My father-in-law was a very good man. I last saw him in November when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. We weren’t sure how much longer he had, but we got to see him in Milwaukee, WI, where he was staying with his youngest daughter while getting radiation for pain management. About a month ago, he and my mother-in-law drove back to their home in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where he died two weeks ago. His second of four daughters, my wife, went back there to see him a few weeks ago. Since I’d been in November, I stayed here.
There’s a nice obituary that appeared in a couple of papers up north. It doesn’t fully capture what he meant to me and my wife. A Finnish immigrant, Ben’s real name was Pentti. He didn’t know any English when he came to this country at age 6. But he was a great storyteller and K became a writer, I think, because of him.
She gave to her parents her contributor copy of the new book: Finnish-North American Literature in English: A Concise Anthology. I doubt he was able to read the entire 600 pages before he died, but I know he was proud to see his daughter’s work included, along with other Finnish American/Canadians such as Anselm Hollo and Stephen Kuusisto.
Ben was always kind to me. He wanted to give me something each time we met: cuff-links, a watch, shirts he wouldn’t wear. He and his wife of 56 years just gave us a car. We drove it from the U.P. through Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and into Oregon last week. Betty let me take some of his cool clothes too. This is what Theodore Roosevelt National Park looks like in February. I’d like to think Ben would think his hat looks good on me.
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