1982 Life Celebration -Honoring the Time and Life of Paul H Weaver MD - Pelican Lake the place he loved to watch the sunsets!

 

The Cake created for the memorial gathering to honor the life and times of my dad, Paul H Weaver MD, 1910-1981. 

The winter of 1981-82 was a cold one in Crow Wing County.  My father, Paul H Weaver, nick- named "Pete" Weaver since his Antioch College days to his friends and colleagues, had not felt well for a year or two.  Retiring to his beloved Pelican Lake cottage that he and my mom had remodeled in the earlier 70's just for retirement, was his little place of heaven on earth.  He really relaxed when he got to Pelican Lake. He and mom would take their leisurely walks, often carrying binoculars and he a camera, listing the phenology of species and logging the names into their log books.  Both always had that scientific bent to classify and learn about connections to Nature.  So when he was diagnosed with bowel cancer in January, that already metasticized to his liver, we knew he would not be coming home from St Joseph's Hospital in Brainerd.   The 3 Weaver brothers came to be him, and with mom, as best we could, and my living in St Cloud, gave me the closest access to being a regular support. 

 Some of their Pelican Lake retirement friends were the Thomas's and the Jacksons who also had homes on the lake.  Here in a Polaroid taken by friends, not label, I think is at the Thomas home on the big bay of Pelican Lake taken in December 1981.  Jo Thomas, Ralph Jackson, Ruth Jackson, Pete Weaver, Peg Weaver, Judd Thomas.

Here are my parents together, another Polaroid taken by friends, also in December. Peg and Pete at the fireplace that Pete designed with a Heatilator® insert that circulated the air from the side when the cabin was built in 1947.  He and his friend Ken Agerter had built a more standard fireplace at the prop near Faribault, and here he added the technology to have a more efficient fireplace. 

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I found photos and archives of dad's life well documented and made this story board for the memorial gathering . Peg, Sue and I made the brown flyer in the lower right, to invite folks from around the country to the event held Saturday Aug 21, 1982 beginning at 3:00 PM.

 

Rev Tom Mauer addressed the circle of friends in front of the Weaver Family Cabins, purchased by the 3 sons in 1967. Tom Mauer connected first with Tom and Sue where they met at the U of Minnesota Medical Schools Program in Human Sexuality in 1973.  We participated in a SAR that Tom facilitated and spoke  at.  He was an openly gay Methodist Minister who was added to the staff of the program at the U of M in the early 1970's and had been the minister at our wedding at the U of M Research East location on University Ave in May 1974 and the Wedding Celebration with our families in August, three months later here at the Palmer Cabins as well.   Tom spoke to the over 50 people who attended.


People of many ages attended. Grand neices, Valerie and Kristen Weaver, Ralph Jackson, Rita Orr, Nellie and Jack Weaver, John Weaver II, Boots and Julie Yanson. Ken Relyea, Greg Larsen, Dorothy Goblirsh, Anna and Steve Wafler, Harold Williams and Peg Weaver are seen here.

 

 Here Burt Orr in the blue shirt converses in the back row with Greg Larsen with Anna and Steve Wafler as well.

After the formal ceremony at 3 PM on the Saturday, people stayed around to meet and chat informally around the Weaver Family Cabin area..

Many stayed to share in a pot luck at the larger Palmer Cabin, now taken care of by the family my older brother Jim Weaver:


Lining up for food here in the kitch are Florence Hirman, Jo Thomas, Nate Weaver in the arm of John Satterlee with Neva Hubbell and Melanie Weaver in conversation.





 Winnie Leanard (Winifred Elaine Pinkham Leonard) the neighbor to the northeast and Florence Hirman from Sunset Beach enjoy the potluck line.






Jack Weaver with nephew Ken Weaver in the food line.



Harold Williams who has a home on the lake and the father of Nellie Jane Weaver,  and Georgene Draheim who has been a long time visitor to Pelican Lake, first coming up with a group from the University of Minnesota Medical School.   Back at the wood pile behind the Palmer Big Cabin.



Peggy Agerter Kiekenapp, came up with Dorothy Goblisch from Faribault, both widows, here is conversing with Bill Eicher, Pete Weaver's first cousin who at this time still had a home in Kettering OH, near to where the Eicher's had farms in Montgomery County south of Dayton earlier in the 20th Century.


Outside of the small Palmer Cabin, then managed by Sue and Tom Weaver, Peg Weaver visited with Lib and Don Lawrence.  Don worked as a professor of Botany and Ecology at the U of Minnesota and he and Lib lived in the Seward Neighborhood of Minneapolis and were early pioneers in the Nature Conservancy and had a cabin at the Cedar Creek Natural History area, near where Peg did much of her mushroom collecting


 Lib and Don Lawrence having breakfast in the small Palmer Cabin.


Small cabin with Jim, Sue, Peg and Nate Weaver 



General socializing in the yard of the cabins including Judd Thomas, Annie Sykora, John Satterlee and Melba Griffin

 Peg Weaver, Jan and Al Batchelder with Jack Weaver. (Batchelders, had a cabin just west of Harold, Jack and Nellie's cabin area)


Moving over to Harold Williams home during the weekend are Peg, Jack Weaver, Bill Eicher, Nellie, John and Kris Weaver, then Sue and Nathan Weaver, Val and Jim Weaver.

Jack, Nellie, Peg, Sue and Nathan Weaver behind Harold's home.

Cousin Bill Eicher from Ohio smoking his pipe, John Weaver on the beach and Jack Weaver at the pontoon boat in front of Harold Williams home.

 Here in 2016, looking through Betty Eicher's papers, now held by her nephew Wm A "Biily" Eicher, the only son of Wm Henry Eicher who came to his cousin Paul Henry Weaver 's life celebration event ..when she wrote on her journal about Bill going to Brainerd in Sept (sic) and writes about the cremation choices Paul H and Peg weaver made through the medical school in Minnesota.

 

A Photo of Paul H Weaver age 60 in 1970 with his ever present pipe and smoke in the sunroom porch with his dictionary stand, ever ready for a look up of words.  Both parents taught me about the importance of and power of words in communication.  

 Inside of Harold's home are Jim, Nathan, Sue, and Bill Eicher with John Weaver.  Note Bill is also holding a pipe in his left hand.