Last February, I got an email from Penny Wells. Penny had signed up for one of my lefse classes last fall but had to drop out because her mother was ailing. The email said that her mother had passed away at the age of 90, and Penny was looking for lefse to be served at a visitation before the 3 p.m. memorial service on March 7.
I was honored to be asked … and I was a little nervous about the task of making 40 rounds of lefse for a funeral. It had to be perfect, I thought, and that thought is like kryptonite to a recovering perfectionist like me.
But I did it, and I was very glad I did. I felt good as I imagined how the lefse would add to the celebration of this life, much the same way it did in my novel, Final Rounds: On Love, Loss, Life, and Lefse. And when Penny picked up her lefse the morning of the memorial service, I was especially glad to learn a bit about Phyllis Harriet Schutz.
Penny said her mom, known as Nana, was spirited woman, and Penny impressed me as being like her mom. The obituary said: “In typical Nana fashion, her last days were full of smiles and laughs (and a few scowls), surrounded by family and friends.” Nice way to go out, I thought.
Nana was born in 1929 (like my mom, Darlene Schumacher) in North Dakota (like my mom) to Elvin and Aagot Iverson, “hardy Norwegian farmers,” said the obit. Nana moved to Fargo for work (like my mom) and met James Schutz on a blind date and soon married.
Penny pointed to the last few lines of the obit, which made me even more happy that I got to know Nana through lefse. It read: “Nana’s infectious spunk will live on in all who knew her. Nana loved people, cigarettes, and vodka gimlets, perhaps not in that order.”
Here’s to you, Nana!
“Let us make our glasses kiss;
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Let us quench the sorrow-cinders.”
