Special Anniversary Today

I titled this entry ‘Special Anniversary Today’ because this is the day that I have been thinking about a very special person who is no longer with us. Today is the two-year anniversary of the death of my brother-in-law Joe Thielen. Now, there is nothing special in the fact that Joe has been gone for two years, but there is something special about celebrating his LIFE. That is what I have focused on today – his life rather than his death. I spent a great deal of time with Joe during his marriage to my sister Susan. He was so good to me and was really more like a brother than a brother-in-law. It is my intention to celebrate Joe’s life by living my own life in the most robust and rewarding way that I can.

The following is a speech I gave at Joe’s Vigil service and has a few of my favorite Joe stories. Please enjoy this as a celebration of Joe’s life and I hope it will spark a few of your own favorite Joe memories.

Love to all,
Mary Kay

One of my first recollections of Joe came from the Dorrance Memorial Day Parade when I was a young girl of 9 or 10 years old, Joe gave me a ride on his beloved horse Red. I remember that Joe told me Red’s birthday was the same day as mine: July 17, 1960. I am not sure if that was really Red’s actual birthdate, I think Joe may have told me that to make me feel good and to make a connection with me. You know, now that I think about it, I shouldn’t have doubted Joe about Red’s birthdate because in the 40 plus years that I have known him; I have never known Joe to be anything but 100% honest. Maybe the story of Red’s birthday being on the same day as mine had more to do with getting in good with my sister Susan than anything else. What ever the reason, I am so glad that Joe married Susan, he has been a great brother-in-law.

My sister Debbie told her favorite Joe and Susan courtship story: In the summer of 1971, Susan made Debbie and Bill stand in our backyard on the north edge of Dorrance and watch for certain tail lights going north out of Dorrance. You see, Joe’s yellow Ford had distinctive tail lights; they were different than any other cars in the area. So Susan recruited Debbie and Bill to stand outside to watch for the tail lights of Joe’s car so that she could know when he went home. What we didn’t do to get Joe Thielen to be our brother-in-law!!!

Of course the most famous of all Joe and Susan stories is the FISH story: during Joe and Susan’s courtship, they woke my Mom and Dad, Bill, Debbie, and me at about 1:30 in the morning to show us the big fish that they had caught. You know Susan, I just realized: what were you doing fishing at 1:30 in the morning? So anyway, we all went outside to see the big fish. Joe was so proud as he told us about the champion bass they had just caught. As Joe opened the tail gate, his proud expression changed to disbelief when there was no big fish at all. There were only a few small fish barely big enough to keep. You should have seen Joe try to explain his way out of that one. The rest of the story is that the next day Joe and his nephew Mike and niece Sherry found the ‘big’ fish in the driveway to the Huttie Place pond – it had some how fallen out of the back of the pickup when they hit a bump in the road. We never let Joe forget that story.

There have been so many good times and laughs with Joe throughout the years. There have also been so many lessons about life that I have learned from Joe. I feel so fortunate that I was able to spend time with him during his illness. Even when he was struggling to beat cancer, he was so gracious and kind and respectful of people. We spent many hours traveling to and from treatment and sitting in their house watching the Food Channel – yes the Food channel had become Joe’s favorite. If fact, he would see something on one of the programs and he would ask me to make it. Now, I know those of you who know my cooking abilities are having a great laugh with that one. But Joe always complimented me on whatever I made. In addition to watching the food channel, Joe was constantly on the cell phone wheelin and dealin. It was hard work spending time with Joe and it was NOT because of what needed to be done because of his illness. It was because he always had us assisting him in the many projects he had going from cleaning the office and to transplanting trees to laying out a lawn sprinkling system. We would always have a good laugh about the surprises Susan would see when she turned in the driveway each day after school. I think Joe took great pleasure in surprising Susan. But Joe also took great pleasure in loving Susan. It was so sweet when he would have me stop at one of the flower shops on the way home from a treatment to get Susan a bouquet of flowers. One of most meaningful lessons I learned from Joe was to keep doing what you love to do even when life deals unfortunate circumstances.


In between the Food channel and working on projects, Joe loved to talk about his sons and how proud he was of them. Joe would look out the window and see Kevin doing something on the farm and I would see this proud smile spread across his face. He spent many hours just watching Kevin with the expression that you only see on the proudest of all fathers. I can’t tell you how many times I heard Joe talking on the phone with a business acquaintance about how Kevin was taking care of the day to day activities of the farm and how happy Joe was about that.

Joe loved to see Joey as a father. I think Joe was determined to live to spend time with his new grand-daughter Anna. He was adamant – even when he was very sick – to make the trip to the Manhattan Hospital to see her. Anna and Garrett brought such joy to Joe. One day Joey disciplined Garrett and sat him on the sofa in the living room in a ‘timeout’. When Joey returned to the room where Joe was sitting, with a smirk on his face, Joe asked Joey “How’s that timeout bolonie working?” Of course Joe didn’t really use the word bolonie. I know Joe loved to see Joey as a father to Garrett and Anna.

We laugh at the time that Joe spent on the cell phone, but I can guarantee you that most of it was on the phone with his sons. I can’t tell you how many times I heard him call Matt to find out if he would smoke or grill a pork loin for dinner. I know it made Joe laugh when Matt walked in the door a few weeks ago with a pork loin that was so big he was carrying it on his shoulder like a feed sack. Joe loved to have Matt analyze numbers and data for the farm – Matt that was another one of those projects – entering data for the farm. But I know how much Joe valued Matt’s knowledge about finances.

I have been asking family members at the farm this week to share a word or phrase that comes to mind when describing Joe. In closing I would like to share some of those words: gentle, father, uniter, family oriented, hard-working, innovative, visionary, intelligent, integrity, champion to his sons, caring, gracious host, list maker, planner, on the cell phone all the time, husband, communicator, leader, do one more thing, thump on the head for the boys, and list maker.