Goodbye 2014, Hello Happier New Year

I know several people, including a couple of close friends, who are eager to say goodbye to 2014. For those of you who experienced a health crisis, family discord, a career setback, the loss of a friend or a family member, or any other challenge this year, I wish you strength, peace, and greater happiness in 2015.

This change in the calendar offers a chance to cast off burdens we have carried in the past year and move forward with gained wisdom, genuine gratefulness, and renewed optimism. But before I move forward, I want to take a minute to remember two men who died this year who had become part of My Musical Family.

One is a man I have already written quite a bit about in previous blog posts: Dr. Theodore Papermaster, who died on November 10 at age 100. The other is Francis Schellinger, who died on March 1 at age 91.

I haven’t written about Francis for several years. I first met him in June 2008, when he and his wife, Karen, showed up at the Stearns History Museum in St. Cloud for “G. Oliver Riggs Day.” I liked Francis immediately; he was well-spoken, gentle and self-deprecating. He and his brothers, Lawrence, Louis and Paul, had all played for my great-grandfather in the St. Cloud Municipal Boys’ Band.

Francis, center, with brothers Lawrence, left, and Louis, right, in 1938.

I later visited Francis at his home and interviewed him for my book; that’s when he told me that although he knew he was never going to be a great player, he liked my great-grandfather because G. Oliver taught him how to be a better man.

Francis in his garden in August 2008

The last time I saw Francis was in November 2010, when he and Karen attended a presentation I gave at the Stearns History Museum about G. Oliver Riggs and his St. Cloud Boys’ Band. Francis had had a stroke a few months earlier, but he still remembered me. In fact, when I told him that he looked great, he told me that I hadn’t aged a day and that I looked “vivacious.”

Francis and me in November 2010

You can look forward to hearing more about Francis and Ted in my book. And, speaking of my book, I have big plans for 2015. I have already said it to friends and family, and now I will declare it here in the virtual world: 2015 is the year I will finish writing it. There, I’ve said it. I had better get to work.

Happy New Year!