GOOD ANCESTORS
Reflections of a Grandson and Son

Ted Grimsrud

The African theologian spoke of interfaith dialogue among Christians and African religionists. In part, I would guess, he was engaged in an internal dialogue—a Catholic discovering the African religionist within his own self. He spoke of reverence for ancestors: “They are our saints.” Jesus is our greatest ancestor. Our ancestors are who we want to be. Africans, however, he reported, focus on good ancestors with life-giving qualities.

The next day at church we celebrated All Saints Day. This included reflections, through a litany of remembrance, on those who had gone before us. The moments of remembering stimulated me to think again about the conversation with my African friend.

Grandfather

Then I turned in thought and prayer to my ancestors, particularly Carl. Born in Wisconsin in the mid-1870s, my grandfather died in Minnesota in the early 1940s, more than ten years before my birth.

He was tall, with thick white hair in later years. From two elderly aunts, I learned a bit about his life. My own father spoke hardly ever about his family. He loved them but rarely talked of anything personal. I never did hear about the most profound experience of his life—four years fighting for his life (and for the United States) in the South Pacific, while his father was slipping into senility and eventual death. Here is how I’ve come to reconstruct the story.

In the mid-nineteenth century a middle-aged Norwegian widow and her teenage son came to America. They settled in Coon Valley, Wisconsin, near the Mississippi. The son, Gudbrod Grimsrud, married and farmed there. He had two sons and a daughter. The elder son, Johan, stayed in Coon Valley. A Norwegian bachelor farmer, Johan became my son’s namesake. I want to believe that the first Johan Grimsrud was a gentle, kind, good man—and that the second one will be too. Gudbrod’s daughter married and moved to the Pacific Northwest, dying childless in a remote island community on Puget Sound.

My grandfather Carl, Gudbrod’s youngest son, became the pride of his family. The first in his immigrant community to gain a graduate theological education, he entered the Lutheran ministry at the turn of the century. He began his ministry, work he loved, in Aberdeen, South Dakota, a thriving prairie agricultural center. In time he headed west and married. In Moscow, Idaho, his sixth child and first son was born. Is it any wonder he was Carl Melvin Junior?

However, Carl Senior’s life did not continue its upward trajectory. Denominational mergers and church politics conspired to send him to the northern plains, to what was a backwater parish. My aunts said this took wind out of his sails, diminishing the joy of his ministry.

Carl Senior’s daughter Dorothy was born blind, victimized by a small pox outbreak in her boarding school. The final straw came as Carl Junior was finishing high school. Dora, beloved wife and mother, fell victim to cancer. My grandfather’s remaining years could not have been bright. He remained near his children and their children. But his mind weakened. He was his early seventies when the end came.

That’s about all I know. But can one deeply, in one’s heart of hearts, love someone never known? I think so. My ancestor: I know he was gentle and compassionate. He seems one worth seeking to live up to.

Dad

No family remains in my hometown, so I don’t go back often. When I do, it’s mostly for the memories.

I stop at the graveyard. It’s lonely there—but visitors look out across the beautiful valley. I’m comforted to know Dad has such a great view. I see our house two miles away and feel I could reach out and touch it. Yes, playing horseshoes. The homemade basket and backboard. The garden.

Funny, though, none of Coach Dad’s attempts to connect with me really clicked.

My eyes shift just slightly to the north. The Carl Grimsrud Memorial Gymnasium. When it was finished in 1953, it must have seemed like the eighth wonder of the world. Timber was king. Two-by-fours were virtually free. Old growth. Close-grained. The arching roof. I don’t imagine there is another gym like it.

May 1954. Just a few months after completing the gym, my father finally has his son. The beautiful gym is the site of an anxious vigil as his friends wait over lunch for word of his sickly newborn. Several give blood for me.

Summer 1998. I return to Elkton for the first time in years. The gym is still majestic, unique. The walls contain six large plaques—four for my dad, two more since. State basketball champs, 1957. Three tournament wins; none closer than fifteen points. The first championship. And there’s little Teddy, the three-year-old towhead on his victorious dad’s lap, eating victory celebration ice cream.

Mid-1960s. The pinnacle comes. Fifty-one straight wins; two more state titles. The fifth-grade boy is on the bench near his dad for the last twenty-five wins.

One last hurrah. This time, the son is a freshman, practicing with the varsity before the state tournament. The tournament games are close. But the Elkton team disappoints the packed crowd in the eastern Oregon town of Pendleton who hope that a local team will finally beat those westerners.

The hopes are high the next several years. It is not to be. In 1970, the sophomore-laden team is too young and inconsistent. Then 1971, the best shot. But late-season injuries leave the team short-handed. My senior year, 1972, more heartache. The team star tears up his knee in football. A teammate is killed in a car accident. The team again falls short.

However, there was that brief springtime encounter in our living room. My dad says to me, “I have wanted to tell you how happy I was with your play this year. A couple of years ago, I didn’t think you’d do much. But you worked at it and really came on. I am sure you could have played on any of my teams.” I haven’t forgotten that moment.

He coached a couple more years. He had one more shot. His team beat Oakland twice, but injuries and bad luck kept them home in March. Oakland lost the championship game by two points. Oh well. Four titles were more than his share.

The last few years in Elkton after he quit coaching were tough. He kept teaching but wasn’t nearly as close to the students once he wasn’t coaching. He retired in 1980.

March 1982. “Hey, Dad, it’s a boy!” He couldn’t speak. He just laughed. Johan—after Dad’s uncle. Two years later, the last visit. He’s not so sure about my vocational choices—“You don’t make much of a living as a preacher.” He thought he should know; his father, Carl Senior, had been one. But that Sunday in Phoenix—yes, that’s stuttering Ted in front of four hundred people. And, hey, he’s doing pretty well. And the people seem to like him.

A few months later Kathleen, Johan, and I are moving to Berkeley for grad school. I go to get the key to our apartment and am told to call my mom at an unfamiliar number. “Dad had a brain aneurysm. He’s in a coma and will never come out of it. He’ll be gone any time.”

All I ever saw was the box with his ashes in it. I still have a hard time imagining him lifeless and still.

The funeral was in the cemetery on a beautiful August day. My eyes kept straying across the valley to the gym—Elkton’s main landmark.

That winter, the gym was named for the first time—the Carl Grimsrud Memorial Gym.

There was really nothing to keep us in Oregon. South Dakota for two years, then Virginia. We’re a long way from home.

I went back in 1998 by myself. After the graveyard, I drove through town. Elkton has refused to dry up and be blown away. It’s a nice little town.

The doors to the gym were locked. So I looked in the windows; I heard the crowd; I saw the grizzled coach. I was there somewhere. But I was a bit fuzzy as to where.

Was I on the court? Was it the heartbreaking loss against Oakland in front of a standing-room-only crowd in my junior year? That was the only time I played all 32 minutes. Or maybe I was on the gym stage my freshman year as we beat the two-time defending state champs, foreshadowing Dad’s fourth title. Or was it farther back, me a fifth-grader at the end of the bench as the mid-1960 powerhouse dismantled the big school from across the county? Or even earlier, as the crowd welcomed back home the first championship team?

Regardless, those memories were why I was here. We did connect, I and my dad, my good ancestor.

—Ted Grimsrud, Harrisonburg, Virginia, is author, God’s Healing Strategy (Pandora Press U.S., 2000), and Assistant Professor of Theology and Peace Studies, Eastern Mennonite University.