|
"If I lived 930 years as Methusela . . ." mused Bill Juhnke on April
25, 1984, 3:15 p.m. in his room at St. Francis hospital in Wichita.
But Bill was not Methusela. His heart was giving out. He wrote, "I
would rather transmit my thoughts at age 72 even facing heart surgery
than from the grave or from a future 800+ years hence." The result
was ten pages of diary-style observations and reporting, written in
Bill's strong hand with a ball point pen pressed hard onto the paper.
Two days later he underwent heart surgery, followed by complications
that slowed his mental and physical functioning for the remaining
seven years of his life. Meta, as promised in their wedding vows,
remained at his side throughout, "in sickness and in health."
Bill's hospital diary, as his earlier writing at emotionally charged
moments, revealed again that it was not easy for him to express affection
or to engage in serious reflection about the meaning of life and death.
He was more inclined to humor. When a nurse leaving his room asked
if he needed anything, he said, "I was ready for . . . maybe a shot
of whiskey which I don't usually drink." The nurse left with a smile,
saying "If you find some, let me know and I'll join you." He had brought
along three books to the hospital: One was a book of quotations from
his daughter, Janet. One was Come to the Party, by Karl Olsson,
a gift from his daughter-in-law, Anna. The third was Anatomy of
An Illness by Norman Cousins. Bill chose to read the book about
life, Come to the Party, which he described as "an invitation
to a freer life style. He is Evangelical Covenant. The first 25 p.
appeal."
From his hospital bed, Bill wrote a four-page letter to a member
of his Sunday School class at the Eden Church summarizing the class's
discussion of questions from the Western District Conference Ministerial
Committee. He visited with a goodly number of family and friends who
came to his room or called by telephone, including his pastor, Walter
Neufeld. He read the daily newspaper, approving a "terrific column"
by journalist Tom Wicker about President Ronald Reagan's "overkill
in Central America." Meta, who was reading Newsweek magazine,
cut out a story on the scientist peace advocate, Linus Pauling. Bill
commented, "There is so much good sense but people want nonsense."
Bill's surgery on April 27 was a quadruple bypass. After the surgery
he was exceptionally restless. The pain medication seemed to make
him agitated. A brain scan revealed, as Meta recorded, "that he had
indeed had a light stroke, perhaps even a previous one." His sternum
did not heal properly, and, on May 10, he underwent a second surgery.
Recovery was slow, but Bill was able to go home from the hospital
on May 23. In the succeeding weeks and months, despite gradual improvement,
it became clear that Bill had sustained permanent damage. Those closest
to Bill saw his personality changed. He refused to admit that he had
had a stroke, or to allow anyone else to talk about it. He was more
prone to angry outbursts and to paranoid accusations about other people.
Worried about what Bill might do on an irrational impulse, Jim took
the rifle from the farm to his home in North Newton.
Jim was free in the summer of 1984 from his teaching job at Bethel
College to take more responsibility for his father and for the upcoming
wheat harvest. Realizing that Bill would not be a safe driver, Jim,
with Meta's approval, took away the keys to Bill and Meta's car. Bill
threatened to see an attorney to get the keys back. In mid-June as
the wheat harvest approached and the wheat combine was in the yard,
Jim unfortunately left the keys in the combine. Bill managed to get
into the combine cab, start the machine, drive into the wheat field
near the house, and thresh some twenty bushels of unripe wheat so
green that the augur could not turn it out of the bin. The wheat had
to be thrown away. Meta and Jim reprimanded Bill. But Bill could not
restrain his grinning delight that he had proved that he had recovered
sufficiently from his surgery to be the first farmer in the neighborhood
to thresh some wheat that year. Jim confiscated the combine keys.
Eventually a good crop of wheat was harvested.
On July 9 Meta took Bill to Wichita for a physical checkup. The doctor
reported that "Bill has done well for as rough a time as he had but
he shouldn't try to do as much as he did when he was young." As he
gradually became stronger, Bill ignored the doctor's advice. In late
July he was out on the field with tractor and plow turning under the
wheat stubble. On August 12, he agreed, to Meta's alarm, to preside
at an Eden church congregation meeting. In her diary Meta recorded
with evident relief that he had done "ok." Moreover, two Eden Sunday
School classes elected Bill to be their teacher. He started teaching
on August 26. When Jim later thanked one of the Sunday School class
members for their patience with a teacher who had impaired speaking
and thinking abilities, the class member said, "Bill is still a better
teacher than the alternatives we have." Apparently Bill was regaining
his old trademark ability to ask interesting and provocative questions.
The car was a major symbol of autonomy. Jim wanted Bill to take and
pass a driver's test with Kansas Department of Transportation, but
that agency said they had no way to withdraw a license from someone
who still had a valid driver's license. Finally, after a couple of
driving "lessons" with his father, Jim returned the car keys, though
he remained unconvinced that Bill was a safe driver. As it turned
out, Bill did not have any major car accidents. He did manage repeatedly
to scrape the side of car on the garage entry way, both at the house
by Elyria and later, after they moved to Moundridge, the garage door
sides at their Memorial Home apartment. Bill also struggled to regain
mastery of his typewriter. Within two years he was typing letters
to his children reasonably well.
Although Bill was reluctant to give up farming entirely, he did
reduce his farm operations. Bill and Meta arranged for Floyd Gehring,
auctioneer and fellow member at Eden, to take thirteen of their cattle
to Hutchinson for sale. Meta recorded that the cattle were sold for
a little over five thousand dollars. In the fall of 1984, the "Unraus,"
a family corporation led by Vance (Candy's husband) Unrau's brothers,
harvested the milo. Bill continued to farm the land adjacent to the
original homestead, but the Unrau corporation rented the other two
hundred acres. Bill continued to enjoy his reduced farm operation.
In 1986 he reported in a letter to Sharon that the wheat had yielded
from forty to fifty bushels per acre, "and I got it all plowed in
June for the first time in my life."
In August 1984 Bill and Meta "recorded the deeds" for their children
to receive an inheritance of forty acres each. Ruth's part in the
inheritance remained in limbo, however, as Bill and Meta were worried
that it would end up as property of the Divine Light Mission, where
Ruth had taken a vow of poverty, chastity and obedience. Also, Bill
hesitated because the forty acres available for Ruth, south of the
old house, was bisected by highway #81 and therefore not an equal
share. Eventually, after Bill died, Ruth received a full cash equivalent
of forty acres from the estate. She had left the Divine Light Mission
and was living in Kansas City. She invested the inheritance money
in a house for herself there. Bill would have been proud of his daughter's
investment.
|
