Proverbs:
When one finds a worthy wife,
her value is far beyond pearls.
Her husband, entrusting his heart to her,
has an unfailing prize.
Give her a reward for her labors,
and let her works praise her at the city gates (31: 10-11, 31).
Parish altar societies elect officers, and then they have the women who are in charge. Neither wear ranks of insignia. Today Saint Joseph’s buries one of its altar society generals. In her day, working with Evelyn Klepper, Kate was one of those women who made sure people got fed and the work got done.
Altar societies don’t fight other armies, the women battle each other. Like many a veteran, Kate took her hits, but she could take care of herself. She was always quick-witted. Indeed, Kate Feist was to fast quips what Caitlin Clark is to basketball.
In Lumen Gentium, its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, the Second Vatican Council said that “the family is, so to speak, the domestic Church (§11).” Christian families exist to create Christians and to fit them for heaven. I said that altar society leaders do not wear ranks of office. Neither do Christian mothers. They wear crowns, visible most of all to God. Kate is rightly crowned a Christian mother. Her seven jewels and even more numerous grand jewels are in front of us.
Once Kate moved to the hospital, I visited her weekly. Understandably, many people find it terribly difficult to leave their houses. After all, that’s where they’ve been at home, created a home. They come to nursing care reluctantly, sometimes even a bit resentful. Not Kate. If you walked into her hospital room, you walked into her home. She was determined that you felt welcomed. She was a homemaker until the very end.
Today, we send this homemaker home. Saint Paul told his little flock in Corinth:
We know that if our earthly dwelling, a tent,
should be destroyed, we have a building from God,
a dwelling not made with hands, eternal in heaven.
So we are always courageous, although we know
that while we are at home in the body
we are away from the Lord,
for we walk by faith, not by sight.
Yet we are courageous,
and we would rather leave the body
and go home to the Lord (1 Cor 5: 1, 6-8).
Kate goes home. Followed by our prayers of petition that her sins be forgiven and by our prayers of gratitude for the woman she was, for the wife and mother who created such a large home.
Jesus used the home as an image of heaven itself. After all, more than a place we’ve never seen and can’t really imagine, heaven is a home, a circle of love. When I visited the family, Karen reminded me where her family set, every Sunday, in relation to my own. How many times Kate must have heard these words of our Lord.
Do not let your hearts be troubled.
You have faith in God; have faith also in me.
In my Father's house there are many dwelling places.
If there were not,
would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come back again and take you to myself,
so that where I am you also may be (Jn 14: 1-3).
We hear those words of promise, just as Kate once did. Now she sees them fulfilled. While we still live in the land of promise, we need to remember what Kate understood, and what Kate so wonderfully lived.
A house is not a home
When there’s no one there to hold you tight
And no one there you can kiss good night.
Small house but oh what a home! And now Kate comes home, to a place as grand as it is intimate, where she is forever held tight and kissed goodnight.
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