I visited him at his home near Cathay

We lost touch for a while after high school. I forged my dad's signature on enlistment papers because I was underage and joined the Navy to try to get some advanced education. Lester ran his dad's farm. He married Violet Meier in 1950 and they had three children.

Lester didn't just sit on his tractor, however. He was active in community affairs; obtained a commercial pilot's license, nearly won a statewide political office, and was president of a 14-county organization promoting weather modification for improved rain distribution in the farming areas. He made a trip to Los Angeles to a national convention of the group. I had a chance to meet him there and spend an evening at dinner and sight-seeing Hollywood since I lived in the area while working for an aerospace company.

He and his mother were interested in genealogy. Lester made several trips to Europe on information gathering sojourns.

My grandfather's descendents held a reunion in Drake in 1979. This was the first time since high school that I spent any more than a few hours with Lester. He gave a slide presentation to family members and guests at the Drake City Hall of his latest trip to Rumania, which is where Julius and his family emigrated from. The country was still under Communist control, so Lester had to be very careful about taking pictures without specific permission. He did manage to get some interesting photos that showed the Ciucurova area of Rumania.

Lester retired from farming a number of years ago. I retired in 1987. Desk-top computers were coming into their own about that time, although they were a far cry from the glorious machines we have today. Lester had a really old clunker that he had his genealogy data stored on, and when I became marginally proficient with a computer I tried to convince him to upgrade to a more modern version. He was very reluctant to take a chance on

losing his files with a new computer. He finally gave it a try and it worked out fine. Since then, we have been communicating by e-mail for several years, collaborating with genealogy files, jokes, letters, etc.

I visited him at his home near Cathay several times during trips back to North Dakota for high school reunions, and once for the Drake Centennial. He and Vi were very gracious hosts. But, I gotta tell ya, the last time I was there, they invited me to "dinner." I was figuring on something like four o'clock, so I was planning to go early, maybe around two. Then I thought; what the heck, why not go real early and spend more time gabbing, etc. I arrived at about 12:30. Would you believe I was late for dinner? I had forgotten that dinner was the noon meal and supper the evening meal. At least they had waited for me. I would have been totally humiliated had I waited until four o'clock.

I was very sorry to learn that my dear friend and cousin had died on a sad day in November 2006.