Thank you, Mr. Lundquist

(Given at Dave's funeral service - May 24, 2024)

Thursday, May 9 was commencement day at IU East, where I work. After helping hundreds of graduates line up for the big ceremony and watching the pomp and circumstance, I grabbed lunch with my team and went back to the office to reflect on the morning. I told them about my former teacher and mentor and how he was in the process of dying. I told stories that demonstrated who he was. One of my success coaches was a high school English teacher for 17 years so I read the full tribute former LHS student Mark Helmsing wrote for Mr. Lundquist’s retirement gathering. My colleague was in tears. While still sitting in the office and having just shared stories of our beloved Mr. Lundquist… At 1:46 p.m., I received a text message from Dave’s daughter, Mary:

Liz, Dad passed away in the wee hours of the morning while Matt and Jon were with him. Mom and I came soon after for a final goodbye.

Mary mentioned she had been looking through her dad’s old papers and cards and found many thank you notes from others. She added, “Dad’s final words that we know of were ‘thank you.’ Fitting, I think.”

Mr. Lundquist is physically gone. This reality hit like all epic endings do.

Our beloved bard may have shuffled off this mortal coil (Shakespeare’s Hamlet), but he penned a masterpiece in the form of hundreds… nay THOUSANDS of points of light… flames that were lit from the life of our legendary Lundquist.

Saying “thank you” seems like a perfect epitaph. And it is certainly what WE feel today in response to his 37 years of teaching at Lincoln High School and the influence of his life.

When Dave retired in 2012, many from the Western Wayne community sent notes and reflections of “thank you” to him.

In the last two weeks, more sentiments and stories have been shared. The stories are many, and the themes are familiar… familiar as his bellowing laugh, his clutching of a coffee cup, his engaging stories, and his thought-provoking questions.

Jenny Barr, a 2002 Lincoln graduate, shared a beautiful tribute this last week. She found her folder from 9th grade English: papers returned with Mr. Lundquist’s feedback in scribbles, as well as his own commentary on the poetry they studied. Jenny, a brilliant student, confessed:

On tests, when I didn’t know the answer but tried to put enough words that made it sound like I might know the answer, he would see right through it and just write “Nope” over my nonsense.

Jenny wrote of her extra-curricular experience with Mr. Lundquist:

Mr. Lundquist was also the sponsor for National Honor Society. Every spring, he took about twenty kids to Chicago for a weekend. Now that I am an adult, it shocks me that he did this for us. It began with a fun school bus ride, and then we ran around Chicago and slept at his sister’s house in the suburbs. My senior year, I was mortified when the school bus pulled up to my house because I slept through my alarm. As I climbed on the bus, he gave me his classic laugh and asked, “Did you get enough sleep, Jenny?”

How kind it was for him to take a bunch of small-town kids to a big city, just another way he opened his students’ eyes to the world. And how lucky Lincoln High School was to have him for 37 years. He helped his students care about their place in the world and inspired us at a time in our lives when we needed it most.

2000 Lincoln grad Mark Helmsing wrote a beautiful reflection for Mr. Lundquist’s retirement. I have paper copies here today that you are welcome to take. In his reflection, he wrote:

Mr. Lundquist’s class was a different kind of class for students… (he) painted vistas in our minds with the worlds he created through the written word. As literacy devolves around us to LOLs and trite, four sentence status updates on our phones, our culture is losing touch with the power of writing. Humankind has always pondered its own existence through stories. Our own lives are a collection of stories we tell and the stories that get told about us.

Mr. Lundquist covered all of the classic stories we’re supposed to read in school: he taught us about alliteration in Shakespeare,

about the rich metaphors in Robert Frost’s poetry,

and how to interpret all the symbolism in the Great Gatsby…

But here’s where Mr. Lundquist rose above your average English teacher.

He told us about the quiet heroism of his father and the character and conviction he displayed as part of the Greatest Generation after the second World War in Chicago

and the importance of humanity that former art teacher Al Baker displayed when he placed his hand upon Dave’s shoulder after his father passed way.

