Chet Atkins, Bob Brozman, Butch Thompson Trio, Bruce Calin, Richard Dworsky, Johnny Gimble, Naomi Judd, Wynona Judd, Garrison Keillor, Lark Quartet, Peter Ostroushko. Laura Sewell,
Daddy Look at those trees ( Garrison Keillor ) Westphalia waltz ( Johnny Gimble , Peter Ostroushko , Chet Atkins ) Benjamin Britten March (Lark Quartet ) Old Dan Tucker ( Johnny Gimble ) Stay all night ( Johnny Gimble ) Down in the Valley ( Naomi Judd , Wynona Judd ) Doggie went a-courtin ( Naomi Judd , Wynona Judd )
Father Wilmer Krebsbach, Carl
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Oh, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, my hometown. Not the suburbs at all, but a good piece away from here. Where, as you may have heard if you were in touch with people up there, it turned suddenly warm about a week and a half ago. Suddenly, temperatures shot up into the 80s, about a month before that is supposed to happen around here. And even if it happened in a month, it would be too soon. So people were uneasy, and particularly Norwegian bachelor farmers who, after a couple of days of temperatures in the 80s, did take off their parkas, but with misgivings.
The Norwegian bachelor farmers who hold down that plank bench in front of the sidetrack tap sat there uneasily in 80-degree weather in only three layers of clothing and were a little upset about it. People were tempted after it had been up in the 80s and the snow was gone and the ice had melted except for those little bits of black ice way back in the dirt underneath the bushes, back in the depths of the woods. When the snow and the ice was gone, people were a little bit tempted to put something in the ground in their gardens and to move some of those tomato plants out of the milk cartons in the kitchen window out back and put them in the dirt and let those tomatoes begin their race to the white string and the great tomato sweepstakes. A competitive sport for the knowledgeable person in Lake Welbecon. But nobody wanted to be first and to be a fool when the blizzard strikes in a couple weeks or in a month. So they have held off planting their gardens so far. The big news in Lake Wobegon was that Father Emil, is still there. Although he handed in his resignation months ago to the Bishop of Brainerd and said that his Easter sermon would be his last, he is still there in the rectory at Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility. He preached a tremendous Easter Sunday homily on the subject of the stone being rolled away in the personal lives of each one of us. They had a wonderful farewell coffee and cake in the basement for him afterwards, and speeches were made, including one by the mayor of Lake Wobegon, Clint Bunsen, a Lutheran actually physically standing inside the Catholic Church more than 20 feet from the nearest exit. And he was given gifts by Florian Krepsbach in behalf of the parish, including an aerial view of Lake Wobegon, which Father Emil knew to be less than rare.
The Boosters Club having gotten a good price on 250 of them about 10 years ago. But he pretended as if it was a big deal, which priests are good at doing. and was given an envelope by Florian in a ceremony which Father Emil knew would contain a check which was either a little bit too much money or probably quite a bit, not quite enough. And he was right about that. And he hugged a number of the parishioners which if you are a German Catholic from North Dakota and are reserved, it is so embarrassing to do it that then you have to leave town. And had his bags packed and Monday morning his ride did not show up. Father Willimer, who was supposed to be his replacement and who was going to drive him to the bus depot in St. Cloud, did not show.
Father Emil sat and waited with four suitcases bursting at the seams until about 12 o'clock noon. His bus was to leave at 2.30 and finally called up to Brainerd to the office of the Brainerd Diocese and asked for the bishop, Bishop Bruce MacDonald, whose name does not sound particularly Catholic. Sounds like a Presbyterian snuck into the hierarchy. Sounds like a box falling down the stairs is what his name sounds like, Bishop Bruce McDonald Brainerd, but he was not in. The woman who answered the phone said he was still on his Easter vacation. A new idea to Father Emil, a bishop going on an Easter vacation. He said, what about my replacement? She didn't know anything about it. She said, maybe you should talk to Father Wilmer. He's right here. And so he talked to Father Wilmer. Father Wilmer Millworth, Father Emil has heard a little bit about since Bishop Bruce decided to appoint him to Our Lady Parish. 47 years old. Got his training at Fort Francis Seminary.
And has never been assigned to a parish. On account of a speech impediment. Which prevented him from saying Mass. Actually even sang the word Mass. The letter M. was a problem for him. He stuttered badly on the letter M. Couldn't say Mass, couldn't say Minnesota, couldn't say good morning to his mother. So they couldn't assign him to a parish. They assigned him to do missionary work among the Methodists in Minneapolis. Which was his assignment for a few years, but of course he didn't have to do any work. He just lived at the Newman Center and underwent speech therapy for a number of years. To the point where he learned how to sort of ease his way into words that began with M and W, which had been his problem. He kind of lowered himself into those words and then he could say them, but sometimes it took him a while. And so the bishop figured he was ready for his first assignment.
