Obituary Reader

I've been  a daily obituary reader for more years than I can remember. Every morning, first the KMA website and then the Des Moines Register. There aren't too many names I remember from the Register lists, but usually two or three a week on the KMA listings.
This past week, a girl from Brooks, a boy from Carbon and, from our old neighborhood, a boy from Fairview Church. I say boy and girl instead of man and woman because I remember them from their, and my, youth.

When I first read John's name on the funeral notices, I didn't think anything of it. His was a common name. Not John 'Smith', but close. And of course the accompanying photo of a 71-year-old meant nothing as I hadn't seen him since 1959 when the family moved away.
I didn't read his obituary for a day or two after I first saw the listing, when it dawned on me it could be the John I remembered from Church and Bible School as Johnny. He was a fun loving, friendly, helpful boy and from the memories left on his tribute wall, it appears he remained so his whole life.

Johnny wasn't in the Bible School class I taught in 1957, but his little sister, Marcia was. She is the one in the lower right corner of this photo. After all these years, I can still name everyone in this picture.

Perhaps more than I remember anything about Johnny, I remember my Mom once telling me that his Dad, Swede, was one of the boys she once dated. Reading her diary from 1936 when she was seventeen, I find that between April 18 and May 3, she and Swede (so nicknamed because his parents were from Sweden) went to two dances, a weiner roast and a show. He took her home after some program "over at the school". The last time she mentions him is on May 3 when he was "down for dinner" and afterwards they went to a ball game. Two weeks later, she mentions another beau.

Interesting, the memories stirred by reading an obituary.