He Will Remain

Our community lost a treasure this week.  Fr. David Willett was born in Fancy Farm, he was raised in Fancy Farm, joined the military, became a priest, rejoined the military and retired as a Colonel in the U.S. Army.  When he retired from the military for the third time he moved home.  A lot of people do that.  When they retire they come back from whence they came.  Somewhere along the way he bought the family home place and built a very nice house and farm where he had grown up.  He even got some very nice cows and put them on the place.  And in his retirement he was able to help out in our community, in our church.  He was an asset.

Fr. David was an old-style, traditional priest.  He went by the book.  I’m sure with his Army training he was used to giving orders and having them followed.  Of course civilians don’t follow rules like soldiers.  Civilians will let you make a recommendations but they are more inclined to do what they want.  I’m sure that this frustrated Fr. David but he stood by his beliefs and somehow didn’t let any of it change who he was.

And who he was was very important to understanding him.  There were aspects that some understood more than others.  His family was very private, was very close-knit.  They took care of their own.  So a family member might know him different.  The same goes for those who served in the military.  They spoke a different language at times.  Those men and women understood Fr. David differently than a lot of the civilians did.  The same goes with the priests and religious who would come to our community.  They knew each other in ways lay people would never understand.  But in coming back to Fancy Farm, in coming back to the farm, Fr. David made a choice to become a farmer once more.  And farmers only understand each other.

I can remember hearing some of the conversations that he had with some of the farmers.  They talked about tractors and cows and hay.  He was always very interested in talking about a farmer’s crops.  Our family grows tobacco.  Every few years we would put a crop out near his farm.  He had to drive by there every time he came or went anywhere.  One year the crop didn’t look too good.  We had a drought and we tried everything to keep that crop growing.  Fr. David would always comment about the crop to us, no matter what stage.  Jimmy would ask him to sprinkle a little holy water and bless that crop every time he went by.  The crop struggled that year.  But in the end that field weighed more than the rest of our crop in any other field.  As soon as we delivered that and told him about it he got this little, knowing grin on his face.  So from that point on we made a point to ask him to bless our crop every time he went by, and throw a little holy water on it for good measure.

But it wasn’t just that.  He loved anything that had to do with the way things were done years ago.  We still cure country ham and smoke sausage.  The times you would take him something like that, or ribs, you would have thought you brought him the best present out there.  One weekend I made a bunch of banana bread.  I had a whole slew of bananas that needed to be used so I made banana bread with those.  I must have baked 4 or 5 loaves.  When we went to church I grabbed a couple and thought surely I could get rid of them there.  Fr. David was saying mass and I went up to him before mass and asked if he liked banana bread.  He got this big grin on his face and said that of course he did.  I got him one after church and you would have thought I gave him the best present ever.

But that was something else about Fr. David.  He knew me and liked me, but more because he really knew and really liked Jimmy.  You see he knew Jimmy from the time Jimmy was born.  That’s the thing about the way things were done back then.  All of the farmers in an area, or in a family, worked each other’s crops.  For instance, if Jimmy’s dad had hay in the field that needed to be hauled, then Fr. David’s dad and brothers would come over and haul the hay.  If they had tobacco that needed to be cut then Jimmy’s family would go over and help cut the tobacco.  It was like a circuit.  If there were 6 or 8 farmers they planned their crops around each other so they made sure two tobacco crops didn’t have to be cut at the same time.  They would coordinate when anyone was cutting hay so they didn’t have to haul hay in two fields the same day.  Everyone looked out for each other and everyone worked each other’s crop.  Fr. David is not the only one in our community who would tell stories about those days.  Lots of people from our community remember doing that.  You didn’t pay for labor, you traded labor.  It was like glory days.  When he would talk about it you could also imagine him being a boy of 15 or 16 again, out in the sunshine, working hard, teasing the younger kids, and loving every minute of it.  I’m sure at the time that he didn’t think he was loving every minute of it but while he was talking about it there was something in his smile, and in his eyes that remember loving every minute of it.

The next few days will be hard on the family and friends of Fr. David.  But the next few days will be hard on the St. Jerome community too.  Not everyone agreed with Fr. David.  Not everyone liked him, I’m sure.  But just the loss of one of our own is hard to take.  There was a time when a lot of young girls from our community became sisters and a time when some of our young men became brothers, or priests.  That doesn’t happen much anymore.  And the ones who did are getting older and not being as productive as they once were.  That’s the situation with the Catholic Church in the United States in general.  But losing Fr. David is not just losing an asset to our faith community, but to our community as a whole.  I’m sure there will be a lot of priests and military come into our little town to send him off well.  I’m sure that the town will prepare for all of those visitors and make sure their time in Fancy Farm is memorable.  And I’m sure we’ll all do a good job in remembering him over the next few days.  But those of us who stay, without him in our midst, will miss him the most.  It will be strange not to see him riding through town in his restored Army jeep.  It will be strange that he will not be there saying Mass to help out Fr. Darrell.  It will be strange knowing that he won’t be driving by that tobacco crop throwing a little holy water out the window.  But I guess the fact that he moved back to Fancy Farm was because that’s where he wanted to remain.  So I guess he will still be around, in the lives and hearts of those he has touched throughout the years and in the stories that will be told about him.