Orval Edward Fredericksen

ORVAL EDWARD FREDERICKSEN
December 14, 1921 to February 6, 2005

OUR DAD AND GRANDFATHER

The Eulogy In Memory of Orval Fredericksen
By His Wife, His Children,
His Grandchildren, His Great Grandchildren, and His In-Laws.


Orval was the son of a farmer and a schoolteacher. His early life wasn’t much different from anyone else. A middle son with five brothers and one sister, he lived in Copeland and graduated from Bonners Ferry High School in 1939.

There he met Nada. Through the years after their marriage, he worked many different places from the railroad, the Continental mine, the community hospital, and the post office.

He served his God with many church activities from teaching Sunday school to committee work.

He served his country in the U.S. Navy during WWII as diesel mechanic.

He served his community on the school lunch program and the school board.

But he offered the best of who he was to his family and friends.

He was a wonderful husband. He was an inspiring father. But the best thing was that he was a devoted and doting grandfather and great grandfather. His grandchildren and great grandchildren adored him. A trip to stay at Grandpa and Grandma’s house always meant lavish attention. Helping Grandpa fill the bird feeders, watching him make his boxes, walking down the hill to get the mail, rooting for the Cubs in baseball and playing cards at the kitchen table filled the days.

At his viewing on Thursday evening, Grandpa was decked out in his best gray suit and his purple shirt and tie with his post office tiepin. A fitting outfit for a wonderful man, but the grandchildren insisted that Grandpa didn’t look right without his Cubs hat. So Uncle Mark made a trip home to retrieve it. Placing the hat on his head made Grandpa look like he always had to them.

Orval had many hobbies, many of which we have benefited from. He loved to bird watch, rock collect, paint, stamp collect, and do crossword puzzles. Shortly after he retired, he learned to make raspberry and huckleberry jelly and we have all loved getting the jars in the mail.

One of his true loves was carpentry and woodworking. He remodeled his house many times during the 60 years he lived there and he was a handyman to all of us. IT was not at all unusual for a visit from Orval to net a dozen small repair jobs getting completed at each of our homes. He spent his time in his shop making boxes, gavels, goblets and furniture. He made bookshelves and coffee tables, dressers and shadow boxes just to name a few. The sweetness of seeing his signature on the bottom of that furniture will bring smiles after the tears have past.

His love of Cubs baseball was well known. He loved any baseball game, but the Cubs remained his favorite team. He followed their games with zeal, win or lose, and continued to hop for that golden moment when they would win the World Series.

We have enjoyed with him his love of reading. He collected all 110 of Louis L’Amour’s books and Madeline Brent, but he’d read anything you gave him. From Watership Down to Dune, from I Heard the Owl Call My Name to Lord of the Rings, he read it all. He read his Bible, the Upper Room, and the comics everyday. We are grateful he kept a daily journal as well. It gives us a piece of him to keep forever.

In recent years we introduced him to the computer. While not completely comfortable with it, he made an effort to use it to please us. The email messages from “onfred” were priceless, but his greatest obsession was Free Cell. He played every single possible game. That’s 32,000 different games. He played them all, and except for 15 of them, won them all. He then started over and was on 13,000 when he passed away.

We learned from his persistence. Over the years, he had more than a few accidents in his shop with the saw. On one occasion, he cut off one of his fingers. Over the months of recovery, he demonstrated the value of fighting back. He never gave up on therapy to get his hand re-useable again. One year he fell off a ladder and broke his foot. He never gave up until he was back on his feet. And when he was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, he never let it make him stop. He still had a daily “to do” list. He still did most of the things he loved, and those he couldn’t he found something else to take its place.

God had a hand in his life and in his death. Last Sunday, in the house where he loved his wife for over 64 years, raised four kids, nurtured eight grandchildren, and two great grandchildren, he spent an ordinary morning. He went to his favorite chair, sat down, put his head back, closed his eyes for a moment, and was gone.

We thank the Lord for his easy and painless passing.

We valued his integrity, his level and steady hand, and his wisdom.
We’ll miss his worries and his prayers, his advice and his humor. They always righted an upside down world.

He taught us to live every day to the fullest.

He taught us to give of ourselves to our church, our country, our community, our friends, and mostly our family.

He taught us to love.

He taught us to have faith.

In Exodus, it says that the father who shows love for the Lord will be blessed for a thousand generations. We have truly been blessed and inspired by his presence. His legacy of steadfast love and understanding will never be forgotten.