He told us about his own coming of age in Chicago and strove to make us appreciate the American spirit and the heritage of our country that only the working-class South Side of Chicago can invoke in stories that would make the poet of Chicago, Carl Sandberg, green with envy.

I don’t remember meeting Dave and Marsha for the first time, but I have been told they came to our family home in the 70s when my oldest brother, “another Dave”, was in a Lundquist English class. My twin brother and I were too young to appreciate the significance of the moment. Dave Lundquist reflected on this moment in a hand-written letter sent to Dave Ferris in the summer of 2020. This letter demonstrates how Mr. Lundquist didn’t just teach his students; he KNEW his students and found ways to connect with them.

Dave L. wrote:

I’ve known you and your family longer than any other Western Wayne Family.

Your family asked Marsha and me to dinner one Sunday. Your other guest was a young minister from Earlham who was the protégé of D. Elton Trueblood. I ran into him at Lakeview once. He was taking notes for his discussion class on Lewis’ Mere Christianity. My kind of man.

In a previous letter, my brother had asked if Dave was going to use his COVID isolation and quarantine time to write his long-awaited autobiography or his memoirs. Dave L. responded:

I’ll never write an autobiography, no matter how long awaited. Memoirs? I have several of those, a few of which I send along…(and he did!) My “memoirs” take the form of letters, eulogies, descriptions, parental influences, and poems. I love anecdotes, which prove points better than any string of adjectives.

And in classic Dave Lundquist fashion, he ended with a note regarding author Timothy Egan and his book, The Immortal Irishman – hoping my brother had time to finish it.

While many former students remember specifics from Lundquist English classes, my most significant memories of him came after high school and college. I moved back to this area in the late 90s and in 2000, I started volunteering for our local Young Life ministry. Dave related his family’s New Castle Young Life connection, and he became one of my biggest supporters and a consistent encourager.

He knew that people in youth ministry have a lot of love but not so much money. He insisted on giving me a set donation in cash every month without fail. I tried to get him to write a check so he could get the tax deduction, but he insisted I use it for myself, knowing that Young Life leaders often give out of their own pockets for their high school friends. He showed up at our car wash fundraisers, donated to camp scholarships so that Lincoln kids could go to summer camp, and even spoke at a fundraiser at the Golay Community Center. He told a story from the Gospel of Matthew that demonstrated Jesus’ view of money. It was the story about paying taxes and how Jesus told Peter to go to the lake and fish, and the first fish he caught would have a four-drachma coin in its mouth that would cover the tax owed. It was fitting Dave would tell such a story to give us a better understanding of the Greatest Story Teller in history.

Dave also introduced me to Jesse Bailey and Christopher Steele. I often sat with them and Jesse’s aid, Carol, for lunch at the high school. I treasure the memories of those lunches. Jesse would listen to Christopher, offer support, and would ALWAYS ask me how I was and how my mom (who had been his school nurse) was. The lunchroom was always loud, so I would have to lean in to hear what Jesse had to say to me, as his breath was more limited in the last year of his life.

When our Lincoln Young Life team wondered if we could bring Young Life Club to Jesse in December of 2002, we received a “YES” from Jesse’s parents, Susan and Mike. They let Lincoln kids invade their house for our last club of the semester, “Christmas Club.” We asked Dave if he would provide entertainment for the skit portion, which he did. Young Life is all about relationships, and we knew we wanted Dave to be a part of the evening, since he had a special bond with Jesse.

That bond! I know Dave spent time with Jesse outside of school, such as going with Jesse to the Richmond Gem & Mineral Show at the Wayne County Fairgrounds. I believe it was Jesse’s last summer with us - the summer of 2003 - when Debbie Gettinger, Dave, Chris Steele, and I drove up to the MDA camp in northern Indiana to spend the day with Jesse. We learned about the wonderful world of complete inclusion, empowerment, and friendship that is the core of MDA camping.

Jesse left us at the end of September in 2003. Dave gave a eulogy that showed us a picture of Jesse’s heart and character. The part that stuck with me was about breath being precious to Jesse… that he did not waste his breath… and how we could all learn from Jesse’s example.

