Remembering a good man ~ July 28, 2004

David Heiller

I have a couple images of my uncle Donny that will stay with me forever.

Donny and his wife, Lillian. 

One is quite old. My brother Danny and I were sitting on top of a hay rack stacked five high, watching Donny pull us on his trusty Ford tractor across the field and toward the barn. There was one spot where the road went perilously close to the ditch. My brother and I got ready to jump off on the safe side if Donny got too close and the wagon tipped. But that didn’t happen, and Donny seemed oblivious to our concerns, jostling around on the tractor far below us, although knowing Donny, he was smiling the whole time.

A little later we took a water break, and Donny passed me the jug with the news that it was filled with 7-Up. Wow, 7-Up on the farm, now that was living! I took a big swig and discovered to Donny’s delight that it was just plain water, and warm at that. I had to laugh with him though, he was that kind of guy. He always had a trick up his sleeve, or an observation that would crack me up.

That kind of summed Donny up for me. He was a hard worker who plugged away on a tough farm nestled into the hills south of Brownsville. He had a hard life, and a lot of physical ailments. His farm was as unprofitable as it was beautiful. But he never lost his sense of humor; he never let the farm defeat him.

The other image came just a few years ago. I had been hunting on his “new” farm in Mayville Township. He and Lillian had moved there in 1967. He told me once that his milk checks had gone up right away as a result of the better land, better feed and forage. And he didn’t struggle with those scary hay rides along ditches and down hills.

Donny’s old farm is a paradise that all citizens of Minnesota own now. But his next one is also about as glorious a parcel of land you will ever see. The woods are full of huge trees that Donny refused to have logged, even though loggers asked him about it every day, or so he said.

It was a late fall afternoon about five years ago, and winter was in the air a bit. I found Donny in the yard, taking a break from his end-less chores. Donny was a worker, and even then at age 73 he was probably in better shape than his 45-year-old nephew.

I can’t remember what we started talking about, but the conversation turned toward how long he would live on the farm. He said that he and Lillian had talked about moving to town. I said that made sense in a lot of ways. Donny listened politely–he wasn’t one to interrupt–then he told me why he would never leave the farm. I can’t remember his exact words, something like he had all he needed at the farm, and he wouldn’t be any happier just because he was in the big city of Caledonia.

His words made so much sense, and were spoken with such conviction, that I never even thought of raising that dumb question again.

Many people are connected to the land in a vague sort of way that they can’t put their finger on. They get strength from it, but they can leave it and return to it and that is enough.

It was more than that for Donny. He was tied to it in a way that only farmers who have spent their whole life on a farm can be tied. Not in a burdensome way either, but one that is in their blood, that comes from all those struggles and victories.

What Donny spoke to me that afternoon conveyed the fact that if he ever left the farm, it would kill him, perhaps not physically, not right away, but it would change who he was to the point that he would not be Donny Heiller anymore. He knew that about himself.

So when Donny died last week, “with his boots on,” as his obituary says, it was a sad day indeed, and a tragic one. But Donny dying on his farm was exactly what he would have wanted.

That fact will stick with me for the rest of my life, along with all the other things that made him such a fine man.