Rest In Peace, Aunt Mary Kimmel

Aunt Mary was one of the 4 Hubbell kids. She was born August 13th, 1923 and passed away October 27th, 2017. We rejoice that she is now pain-free and reunited with her siblings, parents, and husband. We will all miss her smile and enthusiasm for life.

Anne was able to go to the family gathering and memorial service in Milwaukee the following weekend.

Kitty and Margie composed a few new verses for "You Are My Sunshine" to honor their mother. She'd been dubbed 'Little Mary Sunshine' as a child, so this has been a signature song for her. We managed to sing it for her at the service on Saturday.

Our mother Mary sometimes contrary
She loved the woods and prairie too
She loved to share, what she discovered
And to give them all to you

We'll always love her, she made us happy
She listened well and gave advice,
She'd listen nicely, then do precisely
Exactly what she meant to do

Her lovely smile and sweet demeanor
Was shared with all who crossed her path
But we know better she was a lion
With great strength and resil-i-ance

One day I found her, flat on her tummy
In the mud down by the pond,
She lay there facing
The bull frogs mating
And she photographed it all.

The leaves are falling, the woods are calling
And there is still so much to do
While I am sleeping, it's in your keeping
You know exactly what I want you to do

Chorus: You are my Sunshine, my only Sunshine.
You make me happy when skies are grey.
You'll never know dear, how much I love you.
Please don't take my sunshine away.

Flying to Milwaukee, shadow of the plane on the clouds.

Margie picked me up at the airport and took me straight back to the homestead.

Paul was busy working a crossword -- until he noticed me taking a picture!

Colleen and Kitty.

Aunt Marge. She had first been a part of the family as Mary's roommate at college. Then she married Uncle Bob, so ties of both friendship and family bound these two ladies. Rich and Colleen had brought her from California for this occasion.

Cousin Glenn.

Jay Van Emen and Steve Ver Kuilen visit. Larry chats with Rich.

Heather is amused at this ad she found in her grandmother's papers.

He's escaping! Kitty's grandson Liam.

Derrain, Jay, Steve

Aunt Mary's golf cart gets put to use, heading for the woods.

Holly drove since she was walking with a brace due to her torn tendon, Aunt Marge got to ride, just because, and the kids hopped on for fun.

Aunt Mary's beloved pond. She and Uncle Johnny created it by damming up the small creek on their property. She watched and photographed the wildlife.

Hiking through the woods behind the homestead. The property is 40 acres and Aunt Mary worked hard to preserve it from would-be developers.

Larry and Derrain

Heather, Paul, and Alison Kotula

Margie watches her great-niece Tessa explore.

Holly and Ryan Cook.

Aunt Marge with Rich and Colleen.

Larry, Kitty, Rich, Anne, Margie

Aunt Mary's grandchildren: Adam, John, Holly, Heather

Pam, Adam, Sarah, John, Holly, Ryan, Heather, Paul (grandchildren and spouses)

Pam, Adam, Liam, Sarah, John, Holly, Ryan, Heather, Alison, Paul and Tessa and Conner in front.

milkweed in the meadow

Derrain collected some to make angel-wing Christmas decorations.

Alison collected a batch of black walnuts.

Viewing was from 4-7 on Friday at her church. She's at peace, but it didn't seem right to not see that engaging smile.

A favorite necklace of fetishes, probably from Albuquerque or one of the reservations.

Then back to the homestead for more family time. Larry got the good seat by the fire.

Anne, Margie, Bob, Jim. We cousins are each the oldest child of one of the four Hubbell siblings.

It was quite a gathering of extended family. We'd come from all over the country: Florida, California, Utah, Ohio, New Mexico, North Carolina, Hawaii, Wisconsin, Illinois.

Saturday there was a memorial service at the church, followed by a luncheon in the social hall. Aunt Mary and her children: Kitty, Margie, Glenn, Larry

Margie's clan: Heather, Paul, Ryan, Alison, Margie, Holly, and Paul

Kitty chose to wear one of her mother's treasures, a well-endowed totem she may have acquired on an eclipse trip to Java with my parents in 1985.

Family and friends were all invited to address the gathering with reminiscences of Mary Kimmel. These are her great-grandchildren Conner and Tessa.

Aunt Marge and her grandson Eric.

Cousins: Anne, Shelton, Margie, Rich, Glenn, Jim, Kitty, Larry. Aunt Marge is seated, and somehow Bob McCabe didn't make it into this group although he qualifies.

Sunday many of us chose to go to church. After our success singing for Aunt Mary's memorial service on Saturday, the church organist, also a childhood friend of Margie's, asked us if we'd sing something Sunday. I'd mentioned that I was thinking of the hymn "This is My Father's World" with respect to Aunt Mary. It wasn't in the current hymnal, but the organist found a copy and let us sing that. That was a special memory for me.
After church, we again gathered at the homestead. Some of us enjoyed a campfire by the pond. Derrain even found some marshmallows to roast.

Rich, Shelton, Kitty, Larry

Anne and Kitty are husking black walnuts.

Shelton, Paul Kotula, Derrain, Larry

fireball

Kitty fixes Tessa's hair

Alison is working hard on the walnuts she collected.

Dad's (John Howard Hubbell) kayak that he made himself as a teenager or young man.

It needs a new skin, but the framework looks good.

John used his kayak in a lot of Michigan waters, going for long camping trips.

Inside, coloring was a fun activity.

Margie and Shelton coordinate contact info. Notice the tablecloth, too.

Aunt Mary crocheted this tablecloth for Kitty. She made one for each of her children. Beautiful work!

Monday morning. The group staying at the StayBridge Suites gathered one last time for breakfast before heading home. Shelton, Anne, Rich, Colleen, Aunt Marge.

Margie picked me up at the hotel and we drove to the crematorium.

We wanted to give Aunt Mary a proper send-off, so Margie and I recited "The Cremation of Sam McGee" by Robert Service as her cardboard box was inserted into the oven. Words below. Oddly enough, the staff there had never heard that poem before, but once they read it, they understood why we were there. It was a favorite of hers, and seemed totally fitting, although a bit difficult to get through.

Modern crematoriums are a bit different from Sam's derelict on Lake Lebarge.

Margie with the roses from her mom's flower arrangement. We went to lunch, appropriately at Perkin's, a favorite eatery of Mary's, and then Margie dropped me off at the airport to head home.

I will finish with "The Cremation of Sam McGee", by Robert Service. Aunt Mary memorized this and many other poems, in part, so she told me, to annoy her sister while they were doing dishes. Jean would then tell her to just go away, so she didn't have to do any more dishwashing! Sam McGee was probably her favorite. It became a must-recite poem at campfires, and inspired my parents to camp at the actual Lake Lebarge in the Yukon.

The Cremation of Sam Mcgee

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.

Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.

He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;

Though he'd often say in his homely way that he'd "sooner live in hell".

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.

Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.

If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;

It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,

And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,

He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;

And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:

"It's the cursed cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.

Yet 'tain't being dead -- it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;

So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."

A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;

And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.

He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;

And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,

With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;

It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,

But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.

In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.

In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,

Howled out their woes to the homeless snows -- O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;

And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;

The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;

And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;

It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May".

And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;

Then "Here", said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;

Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;

The flames just soared, and the furnace roared -- such a blaze you seldom see;

And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;

And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.

It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;

And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;

But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;

I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.

I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked";. . . then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;

And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.

It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm --

Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

I cremated Sam McGee.