Remembering Uncle Carroll

My sister Kathy and I were grateful to be among the many relatives and friends of the Schield family who traveled to Neillsville, Wisc., to attend the memorial service Jan. 24 for Uncle Carroll Schield. While, of course, it was sad to lose the patriarch of the Schield family -- who died Nov. 22, 2013, the day after his 96^th birthday -- the occasion gave all of us the opportunity to honor him, celebrate his life and enjoy time with each other.

Click here to access a slide show of photos taken throughout the day by me and Rebecca Schield, David Schield’s wife. There are also more photos by Rebecca on her Facebook page, for those of you linked to her.

Like the service for his wife, Aunt Betty Schield, two years earlier, the service for Dr. Carroll Schield was held at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Neillsville. And again, eulogies were delivered by the oldest and the youngest of the seven Schield children, Dan and David.

Dan, like his three sisters, followed his father’s footsteps into the field of dentistry and attended the Marquette Dental School in Milwaukee some three decades after his dad. Dan told the story of when he was working in the dental school clinic where students like him would treat patients under the supervision of their instructors. The clinic hadn’t changed much since Carroll’s days as a student but Dan found himself gravitating to one particular chair for treating patients each day. Carroll visited his son at the clinic once and pointed out to Dan where he had carved his initials underneath the shelf where students placed their instruments. It turned out that Dan was working at the same station where his father worked as a student.

As many friends and relatives of Schields know, Never Never Land was a labor of love for Carroll and the scene of a lot of memorable celebrations over the years. Dan spoke of how his dad loved to “putz” around the cottage, repainting the deck, cleaning the grill or raking leaves.

“He was always accomplishing something,” Dan said of Carroll. “I think this resulted in teaching us to take care of our ‘stuff,’ and to be self-reliant.”

Dan said he thinks his dad became a dentist because he believed that if you take care of your teeth, they will last you a lifetime. Of him, people said, “’He didn’t talk much, but he sure was a good dentist,’” Dan said.

Dan’s big finish, to the delight of the assembled, was to remove his suit jacket, revealing one of his dad’s argyle sweaters, then he donned one of the 60’s-style casual fedoras Carroll favored and placed one of his dad’s pipes between his teeth.  I told Dan afterwards that’s the first eulogy I’d seen featuring props.

David recounted his dad’s meeting his future wife, Betty McCorry, when she worked as a secretary in the dental school. After graduating, Carroll served as a US Army Medical Officer during World War II, stationed at an army base in Louisiana, then in Europe and the Philippines. He and Betty then settled in his hometown of Neillsville to start his dental practice and start a family.

“Dad was a hard working man, a true professional, and a really good dentist.  In his mind, his role was to financially provide for his family,” David said. “By his work ethic and nature, he [taught] us that we, too, needed to provide for ourselves and our families.”

There’s much more that Dan and David shared and I will post their full eulogies separately.

As mourners streamed out of the church, they were greeted by an honor guard of veterans from the local VFW post who fired a 21-gun salute and a bugler played “Taps.”

Guests took a short drive from the church to the Neillsville Country Club for lunch; the menu was inspired by the lunch Carroll usually had when he visited the club: turkey sandwiches, minestrone, chips, pickles and brownies for desert.

Besides all the Schield children, spouses and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren, other guests included Brian and Maureen (Drabik) McCorry, Aunt Teresa, Tom and Sarah from the Jonases and Kathy (Gesley) and me representing the Mullinses. The nuns couldn’t make it but Sr. Acquinice had been up there a week or so before the service.

The evening ended with a tableful of relatives enjoying a fish fry at Stone’s Throw, the Hatfield restaurant that some of you may remember as the setting for another fish fry before our reunion at the cottage in 2012.

We topped off the evening by visiting Dan and Bobbie’s lovely home in Neillsville, just a block or so down from St. Mary’s. We had a lovely time reminiscing while  going through boxes and boxes of photos of my Schield cousins when they were growing up and other Schield relatives going back two or three generations.

It was a wonderful way to reconnect with family and honor the man whose long and successful life we came to celebrate.

Love to all,

Robert Mullins