But Father Wilmer Milworth didn't think that he was. He had been on vacation, he explained to Father Emil over the phone. The whole month of March. He had gone to Mexico. And he was a little bit anxious about this, his first job at the age of 47. And was having what he could see now was a midlife crisis. And wasn't sure that Lake... Wobegon was a place where he really could work. He wanted more time to think about it. Well, Father Emil saw that as his cue to get in the car. and to drive up to Brainerd and he was up there for about three hours on Monday night and arrived back at the rectory about eight o'clock that evening and got out of the old black Chevy and out of the door on the other side got out a rather tall skinny man who blinked a lot and who was carrying a small suitcase as if he didn't intend to stay long. And that was Father Wilmer Millworth, who was so nervous at this point that he was having a hard time saying his own name. Wilmer Millworth. Millworth. Father Emil put him upstairs in the bedroom, in the guest bedroom.
It hasn't been used for many years. The rectory was about all empty Monday night. He'd sent a truckload of stuff Father Emil had down to his sisters in North Park, North Carolina, where he aims to retire for at least the first few years. And he'd given away his favorite recliner to Mr. Bowser at the post office. Kind of felt like a hotel lobby. He was anxious to get going, to check out. But Father Wilmer was not anxious to start. Where is the bishop on vacation? Father Emil asked him as they sat around the kitchen table drinking coffee late at night, but it was weak coffee. It was in Florida, Father Wilmer said. Fort Myers? He said, Father Amos. Miami? No, he said, Walt Disney. Walt Disney what? Father Amos said. Walt Disneyland? No. Walt Disney... Walt Disney would? The bishop was at Walt Disney World. When is he due back, Father Emil said? Father Wilmer looked at him. Wednesday? Monday? Friday? Friday? He was having trouble with F's too. I don't know if Father Wilmer said, maybe, he said, it would be better if for the first Sunday, I just sort of watched and got the feeling for the congregation. Maybe for the first couple Sundays and kind of ease into it. Father Emil wasn't sure if the seams on his suitcases would last as long as Father
Wilmer needed to ease into this situation, a new parish. He wished he could give him the benefit of his experience. This man, 47 years old, his first parish, he's so scared. But it's hard to give someone the benefit of your experience and to tell them that someday this will not seem that important to them, what is giving them so much grief now. Because their someday has yet to arrive. Their someday is a long way down the road from which they'll be able to look back at this. And there's no way that they can imagine how to look back at it. He wanted to give him some advice from experience but didn't know what to tell him. He was remembering what had happened to him years ago, soon after he arrived in Lake Wobegon, Father Emo. And he felt so lonely. When he saw an advertisement in Collier's Magazine for a pen pal service, he wrote in with his name. and got a letter back from a woman in medieval Oregon named Gladys Swart who said she'd gotten his name from the pen pal service and would he care to correspond with her. Well, he wrote her back and said that he would and decided that he wouldn't tell her that he was a priest.
He knew how a lot of people talked to priests and wasn't sure if he wanted more of that in the form of letters on a regular basis. He knew how when people are with a priest, they tend to say things like, I was looking through the first epistle to the Corinthians last night, Father, and I couldn't help but notice that verse. I believe it's the third verse in the 12th chapter. People say, I was out walking last night, Father, and I saw the sunset. I heard a bird sing. I saw some children playing. I saw a candle in a window, and suddenly it made me see the truth of what you told us last Sunday. He thought he'd rather write letters and get letters from someone who talked like a real person He wasn't sure if this was right for a priest to do, to correspond with a woman. Something about her handwriting seemed sensual, the way she made her vowels, the way the tails hung on the G's and the Y's. They seemed like melon vines there on the page. It made him think of hot summer days, made him think a lot of other things, but he decided to correspond with her. And instead of telling her that he was a priest, he told her that he had just gotten out of prison. That he'd done seven and a half years for burglary. He wasn't sure if that was right either, and yet it seemed like a good act of contrition for a priest to be a convicted felon for somebody.
And so the letters started arriving from Oregon addressed to Mr. Emil Dwarshak. Mr. Bowser at the post office sent them up to the rectory. But he circled the mister and he stamped it. Please provide your correspondence with correct address. Stamped it that way for 20 years. As Gladys wrote to him, wrote to him about Civil War history and about her travels. and about raising tomatoes, and about her two dogs, and about her cat, and about her family, and about her husband Vince, whom she was worried about because he didn't get along with people, including her, and about her family, and about a sister, and who was showing a tendency toward insanity that Gladys was afraid ran in her family, and maybe she'd get it someday, too. She wrote a long letter to Mr. Emil Dwarshak in Lake Wolfgang, Minnesota, about once every two or three weeks, and he wrote back to her. Late at night, when he felt lonely, when there was no one to talk to. He wrote, Dear Gladys, Haven't written for a long time, so thought I would sit down and pen a few words. As I see it's getting about time to be putting tomatoes in this year. And I believe I will try the George Luxton variety this year.