Speaking of breath, we all had a first one, and we will all have a last one.

Dave made sure his students gave thought to this. He talked of students who left us “too soon,” and there were many gut-punch losses in our small community in Dave’s 37-year tenure.

He took students to the cemetery on occasion and talked about epitaphs and making our lives COUNT for something. To make the lives of people around us better. To be KIND… to own up to mistakes… to SHOW UP for others.

Back to Mary’s text on the day Dave took his last breath:

“Dad’s final words that we know of were ‘thank you.’ Fitting, I think.”

Yes… I would say for a man who loved words, those are MOST FITTING for this dear man we loved deeply. I believe the clearest words he heard next were, “Well done,” offered by Jesus – the Author and Perfector of Dave’s faith.

And as we live and love and tell the stories of our lives, we your students will be whispering “Thank you” in memory and honor of our beloved Mr. Lundquist.

For WE are the words and syllables of your dissertation.

We are the echoes of your laugh.

We are the application of your stories… the animated anecdote of your telling.

We are the finest essay you could ever have written.

Dave was the second person to introduce himself to me on a hot August day in 1994 when I first began working at Lincoln High School. I was the new writing lab aide, and little did I know on that day 29 or so years ago that Dave would become a great friend and mentor to me over the coming years, someone I would look up to and appreciate, and attempt in small ways to emulate, as I began my own teaching career.

My first memories and interactions with Dave began in that writing lab I’d been hired to monitor. He spent a lot of time in that writing lab, working with his students to improve their writing and building the relationships with them that so many of them remember him for to this day. He also spent a lot of time there typing away on our Apple Macintosh computers creating the handouts and class materials they would need to dive deep into whatever literary masterpiece was planned for their consumption that particular week. I can still see him bent over a tiny Apple Macintosh screen in that lab, a pile of 3.5” hard floppy disks (many with just a word or phrase decipherable only by himself scribbled on the label) at his spot, and a half empty cup of coffee within reach. It was in that writing lab that I began to glean Dave’s teaching style, maybe his genius, where he was able to teach some of the most reluctant students without their even being aware. Life lessons and wisdom dripped from his lips via stories and anecdotes that felt like entertainment and went down like cool water.

While I was still an aide, Dave asked me to accompany the honor society on their annual trip to Chicago. This would be the first of many for me. He took this group every year – a special trip usually planned for sometime around Easter weekend, a chance to show off his hometown and provide an opportunity to expand horizons and experience the big city, something which many of the students at Lincoln hadn’t had much chance to do in their young lives. He prepared them for weeks, teaching them how to navigate the Magnificent Mile and the streets nearby, how to respond if propositioned to buy a newspaper by the homeless near the Art Institute, how to find (and appreciate) the wonder of the Tribune Building, the Hancock Tower, Water Tower Place, the Navy Pier. He encouraged them to visit the Art Institute, and reminded them constantly to always travel in small groups. The first day usually ended with a trip to Gino’s East, of course, and we would congregate outside the restaurant with white-out pens in hand, ready to indulge in that famous Chicago pizza. Dave always planned a trip to Willis Tower (or Sears Tower, if you will) for after dusk so that his students could truly appreciate the Chicago skyline lit up like sparkling gems beneath their feet. And, then we would all head to his sister Lois’s house in the Chicago suburbs, or to one of his dear high school friend’s houses, where the kids were met with tons of food, a white elephant gift exchange that Lois always provided for, and rest before we headed out to one more destination (often Shedd Aquarium or the Science and Industry Museum) before making our way home. Dave made that trip such a memorable one for students, and I know that a lot of the cost of the trip came out of his own pocket. He didn’t want anyone to miss out and he was generous to a fault.

