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STADEM SAGA PRESENT:
Mr. Shupe said, 'Well, why don't you come in the hangar here and look at this one.' [Mr. Shupe was showing another plane to Bob.]
'Oh no," said Bob, "that is too heavy a plane for these young guys to learn how to fly. So I don't see how we can have that plane.'
So Arthur was standing by that airplane on that frosty morning in January, and they even thought there was too much frost on the plane to take off [so Arthur, Bob, and Papa Stadem worked to remove the frost--editors].
But Mr. Shupe said, 'Well, why don't you give it another try?'
My dad [Papa Alfred Stadem] said, 'They looked so nice, just like they were going to go to church, that is how nice they looked.'
Bob said to Papa, 'Well, you can go back now to town.' He had borrowed the Spildes' car.
But Papa said, "I'm going to wait until you get in the air." And he did. And then he drove off. He wasn't to see them go down.
But Shupe had gone up in the control tower, and he saw them crash. They crashed ten miles out, I've seen the spot.
Later they put a beautiful Gospel sign as a memorial.
When the news got out, Shupe went right out there. And he also went to tell my Dad at Spildes.
Hans has told the whole story, the beginning to the end."[This portion, in which Papa Stadem heard the news from Shupe in the presence of his son-in-law Hans Spilde, is given in the testimony of Papa Stadem in his own account of this tragedy--Editor].
"My sister Alida said, when I got there for the funeral, 'Why didn't you stop him from coming,' and I said, 'No, that was all in God's hands, I couldn't do that.'"
Arthur was burned more than Bob, for he had fallen over on top of Bob. Bob had presence of mind to turn off the ignition. He knew something was wrong, and he knew what to do.
Cars came out from all over, and this neighbor [on the nearest farmstead] saw the whole thing.
Someone stole our movie camera that Bob had. But I got it back. Someone saw it taken and it was returned to me.
So I sent it in and got it fixed. I still have it."
I let them walk behind the caskets, and I walked behind them.
Otherwise, they would have had me go first. Papa and Mama walked there too.
We walked over way up to the front, and I sat right next to Papa, and I was so glad to do that.
I asked Papa if he had a pencil, so I could write down notes, but he didn't have one.
So I asked the Lord if he would put it on somebody's heart to take care of the notes and what went on through the whole service, which he did, for afterwards Mrs. Opal Stime of Sinai, SD, came and told me that she had taken notes and went over to Pastor Peterson and he repeated his whole message to her and she wrote it all down for me in a gospel tract, complete with pictures.
It was just a miracle [Eventually--Guests of the website can find this account in THE TRUMPET CALL by using a link on this page--editors].
There were nine pastors who spoke. It was just amazing. I couldn't believe how Papa could sit and hold himself so beautifully. And of course Mama was just a saint. She sat there with such love. It was hard, but still she had the grace of God. And the songs that were sung by the Choir, it was beautiful."
He went way up in the balcony at that hall, and got pictures of way up in front" [of the basketball court's basketball hoop and a painted drama department backdrop, the seated congregation and the white caskets and between them the tall wreath, a cross covered with white roses and red carnations at the bottom, with the inscription in the center, 'Jesus Only', and the pictures of the two fliers set on the two caskets--Editors].
Different ones would sing, and they had music for us again. Then we went to the graveyard.
Mama sat in the car because it was so cold.
This was what I thought was so wonderful about Papa. He said, 'I have never once asked God to change the weather. Never, all these years. But this time I felt led to ask God, 'Would You have the wind change to the opposite direction, and not have it come from the north.'
It is so much colder when it comes from the north.
And sure enough at the funeral, at the cemetery, it was quiet, and there wasn't any wind.
To think that God came through for him there, you know that He had to have had it all in His control.
Then we sang at the graveside. I had wanted to take my family with me to the funeral, but people said, 'Oh, no, don't do that.'" [I have to wonder if that wasn't a mistake, for as a five year old, I had a dream, seeing two caskets (which I had never seen before at that age), and though I didn't know they were caskets, I saw one person lying in a long boxlike object was my dad. Did we children ever get closure, having never seen what happened to him? Mother could have explained it to us so that even I, age five, could have understood,, and I think we would have heard from her something like this: "Your father is gone, children, gone to heaven with Uncle Art. They are in heaven, their bodies are here, dead, but they are alive and in heaven. That is where we will all go someday to join them." But of course, she had no money to take all of us to the funeral from Washington to South Dakota, and it did not come in, just enough for her, given her by her church friends.--Ed.]
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