www.dingmannfuneral.com
6 ir00l.0000t Thursday. July 2.2009
b-, .,a.i8,a,I v6 I,e Tri-County News • Kimball, MN
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Luella Dammann, 99
Luella Dammann of Annan-
dale died Saturday, June 27, 2009,
at the Annandale Care Center. She
was 99.
Funeral services were held at
10:30 a.m. Wednesday, July 1, at
Concordia Lutheran Church in
Fairhaven, with Rev. Dave Milz
officiating. Friends called from
5- 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Dingmann
Funeral Care Chapel in Annan-
dale, and one hour prior to the ser-
vice at the church. There was a
prayer service at 6:30 p.m. Tues-
day. Burial followed the funeral
service at Concordia Lutheran
Cemetery.
Luella Marie Dammann
was born Jan. 25, 1910, in South
Haven Township to Christian and
Augusta C. (Schmidt) Strecker. She
was baptized March 6, 1910, and
confirmed in her faith June 21,
1924, both at Concordia Lutheran
Church. Luella attended South
Haven High School.
She was united in marriage to
Otto Dammann Dec. 16, 1934, at
Concordia Lutheran Church. They
celebrated 42 years of marriage
together while farming and rais-
ing a family in Fairhaven Town-
ship, Stearns "County. Otto died
Aug. 15, 1976, and Luella remained
on the farm until she was 90, when
she moved to Annandale where
she enjoyed her last years.
Luella was a lifetime member
of Concordia Lutheran Church,
LWML, Ladies Aid Society, Senior
Citizens Group, Craft Group,
and Bible class member. She also
taught Sunday School and sum-
mer school. Luella was a past
member of Stearns County Home-
makers and she volunteered many
hours at Pioneer Park as a guide.
She enjoyed gardening, baking,
sewing, crocheting and quilting.
Luella treasured her family and
home and will be missed by all
who knew her.
She was preceded in death by
her husband Otto, son Kenneth,
brothers Emil, William, Louis,
Theodore, and Lester Strecker, and
sisters Anna Markwardt, Laura
Rozenberg, and Emma Strecker.
She is survived by her children
Delmer (and Carol) of Litchfield,
Darlene (and Donald) Oberg of
Elk River, daughter-in-law Doreen
Dammann of Annandale; five
grandchildren Doug (and Carol)
Oberg, Diane (and Duane) Fen-
ske, Lori (and Jeff) Chmiel, Tom
and Jim Dammann; seven great-
grandchildren Steve (and Mary)
and Kathy Fenske, Jenny (and
Paul) St. Martin, Josh and ]eremy
Oberg, ]essica and Katey Chmiel,
and many nieces, nephews and
friends.
The pallbearers were her great-
grandchildren. A special prayer
was offered by Darrell Strecker
and soloist was Sandra Strecker.
Memorials are preferred to Con-
cordia Lutheran Church.
19ingma.nl
unerol Care i
Barl=t and Cremation Services
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Compiled by the Kimball Area Historical Society
Knee-high by the Fourth of July
By Duane D. Stanley ©2009
You can take the boy from the farm, but you
can't take the farm from the boy was true of my
dad, Lynn, born in 1918 in the Kimball area.
Lafe and Pearl Stanley's farm, where Lynn and
brother Dean grew up, was across from where the
Kuseske's farm is today. As was the case in all farm
families in a day of largely pre-mechanized farm-
ing, the boys learned responsibilities early, but
more so because of Pearl's deteriorating health.
Lynn took most of a year off to help on the farm,
and Pearl died before his fifteenth birthday. At
age 16, he graduated from high school and a year
later he and Clayton Linn completed their teach-
ing certificate training through courses offered
by St. Cloud Normal School at Annandale.
Lynn's love for farming, gained from his farm-
ing father, was matched with the love for teach-
ing, imparted from his teacher mother. Those
loves would soon compete with a third: Christian
ministry. After four years of teaching in one-room
schools around Kimball and Fair Haven, Lynn
entered Bible College in the fall of 1940. Soon he
made a commitment that would set the path for
a long life of missionary service in South Africa.
Although that commitment was made before he
graduated, it would be another decade of school-
ing and ministry before he arrived on the "dark
continent," beginning thirty-five years of service
during which he meshed his faith commitment
with his love of teaching, by equipping Africans
for church leadership.
But what about that other love from his roots
in Kimball, the love of farming.2 We had hardly
started to adjust to South African life (when I was
seven) before Dad sold the bungalow in the city
and we were living "on the farm." Okay, the farm,
"Three Oaks," consisted of a three-acres island of
green on the arid African veld, thanks to pumps
and windmills that reached deep to feed two res-
ervoirs from which we watered strawberries, pota-
toes, quince, figs, oranges, and even a pomegran-
ate hedge. And of course, some alfalfa for cows
and space for a hundred chickens.
For the next three decades, no matter where
we lived, there too, would be a cow, or two, and
chickens. Always unenthusiastic about getting up
early in the morning, I was happy for my brother
Michael to head out at sunrise to do the milking.
(I did envy the forearms of steel he developed by
milking by hand, but even that was not enough to
get me out of bed early.) My'own farming ventures
began with the chickens. On my way to earning
enough to purchase my first motorcycle, I recall
having to rescue a hundred three-week-old chicks
from a sudden downpour while my non-support-
ive siblings watched from the porch.
Dad's love for farming gave us a sense of being
a farm family, if only by proxy. He was happy to
tell stories of life on the farm back home in Min-
nesota, even as his hobby-farming leaned to a
crop little seen on Maine Prairie for 100 years -
sugar cane - and a crop never seen on the prai-
rie: pineapples.
But Dad yearned to farm corn. In a couri-
try where fresh corn on the table meant "green
mielies" (immature field corn), Dad dreamed of
large fields of sweet corn. He even pondered an
entrepreneurial project of growing popcorn. And
whether spurred by the calendar or by rows of
corn along the roadway, Fourth (to page 7)
in, have ......
visit with
Nathan Stanley, standing on his hands, gives proof that
the corn is on track: Knee-high by the 4th of July. Sub-
miffed photos.
Lafe and Pearl Stanley with sons, Lynn and Dean, about
1921.
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