Some of the most memorable parts of the Chicago trips were those where Dave and I struck out on our own, exploring as we waited for our check-in times with the kids. The first year I went, I remember Dave and I making our way to a tiny museum across from the Rock & Roll McDonalds. It was dedicated to the mob history of Chicago, and I can still see the exhibits about Al Capone and the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and hear Dave’s anecdotes as we passed through. He had such an appreciation for history. He also had a reverence for the architecture and the art of the buildings. On at least two of those trips, he and I made our way to the afternoon Easter weekend Mass at the historic Holy Name Cathedral just a few blocks from Gino’s. I recall being in awe of the beauty of the church as Dave pointed out the stained glass inside and showed me the bullet marks on the outside from the murder of mobster Hymie Weiss in the 1920s.

A historian storyteller at heart, Dave shared with his students here at home too as he took students on wandering treks through Cambridge City and Western Wayne, teaching them about their own history and instilling an appreciation for the small community where he taught. One of the greatest lessons he taught me as a new teacher was connection and extension. He taught pieces of literature and themes with primarily one goal – he wanted his students to see a connection to those stories and to create extensions to their own lives, to find meaning in what they read and to learn about life as well as how to navigate it through stories. He used his own life and his own example to model how to do so. Those walking tours of the cemetery and the town were just one of his methods for helping his students find those connections.

One way Dave modeled life and purpose was through his servanthood. I can still smell the pancakes he periodically made for students in his classes wafting across the hall to my classroom (I finally got my teaching job 3 years after coming to Lincoln), and I remember many times when he provided funds for a dance or a yearbook, or a meal at the Kiwanis Pancake Supper. But, he didn’t just bless his students in class, he modeled servanthood when he blessed the elderly who lived in the apartments in the Dublin school by showing up on Saturdays with students in tow, making breakfast in the old cafeteria/community room and encouraging intergenerational interactions; he encouraged his students to step up/show up/volunteer as he showed them how with his own bellringing for the Salvation Army, his presence at athletic events, and his #1 Band Fan status at Indiana State Fair Band Day. I know there are so many ways that Dave supported his students and the Western Wayne community over the years, but these are just a few that stand out. There wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for his students, including shaving his head.

There are so many images of Dave that I have in my memories. His booming voice; his laugh; his smile when he mentioned Marsha; his pride in Matt and Jon and Mary; and his joy when he spoke of Evelyn and his grandsons. My memories include his disenchantment with the new PCs we got a few years after I arrived at Lincoln, and his insistence on keeping one of the old Apple Macintosh computers in his room as he slowly moved his many, many, many documents over to the new system; his frustration with email and my being called over to help him get into his account every couple of months (Yes, months!); the newspapers folded over to the crossword puzzle page under his arm or laying on his desk, the scattered computer disks that covered his work spaces; the 3x5 card box that he gave me for my birthday one year filled with a quote a day and with Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young” designated to my birthday. His love of music was truly something that defined him, and music that told stories in particular. There was nothing quite like watching Dave listen to his own kids play their music, and some of my favorite memories are watching him enjoy them. It seems only fitting to conclude with a quote by Irving Berlin ~ “The song has ended, but the melody lingers on…” I will miss you, my friend. Fly high! 

When I first sat down in Freshman English and heard Mr. Lundquist’s bellowing voice with his thick Chi-CAW-go accent, I was a little intimidated. It didn’t take him long to say something quirky, laugh at himself, and put me at ease. Many classes felt like theater because he was so animated and excited to teach us about a piece of writing. I can still see him sitting at his desk, chaotic with papers but organized in his own way, with a coffee cup either in his hand or cooling nearby. If he pulled his chair out from behind his desk, I knew we were headed for a thought-provoking discussion. He would lean way back with one leg crossed, ankle resting on his knee (an image I just found in a yearbook so kudos to that photographer). But he was certainly on his feet when he walked us through a story, like Les Miserables. I still love to read his summary notes even though I know the story well. The song, “Master of the House,” nearly put him in hysterics.

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When I am going to read something really good to my kids (like a favorite Shel Silverstein poem) or play them a great song (like Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind”), I tell them it’s “good stuff,” which I got from Mr. Lundquist. I still hear his voice in my head when I say it. It’s a simple phrase, but it was the way he said it that made it clear you were about to hear something that might change your life a little bit.

