Presented by Elaine at Uncle Paul's funeral:
Elaine Fennewald 11/09/22
TRIBUTE TO PAUL GRONER
Good Morning. I think Uncle Paul ordered this beautiful day, sunshine and blue skies. I
imagined him this morning sitting on his front porch, his faithful dog at his side. But Uncle Paul
is in heaven – his back straight, his legs strong and his hearing perfect and so I best get this
right.
Uncle Paul peacefully made his way to heaven at 2 AM Saturday morning. Heaven sang.
Trumpets sounded. Angels rejoiced. It must have been like Easter morning. What excitement
and happiness for the Groner family as they planned his celebration. Clare Sidney says Uncle
Hubert told him it was time to come home and I know Uncle Hubert was the first one to
welcome him. Can you imagine seeing his sweet sister, Caroline, after 74 years? What a
beautiful reunion. He was only 23 when she died. I was awakened at 1:30 AM on Saturday
morning and started to pray that Uncle Paul would have a peaceful journey to heaven. Clare
Sidney also said she was awakened at 2 AM. The spirit of those we love is stronger and more
powerful than reason can comprehend.
Clare Sidney, JP, Vanessa, Jess and Gavin: Uncle Paul treasured each of you and dearly loved
you. He was always so excited to have you visit any time but especially during the holidays. He
kept your visits a secret and often you were here and gone back to Texas before we knew you
had visited. I really think he didn’t want to share your time here with anyone else and I don’t
blame him.
I don’t think Uncle Paul could have had a better friend and neighbor than Jim Coglin. No matter
what he asked of you, you answered the call and helped him. You are “salt of the earth”.
Thank you so much for always being there.
To my cousin, Bob, you raised a great bunch of boys, young men now. They must make you so
proud. Perhaps with your passing it allowed room for Uncle Paul to be part of their lives and
they to be part of his. Mark, he loved to help you find old horse-drawn equipment. He was
always looking for old farm machinery, fixing it up, painting and selling it. Luke, from the time
that Uncle Hubert died and you came to live with Uncle Paul, you literally never left him and
were always there for him. What a testimony that is! You helped load cattle, took them to
auction, fixed fences, cut wood and two days before his own death, you buried his beloved
draft horse, Barney. You were his “ace in the hole” and he was yours.
Tony, you must have spent a thousand hours over the years repairing tractors, balers, trucks,
cars, and burned out clutches. You were his mechanic 24/7. Thank you for your selfless
service. You made numerous trips in the cold weather feeding his cattle; you cut and baled hay
and the last two summers, transported all your machinery over to his place to put up hay. That
is LOVE.
David, you also were always there for Uncle Paul, mowing grass, loading cattle and driving them
to auction. He called and you came, doing whatever needed to be done. Luke, Tony and
David, you were his safety net.
Frank, you did a lot of plumbing jobs for Uncle Paul and in the dead of winter, you and Tony dug
through frozen ground to repair numerous leaks in the water pipes.
My sister, Donna, often took Uncle Paul his favorite meal of sauerkraut, ribs, mashed potatoes
and of course homemade dessert, usually apple pie. Donna remembers carrying lunch to the
fields for Uncle Paul and Uncle Hubert. Grandma made lard sandwiches sprinkled with sugar,
Grandma’s cookies and a glass jar of hot coffee.
Uncle Paul loved fried chicken and you could always find a box of it in his refrigerator along with
desserts.
Mary, I think you brought him food every week. He loved yours and Ed’s company as much as
the food.
Uncle Paul loved his birthday and early in the summer, he’d start talking about his birthday. He
loved for all of us to come together, not only to celebrate him but to celebrate life, all the
goodness and the blessings. He loved to read his cards and the next week we’d sit at his
kitchen table writing down how many people were at his party.
Sid asked me to tell the story of my brothers, Tony and Frank going to school in Hermann and
catching the bus at the end of our road. One morning they missed the bus, probably hiding out
in the woods. When they got back home, Mom called her Mom, our Grandma Groner, and
asked if the boys, Hubert and Paul, were around. She said they were across the road but would
be back shortly. Mom explained the situation and she said she’d send them over. Well I
imagine it was a pretty quiet trip into Hermann for when Uncle Paul dropped them off he said
“Now boys, don’t let this happen ever again and if it does, you are going to Sister Evodine.” She
must have been a GESTAPO because it never happened again.
And then there is the time that Frank and Tony locked Luci, our precious little sister, in the corn
crib. Well she commenced to screaming and Uncle Paul heard her from the top of the hill
where he was working. You see, our farms adjoined each other. He came and rescued her and
to this day we don’t know the rest of the story.
I remember Mom taking afternoon lunch to Uncle Paul and Uncle Hubert in the field above our
house when they would bale hay. We kids would all tag along so excited. Mom would fix them
sandwiches, cookies and always a glass jar of hot coffee. Uncle Paul drank hot coffee in the
summer time all his life.
For me, Uncle Paul was larger than life. I loved being in his presence, going to his house to
clean, fix dinner and do laundry. I felt like I was the luckiest person in the world. When I got
there he always asked if I had time for a cup of coffee. I loved his stories. He told how his
cousin, Mack Groner, came to live with Grandma and Grandpa and work when he was just 13
years old. Mack’s dad died when he was 8. Apparently Uncle Henry and Mack had a reputation
of raising hell and being rowdy. They got into a fight one Saturday night at a dance hall and
they both got thrown out.
Uncle Paul loved horses. He often hitched his horses to a wagon and took them to church
festivals. One day he came in the house to call the Vet as one of his horse’s hooves was tangled
with barb wire. I told him I could help and I was the horse whisperer, holding the horse while
he clipped the barb wire from the horse’s hoof. He had a special powder he put on his hoof to
clot the blood and then he gave him a shot of antibiotics. I was in awe of what he had done.
He was wise and resourceful.
One afternoon we drove to Bowling Green to see the Amish about shoe-ing his horses. I
thought we were in a corn maze as he had me making so many turns right and left down the
dirt roads. But he took us to the right place, no GPS needed. No one ever told Uncle Paul that
in his 90’s he could no longer crawl through barb wire fences. He was like a jack rabbit
skittering through the fences, his arm and bib tops taking the wear and tear.
With Uncle Paul’s death comes the end of our Groner generation as we know it. But we will
stand on the shoulders of our parents, our grandparents, our aunts and uncles, the Groners.
We share their DNA, their blood runs in our veins and we have within us their values.
I know he had aches and pains but he never complained and he never gave up. He could have
given up when his best friend, his brother Hubert died, but he didn’t. God sent him an angel
named Luke to take care of him for the rest of his life. He could have given up when he fell
from a tree he was trimming, crippling his back, damaging his leg and throwing off his balance,
but he didn’t. He got up every day, put on his black rubber boots, fed and watered his chickens,
fired the furnace, counted his cattle, climbed on his tractor and worked the fields.
Today we celebrate Uncle Paul, all he was and all he gave us. His home was humble, his life
simple and the greatest gifts he left us were his tenacity, his faith in God, his work ethic, his love
of life and the land. His spirit lives on and you will hear it in the gentle whisper of the wind, feel
it in the warmth of sunshine on your cheek, the butterfly that light on your arm a little longer
and the deer that hesitates out in the field.
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