The big boys didn't work out for me last summer. Things of this sort. About five years into their correspondence, Gladys became friendly in her letters in a way she had not been before. And so Mr. Emil Dwarshak in Lake Wobbogon invented a girlfriend for himself named Dorothy, whom he was keeping company with. And he wrote a lot about Dorothy and about her family. About six years into their correspondence, Gladys wrote that she and her husband Vince were coming out to Minnesota to visit relatives in Brainerd. And she wasn't sure. Maybe it'd be better if they just stayed pen pals and didn't meet each other. But maybe she'd drop in. Father Emil tried to discourage her and thought that he and Dorothy might be going to Canada that week. Then Gladys changed the week that she and Vince were going to be coming out. So Emil and Dorothy and Dorothy's mother and an aunt Elsie had to be going to Canada and to stay an extra week so that they could go out to Vancouver and visit an uncle. It was complicated. A couple of times, Father Ema wanted to level with her and tell her the truth, and he tried to feel her out on the subject.
He said he was thinking of maybe he wasn't sure, maybe going into the ministry someday. It sort of interested him. Maybe even becoming a priest. It might not be too late. Even though he'd done time in prison, maybe they'd let him in. She wrote back, no, she didn't think he would make a good priest. She said, there's too much of the poet in your soul for you ever to be a part of an institution as rigid as the Catholic Church. So he couldn't tell her the truth. Well, a couple years later, she and Vince were coming back out, and she wasn't going to visit him that time. But then one day he got a call from Mr. Bowser at the post office, and Mr. Bowser said, Mr. Dwarshak? There's somebody here who's looking for you. He put on his collar and he went downtown to the Chatterbox Cafe where Gladys and Vince were parked in their car out in front. Except there was no Vince.
It was just Gladys. And she didn't look at all like the picture she had sent him. She had never looked like that picture. He could see that. She was a good deal older and a great deal heavier than the rather slim woman in the dark glasses and the flowing white garden dress who stood against the side of a house with a large sun hat. She was not that woman at all. And she could see, of course, that he was not the man. She was a large, fat old lady sitting in a car with her legs out, her nylons just coming up to below her knee and then all rolled up Rolls of nylon. Looked like she was trying to smuggle sausages into the Midwest. She looked at him. He looked at her. They went in and had some coffee. She said, well, she said, I'm not who I said I was either.
She said, a priest, a priest. I wondered, I wondered why you used the term a goodly number so often. They had a long talk. I had a long talk and they promised to keep in touch with each other and to write regularly she said when she said goodbye she said I just want you to know that whoever you are I care about you and then she left and drove off and they never did write many letters after that they just exchanged Christmas cards and that was about it they were two storytellers is who they were and they started out to tell each other stories because they wanted to improve on the facts and they wanted to express what was in their hearts and then it became complicated the plot somehow didn't quite hold up and they had to become somebody else than who they really were and it was hard to keep going And so when they found out the truth, they just became strangers again. He found her letters in a big box, all wrapped up, her letters wrapped up in bundles about the size of bricks.
Found them in a room under the stairs at the rectory when he was cleaning out. Left them in there along with stacks of old magazines because he wanted to look through them again. and relive their friendship, which was all based on affection. And then Father Wilmer was busy clearing out stuff and he took the magazines to be recycled to the paper drive the Boy Scouts were having. And somehow Gladys' letters got in with the magazines. And so they've been sent off somewhere to soak in water and to go make paper for something else. He wasn't sure as he thought about her what the lesson was, what the advice was that he could have given Father Wilmer. But he wished that Father Wilmer had known about her and had had the chance to meet her. The first strawberries were picked in Lake Wobegon last week and presented to him as a part of a going away present. Karl Krepsbach brought them in.
Everybody knew it wasn't true, of course. They knew it was just a joke. Karl got some strawberries at a grocery store. and was passing him off as the first of the season. They said, oh, Carl, as he gave Father Emil a plant in a pot with two berries on it. They said, oh, Carl, give us a break. Father Emil took him home, these fictional strawberries. One of them, the berry did seem to have been scotch-taped on just underneath a leaf. But the other one seemed to be real. It seemed to be a real strawberry. He gave it a little tug to see if it had been glued on. But it seemed to be real. And he gave it another little tug and it came off. And he ate it. And it was so cold. And it was so good. That's the news from Lake Wobegon. Where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.
Folk Songs: "Great big bobs", 'The worms crawl in", 'While looking a window".
1986.02.25 Star Tribune / 1986.03.30 Star Tribune / Rebroadcast on April 1, 1989
Archival contributors: musicbrainz / Frank Berto