“It really blows my hair back” is another phrase he would use, and he would rub his bald head as if he was looking for his hair and then laugh at himself. I think he said it to introduce “The Raven,” Poe’s lengthy poem Mr. Lundquist could recite from memory.

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His grading system for papers was straightforward:

-Below Average

-Average

-Above Average

-Superior

Whenever I got a paper back, my eyes would dart to his notes because I wanted to know his every thought. Getting a "Superior" (or sometimes he just wrote “S”) was the greatest satisfaction. I rarely got one the first time around, but he allowed rewrites which is when I could write my way to being superior in his eyes.

One time he broke my heart by grading my paper with “Good as far as it goes.”

On tests, when I didn’t know the answer but tried to put enough words that made it sound like I might know the answer, he would see right through it and just write “Nope” over my nonsense.

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I have shared enough on Facebook for it to be clear that I hold on to things. Truth be told, I just hold on to the really important stuff, the “good stuff,” so I held on to my folder from Freshman English with the papers still in the order Mr. Lundquist presented them.

Fisher’s “The Bedquilt” >> Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” >> his brother Paul Lundquist’s sermon “A Chain of Evil” >> Updike’s “A&P” >> Potak’s The Chosen >> Hugo’s Les Miserables (musical version) >> Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird >> flag words (e.g. their, they’re, there) >> apostrophe use and misuse >> punctuation >> King’s “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” >> Poe’s “The Raven” >> Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet >> Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye >> poetry

We ended the year with poetry. Poetry very often went/goes over my head, so I loved reading these poems with Mr. Lundquist’s commentary to help explain and then discussing them with him even further.

Auden’s “The Unknown Citizen”

Robinson’s “Richard Corey”

Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night”

Sandburg’s “Chicago”

Mr. Lundquist’s “Cambridge City/Milton/Pershing/Dublin/Mt. Auburn”

Pope’s “Sound and Sense”

Dickinson’s “Hope is the Thing with Feathers”

Wordsworth’s “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey”

Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

Frost’s “The Death of the Hired Man”

Tennyson’s “Ulysses”

Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan”

Lewis’s “Evolutionary Hymn”

Shelley’s “Ozymandias”

Keats’s “When I Have Fears”

Shakespeare’s sonnets (29, 73, and 116)

Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”

My writing career peaked at 15 when he asked if he could keep the paper I wrote on Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.”

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Three years later, for graduation, he gifted a collection of quotes (one for every day of the year) with my name scrawled out in his distinct handwriting. I keep this on my bookshelf, so if you would like to know a quote for a specific date, just let me know.

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These are some of my memories from inside the classroom, but Mr. Lundquist was also the sponsor for National Honor Society. Every spring, he took about twenty kids to Chicago for a weekend. Now that I am an adult, it shocks me that he did this for us. It began with a fun school bus ride, and then we ran around Chicago and slept at his sister’s house in the suburbs. My senior year, I was mortified when the school bus pulled up to my house because I slept through my alarm. As I climbed on the bus, he gave me his classic laugh and asked, “Did you get enough sleep, Jenny?”

How kind it was for him to take a bunch of small-town kids to a big city, just another way he opened his students’ eyes to the world. And how lucky Lincoln High School was to have him for 37 years. He helped his students care about their place in the world and inspired us at a time in our lives when we needed it most. Thank you to Mr. Lundquist.

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One last note: if you had him for a teacher, then you knew how proud he was of his three children, Matt, Jon, and Mary. When Mary joined us on one of our trips to Chicago, I felt like I knew her a little bit already and remember thinking, “So you get to be Mr. Lundquist’s daughter?” 🙂 My deepest condolences to his family.

*Please see Facebook post for photos.

Dave’s booming voice and frequent laughter echoed down the hallway from the west, occasionally clashing with loud shouts from Mark Ervin’s classroom from the east hall (You did not want to fall asleep in Ervin’s class).

Dave’s classroom was always a welcoming if messy place– stacks of papers, abandoned coffee cups, worn-out paperbacks, pristine textbooks lined the shelves; cartoons, student artwork were taped to the walls. The man himself often planted himself behind his desk, comfortably leaning back in his black stuffed office chair, a fresh cup of coffee in his hand. He was usually engaged in lively conversation with his students– tossing out thought-provoking questions, telling stories from his past to illustrate the lesson of the day.

Generations of Lincoln students may no longer remember those lessons, but I’ll bet they can recall those stories of finding a pistol in Chicago, of teaching in tough city schools, of the tragic death of his nephew, and of the many Lincoln folks he had worked with or taught.

A few images of Lunky at Lincoln come to mind:

Dave and Jesse Bailey exploring fossils and checking out geodes at the Wayne County gem and mineral show each March.

Dave leading a group of my students through Creitz Park or Riverside Cemetery, mixing local history and storytelling– making a point of drawing in the most reluctant learners with his enthusiasm and his humor.

Dave making yet another trip to the cafeteria to bring a tray of freshly-baked snickerdoodles to his students.

Dave sitting in the lobby chatting with students during another extended “transition” break.

Dave standing by the fence at the grandstand near the track at the state fair band contest yelling out his support for The Golden Eagle marching band each August.

Dave receiving a standing ovation in the Lincoln gym at the commencement ceremony the year he retired.

Thanks, Dave.

Dave and I were roommates our Freshman year in college.  I am not sure which of us were the worst influence on the other.  We both shared a dark, often black, sense of humor and a distrust of authority,  which kept us out of the mainstream at Olivet Nazarene College.  Are stereo was regularly on too loud or too late.  We had a shared disdain for an orderly room.  Olivet was so conservative that there was room inspection once a week so the authorities could be sure we were being good Nazarene boys.  Dave would often post a note on our door ''NOT COMPETING THIS WEEK'' which would occasion a stern talk from Grover Brooks the resident Nazarene. 

Dave and I worked at Arby's together and would work the closing shift on Sunday night.  We were typically riled up about some social slight, or the war in Vietnam,  or some girl that we arrived back at the dorm in a bad mood.  We then decided that if we were awake late on Sunday night that everyone on our floor should also be awake.  We would noisily patrol down the corridor throwing empty pop cans against as many doors as we could before sprinting to our room before being caught.

Dave taught me the meaning of ''chum money'' he felt that if you had some money in your pocket it was really community money and was available to all of your chum's

I loved Dave for his irreverent sense of humor and his sense of place in the world. 

My condolences to Marcia and your family. 

Im a long time friend of Davids. Once a student from the class of 1978 Lincoln High School. He then taught 2 of my 3 sons and he befriended Elijah and Jonas(Steele)and then later also Jordan(Steele). They admired him immensely and he became an important role model in their lives. I could never repay him for his kindness and generosity. There was never a time that he did not mention Marcia, Matt, John and Mary while sharing his awesome stories with us. I was in the nursing home with David in December/January. Imagine my surprise when i discovered he was in the room across the hall from me. We had physical therapy and once again I had the last opportunity to heae his great stories. He will be sorely missed by my sons and myself. David was unique and a great man.

Mr. Lundquist had such a personality about himself that it was difficult not to stop totally and listen to what he had to say. I was his TA my senior year and I so enjoyed the stories he told—especially his local history and cemetery walks. He was the first to turn me onto Monte Python (to my wife’s dismay!). One particular story to tell, which I still tell to this day:

My brother was a real treat and only a year ahead of me in school. A headache to all who knew him. Mr. Lundquist and I never met at this point. It was the first day of my junior English class and I’m sitting in the front row right in front of the legend himself. He starts in on roll call almost immediately. He called all before me with enthusiasm and, upon only making it through half of my last name, said “ah, shoot. Are you related to Tyler?” — I believe he said it more pungently than that but keeping it PG here. 

He wrote me a very thoughtful letter upon my graduation and thanked me for my work in his class and ultimately apologized for that misjudgment of character. We had several good laughs on the topic. 

My thoughts are with the Lundquist family and all of the Lincoln alumni and teaching staff who knew him. He was one in a million.