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That memoir is not something I wrote. Rather, it was written by a friend (and my primary mentor), the Iowa potter Dean L. Schwarz, who died on March 18. Gerry, his wonderful wife (and one of my favorite people) was there, as were friends and family. His grandson Will Schwarz reported: "Music filled the whole house, and the afternoon sunlight which he loved to watch filtered through the pines and filled his room."
Since then I have been thinking about how I might pay tribute to Dean. And it occurred to me just yesterday that I should share with others a beautiful memoir he wrote in 2005, in which he remembered his father—and, more to the point, his father's death. Here it is—
On the Death of My Father, His Frank-ness by Dean L. Schwarz
It is with a mixture of pleasure and pain that I now stand where we, as family and friends, have stood so many times before, and where we will undoubtedly stand again in the future, when others also come to rest. Is it a blessing to be here? Will someone still be here to stand when we ourselves die? Surely, my "little sister" (Beverley) and my "knee-action brother" (Bill) will never fail to stand on behalf of our family. They know that the future is never the past, and that the present will only be good for those who strive to make it so. Beverley and Bill, I thank you, for your passion in making our father's departure from "the good life" a time that was also worth living. Beverley resides within a sweet bouquet of family, while Bill is receiving the benefits of family buds bursting into full bloom. We all give thanks for what we gained from the teaching of our parents. And to my wife, Gerry, and our children—and to their children's children—"I give thee flowers to strew thy way."
I myself have been lucky to know a handful of people who were not afraid to die. They and others like them found the courage to deal with the termination of their lives. My mother Nona, my father Frank, and (his brother) my Uncle Roger all died in the process of teaching, and each died with dignity. One used his observational skills to help others as a hospice volunteer—he knew how to make wise use of medication. Another knew when to stop eating at a time when that resource failed to provide sustenance for the life that he desired. And yet another was consoled by the belief in having been visited by angels in the hospital.
My friend David Cavagnaro once said to me, "Dean, why fear death?" He went on to tell about thousands of people, from the widest range of cultures, who, in one way or another, were able to cross the border between life and death. Stamped on their passports is proof that they have traveled through an egg yoke yellow tunnel (free-range chickens, of course) of warmth and happiness. When their names were called to return to the life of that existence, they protested. They wanted to stay, they insisted. I have not yet experienced this but I know it is not wise to fear without cause. Fear is a tool that a person should use only rationally. We have enough problems without creating additional fears. Why invent new kinds of darkness when instead we might create more light, recalling the beauty of lilies of the valley of life?
The beloved man who has left us (Frank Lester Schwarz) will nonetheless always be with us. This is our prerogative, to which he contributed by living creatively. Of course there were exceptions: He was neither a god nor a demigod. Our family of independent thinkers has never been heavy enough to tip the balance of Dad's convictions. We have argued that chicken and fish are food, while he insisted that food was a form of hamburger. Meatloaf is food. And when Nona, his Ruby, went to the reward of her convictions, Frank's global world shrank to the size of a Swedish meatball. As a result, for the past few years, he wanted most to join his wife—our mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, great, forever great. So now our feet are expected to make giant footprints, our legacy from their legacy.
We are all related. Perhaps there was an Adam and Eve, in the form of many truths at least. Whether metaphor, science, religion, or philosophy makes no difference. Choice need not divide us, I hope.
My father, Frank Schwarz, showed us some incredible changes in his lifetime. Rising from his own father's labors in a world of steel, he himself became a welder, a "master welder." And then when everyone thought he had done enough and that his life was set in steel (even his games, such as horseshoe, were steel), he suddenly went back to school. With an outlandish bravado, he said to his teacher (as he entered the college classroom for the first time) that "I will not accept anything but an A in this class." And that, indeed, was what he received, and continued to achieve.
And then he became an avid reader. Previously he had only read a few books, including God's Little Acre. His brother Gail, who was the most successful entrepreneur in our family, had only read one book in his whole life, Smoky the Cow Horse. But now Frank began to read about history, which led in turn to reading about other cultures. No one could have anticipated that.
