We are gathered here today to celebrate the life of Willard McCormack, who was not only my friend, but a friend to all of you who are gathered here today. Some of you are also fortunate enough to share blood kinship with Willard.
Willard was a good man, a steadfast, true, and loyal friend, a kind, gentle and compassionate man to all who crossed his path -- even strangers who stopped by his house needing help with a broken down vehicle or who were out of gas. He never turned anybody away who needed his help.
My first memory of Willard was as a child after we had moved to Hail, the childhood home of both my father and grandmother. I was at my Aunt Add’s house, which was next door to the McCormack residence. I saw Willard in his Army uniform walking on what was then a wooden walkway from the house to the outdoor privy. It was then that I first observed that distinctive walking gait that never changed. Willard had one gear, not fast, not slow, but constant and consistent. I never saw him get in a hurry. I did not really get to know Willard until 1970 when my son Scott and I returned to live at Hail in a little house I remodeled on the premises of my parent’s place while I completed my degree at ET. Willard often helped me with building and repairs during this time and all through the years when I returned to visit he was there when I called on him to help me get my ox out of the ditch. He absolutely refused any payment for these “ox in the ditch jobs” saying “you have already paid me,” referring to the time back in the early 1970s when knee surgery rendered him incapable of driving and I took him back and forth to the doctor and hospital in Greenville several times.
Willard was a solitary man, but also very much a family man. He did not fit the cookie cutter descriptive term “family man,” yet I never thought of him outside the context of the McCormack family of nine children. They were a true family, all for one and one for all and Icie was the combination CEO and first sergeant of the household. She loved her children fiercely and unconditionally and each one was like her favorite. John was a devoted husband and father and very much the head of the household—a very hardworking man, who likely worked himself into any early grave providing support for his family.
The McCormacks were known for being very good neighbors. Hail community was, and still is for the few remaining residents, like an extended family. Especially is this true for those of us whose grandparents were friends dating back to the 1800s? We have generations of shared joy, pain, and sorrow. After Icie passed on, Willard maintained her household routine. I often observed him hanging clothes on the line on what I knew to be her scheduled wash day, even when the weather was freezing and the clothes would freeze by the time they were all hung out. Willard kept the inside of the house as Icie left it, except for the cups he began to collect. Icie, I think, would not have tolerated all those cups that grew and grew like Johnson grass in a cotton patch. Can’t you just hear her saying “Wullard*, get those cups out of here.”
Willard was a generous man. His shop and tool shed were left open and I was told if I needed to borrow something, go ahead and get it even when he was not there. I am guessing the other neighbors were extended the same privilege.
Willard had a keen sense of humor. An example is the story of Willard, a pie, and Ruth, a longtime resident of Hail Community who was also known as the cat lady. When Ruth was gone from home for a few days one time, she asked Willard to feed her many cats. Upon her return, to show her appreciation, she baked a pie and delivered to him. Knowing the condition of Ruth’s kitchen where the cats ate at the same table as she did, Willard was not about to eat that pie, but he graciously accepted it and upon her departure, promptly threw it in the garbage pail.
When he next saw Ruth, she asked, “Willard, how was the pie?”
Can’t you just see Willard, pausing in that way he had before speaking?
“Ruth, it went fast” he truthfully replied.
When I retired to Hail community, I often asked Willard to share a meal with my husband and me. He arrived at the appointed time, always putting me in mind of my daddy who never came to the table to eat without washing his face and hands, wetting down his hair and combing it. It was always obvious from the damp hair, neatly and freshly combed into place that Willard followed this old-fashioned routine. I often delivered food to Willard as a way to show my appreciation for those “ox in the ditch jobs.” Every two or three weeks, I would observe him making his way north on CR3250 with a Wal-Mart bag carefully held between his hands containing the spotlessly clean containers I had delivered the food in. I hope the food I delivered traveled a different path than that of the cat lady’s pie.
Not long after I retired to my home place at Hail, my husband Harold returned one day from the Feed store in Windom somewhat puzzled. He asked “Is there someone named “Coconut” who lives around here? When the man at the feed store found out I lived at Hail, he remarked, ‘oh you must know Coconut’.” I enlightened him who Coconut was. I tried to trace the origin of this nickname, but nobody remembers, except it had to do with a haircut he had as a child. Horace says as long as he can remember, this was Willard’s nickname.
Willard suffered his sorrows in life as we all do sooner or later. I think his greatest sorrow was when the two young nephews who lived with him and his mother for several years suddenly and without notice disappeared from their life one day, never to be seen by them again. No chance to say goodbye, just gone when they left supposedly to go out to eat with their mother. When Willard would speak of them through the years, I observed tears slowly slide down his cheeks.
The common goal of most of us growing up in Hail community during the 40s and 50s was to see Hail in the rear view mirror of an automobile. We were anxious to rid ourselves of the hoe handle and cotton sack. Not Willard. After answering the call to serve his country he returned to Hail and Fannin County, where for Willard this locale was the Map of the World.
Willard, like all of us of born in the 20’s and 30’s, was very much a child of the Great Depression. Well remembered are the stories of the hard times experienced by our parents and grandparents. I suspect this had a great deal to do with Willard’s lifestyle of frugality. I always said when people would ponder how Willard prospered so well financially, “That’s easy to answer; he worked hard and probably saved at least 9 cents out of every 10 cents he ever earned.” Here, Willard was a paradox; he was frugal with himself, but generous with others, especially children.
Children loved Willard. He doted on his nieces and nephews and enjoyed giving them treats he denied himself. In later life, Willard came to realize that there was a happy medium between saving and spending. He began to enjoy some of the comforts he had denied himself—like air conditioning and a clothes dryer.
When Willard had his caretaker telephone me a little over a year ago he came on the line and asked if I would say a few words over him when he passed on. Just last week, Betty Lou who knew of the call told me that was the only time she ever knew of Willard asking someone to do something for him. I strongly suspect I have exceeded what Willard would consider a few words, since he was indeed a man of few words.
So on behalf of all of us gathered here today, I bid goodbye, Godspeed and safe landing to you my friend and neighbor. You will always be remembered. The light that always burned like a beacon in your north window and was visible from my kitchen and south porch will now cease to be, but the light of your life will continue to burn brightly in the hearts of your friends and loved ones. You truly graced our lives.
As I pondered Willard’s life these past few days, the following poem by Sam Walter Foss came to my mind and I would like to share it with you.
“House by the Side of the Road”
There are hermit souls that live withdrawn
In the Place of their self-content;
There are souls like stars that dwell apart
In a fellowless firmament;
There are pioneer souls that blaze the paths
Where highways never ran—
But let me live in the house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
Where the race of men go by—
The men who are good and the men who are bad.
As good and as bad as I.
I would not sit in the scorner’s seat
Nor hurl the cynic’s ban—
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
I see from my house by the side of the road
By the side of the highway of life.
The men who press with the ardor of hope —
The men who are faint with the strife.
But I turn not away from their smiles and tears,
Both part of an infinite plan--
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead,
And mountains of wearisome height;
That the road passes on through the long afternoon
And stretches away to the night.
And still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice
And weep with the strangers that moan.
Nor live in my house by the side of the road
Like a man who dwells alone.
Let me live in my house by the side of the road.
Where the race of men go by—
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong,
Wise, foolish—so am I.
Then why should I sit in the scorner’s seat.
Or hurl the cynic’s ban?
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
And Be a friend to man.
Willard was a man of peace, so in closing I want to share with you my favorite poem/prayer, entitled Prayer of St. Francis ---
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.
*Icie’s way of pronouncing “Willard.”