Two weeks ago was the funeral of my friend, Dave Yeoman. He’d suffered from multiple myeloma and colon cancer for seven years. Plus a bit of heart trouble thrown in.
Dave sort of adopted Lime Springs. Dave and Mary had a video recording business, doing weddings, mostly. I convinced him that he should record the 1993 LSHS reunion and also the one in 2003. From the recorded material, he produced three DVDs of our school and town.
Two were of the reunion programs themselves. The third was titled Return to the River, taken from the title given by Pete Garrison to the address he gave at the 1993 reunion.
Several times afterward I commented to Dave, “Well, your recordings just got more valuable, as so-and-so passed away last week.” That can be a reminder: lots of Lime Springs residents who are no longer with us are in those videos! A few whom I remember being there are Ernie Tibbals, Gordon Williams, and I believe Ruth Thomas—plus many more whose names do not pop into my head right now.
The Lime Springs Public Library was given a copy of each of these DVDs. Hopefully, they are still there!
My relationship with Dave actually began about 1953 or 1954, almost 60 years ago now. (Dave was 75 years old.) We communicated via Morse code and our ham radios way back then, he in Algona and me at our farm, NE of town!
Then I met him at Oskosh, at the big airshow, in 1974. He had his unique home-made airplane on display. I talked to the owner and just happened to remember that he worked for Collins Radio in Cedar Rapids. At the time, I was working for another radio company and living in Miami, FL.
After moving to Cedar Rapids in 1978 and starting to work at Collins myself, I looked him up. Because of our mutual and deep interest in aviation, mostly, we and our families became good friends. Dave and Mary were frequently our Sunday evening dining partners at a local Mexican restaurant or pizza joint.
And Dave had a welder! He bailed me out more than once!
And I could create websites. I made a website for him, on which he offered hundreds of audio recordings of forums (speeches) made at Oshkosh over the last 40 years.
His funeral service, pretty much planned by Dave and executed by his three very capable children, was surely one of the nicest and most appropriate funerals we’ve attended.
I was very honored to have been asked to speak at the service. My subject was “Dave’s Afflictions:” multiple myeloma and colon cancer.
And AVIATION. Dave was severely afflicted with aviation! As there were many in the audience similarly afflicted, it was well received.
Here’s a video made three years ago, following a fly-in breakfast at Marion: