Karl Enar

 

  I first met Karl Enar on the Fourth of July weekend, 1973 in Roseau a few hours after Teresa and I had gotten engaged. Teresa's mother Frances looked at me with a critical eye as is a mother's duty.  Enar seemed to accept me without question, having faith in his daughter's judgement. 

  After supper Enar and I ended up sitting on the lawn shooting rocks off the driveway. The old .22 rifle was stiff and at one point I put the barrel against my foot for better leverage. "You might not want to do that in case it goes off," Enar said. He didn't mutter "Idiot" or tell Teresa she should think again.

  At first Teresa and I lived in Saint Paul, but we wanted to move north. Frances soon found a place on the market in Wannaska, but credit was tight at the time and there was no way we could come up with the down payment. Frances and Enar cobbled together loans from their life insurance policies to help us buy our home.

  Frances and Enar helped us get settled in our new place. He helped me build a chimney so we could burn wood and we built a woodshed together behind the house. When I wanted to raise feeder pigs he helped me build pens in the barn, and when the baby pigs arrived he taught me to clip their needle teeth, dock their tails and castrate the males. There's not many fathers-in-law that could have done that.

  Enar had switched from dairy cows to beef and I was able to repay his help by feeding his cattle when he and Frances were gone (brother-in-law Jack helped too). When he finally got rid of the last cow, I figured we were about even. 

  Frances died in 2009 and anyone who thought Enar would soon follow was mistaken. Enar had an independent character and wanted to stay on the farm, which he did for several years. But everything wears out, even tough old Swedes. When he went into assisted living in Roseau, the next step was to get him to give up his car which he did reluctantly and never really accepted. 

  He spent the past five years in an assisted living apartment in Warroad. As year after year passed he seemed to have found the secret of immortality. He perused his books and his twenty magazine subscriptions. He had done well with his financial investments and wanted to continue playing the market and the family had to convince him it was time to be conservative with his nest egg.

  Enar was always up for an outing with the family. He looked forward to staying at the farm for the month of July when Faith came up from Tennessee. Whenever the assisted living bus went on an outing, Enar made sure his name was on the list. 

  This summer during the County Fair, Teresa knew Enar would be riding the bus to the fair one day and met him there for lunch. The next day when she called his apartment he didn't answer. She tracked down staff and found out he had ridden the bus to the Fair again.  The following day Teresa and I went to the fair for lunch and as we were leaving, we saw Enar getting off the bus for one more day at the Fair. 

  He made it to age 105 this past September 26.  His vision was declining due to macular degeneration and he had to give up his magazines, but otherwise he showed no signs of slowing down, other than needing more help from staff for getting dressed, etc.  We were the ones finding it more difficult getting him up steps and compromised this past Thanksgiving by bringing dinner to his apartment. 

  This December he got the flu which turned into pneumonia. The doctor recommended Enar go to the nursing home, so on December 21 he moved into Roseau Manor adjacent to the hospital. He was kept as comfortable as possible over the next several days. 

  Inside Enar's barn there's a heavy rope hanging from the roof's peak. His children loved swinging on that rope from a high perch, across an open area, and landing in a pile of straw. On the afternoon of New Year's Eve, Enar let go of his rope. We pray for his safe landing. We'll not see his like again.

Great-grandpa with Teresa, Nash and Isla, August, 2022