During this period he honored the memory of his beloved son, Steven Charles Schwarz, by making a monumental steel sculpture, based on his convictions about the Native American belief in contrarians. He had learned that contraries cried when others laughed, and walked on their hands instead of their feet. He saw the marvelous humor, introspection, and the psychological value of this tradition. His sculptural abstraction of a teepee standing upside-down at the entrance of South Bear School, a place that he referred to as his Asa Haugan Home, is about twenty feet tall. The shadows of this sundial still travel across our hearts. When the Hearst Center For 'the Arts, in Cedar Falls, invited Frank Lester Schwarz, artist, to have a show of his sculptures in the gardens on that center's grounds, he declined.
He began to see the value of looking at his own Frank-ness from the outside. This view led him to create by word-smithing, the lead-penciled yellow-paged products of which were published in Paddled Tails From Tattled Tales: An Autobiography of a Family, a family book of power and conviction as strong as his welds. (And that !s strong considering that he was hired to weld some of the most important seams in the nuclear energy plant in Palo, Iowa. Not a single bubble was found in the x-rays of his welds. So Cedar Rapids and surrounding area is safer because of Frank.) One of his playful stanzas reads: "Dean Dean, made a machine, Frank Frank turned the crank, Joe Joe made it go, just because Steven is leavin'."
Our father was a keeper of and a sharer of the lessons he learned. So is our Uncle Charlie, who speaks of the wisdom of being streetwise, a necessity for his brothers and sisters in their youthful days. Some of the lessons never taught in school are those that keep homes wise today. Ask Uncle Charlie to show you his hands: One is a map of the French coast that he stormed in World War II, the other is a pointer that teaches us about the important battles.
There were years when Frank would pout and crab at social events and drink beer into friendliness. But this was surely not the case in his later years. During those years (and there was certainly no family precedent for this), he began to make speeches at social gatherings. He became an orator. Yes, an orator, truly! And he liked to say the Lord's Prayer, aloud and loudly, with great reverence and conviction, and in what his deaf ears thought to be unison, very s-l-o-w-l-y. Some people had finished their dinner before he finally said A-a-a-men.
Beverley was witness to his growing love for children in his later years, and how he got so good at it. He became a grand grandfather. He quit suffering the little children to come unto him. He began to make it very pleasant. He loved to baptize them with new names, names they will forever remember in his spirit.
Our Aunt Jeanette is a wise woman. In the pains of our recent yesterday she kindly reminded me of a fact that is one of the most important ideas for to remember from the wisdom of El Franko: "He was a rich man. " And yes we often heard him say, "I am the richest man in the world." If you think it so, so it is. Such direct teaching has made all of us rich: We are a rich family finally, because we have inherited a great legacy, a richness beyond money.
Our many memories now tease the passions of our lives, lives that could not have been lived without our "Why-Nona?" and her "Frank husband." But now they are together again. His mission is complete, and now it is our responsibility to insure that the heaven we seek is the one we will receive. One of my hopes is that wherever Frank and Nona are—and they ARE together—that each of them can simultaneously enjoy the low and high volume of their television set.
For many years I suffered because I could not say words of endearment to Frank without hollering loudly, because of his deafness. And even if he did hear what I heard coming from my shouting mouth, it never sounded intimate, no matter how hard I tried. And the pathos was made even greater because I knew that he could only see a shadow of who I am…
So now, dear Father, for the first time in many years, I can say to you in a softer, pleasant voice that all can hear, from a radiant countenance: "l love you, please say hello to Mom and Stevee."
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A few years ago, I made a short slide loop video in tribute to Dean and Gerry Schwarz in connection with an exhibition at the Hearst Center for the Arts. It can be viewed online here. Dean's memoir of his father was initially published in Ballast Quarterly Review Vol 20 No 4 Summer 2005.
