Roger Lyons
Pfc Roger Lyons son of Mr and Mrs Harry Lyons is now attacjed to the Third Army doing occupational work in Memmingen, Germany.
PFC Lyons entered the service on July 1. 1943 and for the past 15 months has been overseas. He was a member of the Engineer Combat Battalion and saw action in France and Germany. He reposrts that Christmas Eve and Christmas day were spent with his battalion trying to cross the Rhine. The attempt was successful but PFC Lyons says when the fighting was the toughest they all doubted they would succeed.
Funeral services were held Tuesday, May 28, 11 a.m. at St. Michael Catholic Church for Roger Lyons, 78, who passed away May 24, at Mt. Manor Nursing Home.
Mr. Lyons was born March 18, 1924 in Johnson County, son of the late Harry and Allie Price Lyons.
Surviving are several nieces and nephews, as well as many friends.
The service was officiated by Fr. Terance Hoppenjans.
Honorary pallbearers were Jim Lauffer, Charles T. Melvin, Fred McKenzie, Paul Wade Trimble, Andy Jones and Lee VanHoose; pallbearers were Eddie Bryant, Walt Lauffer, Seth Lauffer, Will Lauffer, Tootsie Mullins, Tinker Mullins, Billy Ward and Milton Preston.Paintsville Herald 5-31-2002
A good-bye to an old friend
(I was honored to be asked by those closest to Roger Lyons, with whom I taught for 25 years, to write and deliver his eulogy at his funeral on May 25, because none of them felt that they could keep their composure while they gave one. Several people at the funeral home where I shared this expressed a desire to have a copy. “It will be my column on Friday,” I promised. The poems are from POETRY OF THE VICTORIAN PERIOD, 3rd Ed., edited by J. H. Buckley and G. B. Woods, Scott Forsman Co. 1965.)
Editor’s Note: Because of the length of Mr. Lyons’ eulogy, it will be printed in two parts. Please look for the continuation in next Friday’s column.
ROGER LYON5
1924-2002
How can we define the life of Roger Lyons? Scholar, soldier, teacher, artist, free spirit, bridge player, genealogist, Jeopardy fanatic, Paintsville High School booster, devout Christian, volunteer, FRIEND.
Roger was born on March 18, 1924, to Harry, Sr. and Allie Price Lyons. He had six siblings, Arnold, Raymond, Martin, Hazel, Harry, Jr. and Edgar, all of whom preceded him in death. He died in the Mountain Manor Nursing Home on May 24, 2002, surrounded by three of the former students who had mutually adopted him and he them in a surrogate parenthood relationship.
He left Paintsville High School to join the service during World War II, and came back after serving in the European Theater (including the Battle of the Bulge in Normandy.) He did not talk about his war experiences, but he did not like Fourth of July fireworks in subsequent years.
After the war, he came back to Paintsville, and graduated from high school in 1947.
He went to John B. Stetson University in Florida first, and then he and Billie Lee Conley enrolled at Western Kentucky State College (now WKU), graduating in 1951.
While at Western, he took any course he thought would be interesting, whether or not it counted toward any degree. He finally amassed enough hours in one area to earn a degree, but he had way more undergraduate hours than he needed.
He started his teaching career at Van Lear High School in 1951, and became a Paintsville High School teacher in the fall of 1957 where he taught until 1978. Someone remembered that he said he had taught 17 years straight without missing a day of school. She didn’t know how many more he taught without an absence after that. At Paintsville, he taught art, math, health, world history, and English. “He can teach anything,” Principal Billie Lee Conley once told me.
His long-time principal, Paul Wade Trimble, told me, “I don’t remember ever having any parent complain about his teaching or his grading.” Roger had the ability to be a friend and buddy outside of class, but showed no favoritism in class. Chuck Melvin, one of his “adopted” children, who has invited him for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners for twenty-five years, said he would twit Roger about the “C” Roger gave him in health when he was a freshman. Roger would reply,”You were lucky to get that ‘C’ !”
Many students report that Roger would shake his head and sigh, “Lord, Children!” at some blunder someone had made. Sometimes he would exclaim, “OH, Helen Keller! Come and help these children! Deaf, dumb, and blind you know more than they do!”
Once Roger was teaching in the upstairs room next to the alley and looked out the window and saw that the sixth graders who had put up the flag at the Elementary School in the next block had accidentally got the flag upside down. “Lord, Children!”
Roger exclaimed to the startled high school students, “The elementary school has sent out a distress signal!” He left the room and went to alert Principal James Wheeler. Sixth grade teacher Mary Rose Bailey said that Mr. Wheeler came in laughing. “An upside down flag is a distress signal. Mr. Lyons called and asked what is wrong. Whoever put up the flag better change it now.”
During his teaching years he was involved with the arts and with plays. He was in all the Junior Women’s League “Follies”, variety show they put on as a fund-raiser each year. He was “Billups” in South Pacific, sang “Everthing’s Up to Date in Kansas City” in “Oklahoma,” and was a character in “Annie Get Your Sun”-all sponsored by the Junior Women’s League. He also helped create the sets for each of the shows. He was the narrator of the first “Jennie Wiley Story” at the Jenny Wiley Summer Theater.
Since his retirement he has spent his time “loafing and bossing” at the Paintsville Floral Company, writing cards in the distinctive handwriting that was so much like his English teacher Lorraine Wiley’s, and accompanying Milton on his flower deliveries to cemeteries all over the county. Milton’s mother, Jerry, said that he has been an invaluable guide to show Milton where everybody’s graves were. This year, she said, without Roger, Milton was able to locate the graves because he remembered Roger’s guidance.
“He loved delivering poinsettias at Christmas,” she said.
Teeny Ward said that he volunteered at the Welfare department several years filling out forms for people who were needing help with their energy bills. He would work as hard as the paid staff to keep the indigent from freezing. He was also a worker at the polls each election, and he will be missed today by the workers and voters at the Middle Ward.
He had two groups of bridge players he played with each week, a canasta group, and a rook group. For many years he had coffee at Wilma’s restaurant each morning at 6:30. He fished with Fred McKenzie. He loved to vacation on an island in Lake Erie where he and his buddies went each summer. Since he has been sick, he got to go to a condominium in South Carolina with Mike Lauffer and several others— against doctor’s orders, but his friends felt that one more trip would give him more satisfaction than more chemotherapy would. He got to spend an afternoon (While the golfers were golfing) with Judy Safriet, a 1960 graduate who had kept up her friendship with him—as did many, many graduates. He had always been the chief cook on those golfing and fishing expeditions, and saw to it that they were fed.
Chuck Melvin reported that when Anna was in law school he and his son Ty stayed out on the farm. Roger stayed almost every night and saw that Ty had bacon and eggs and a proper breakfast every morning before he went to school.
Kim Lauffer said that Roger always gave thoughtful presents.
Once, when her children were small, he came over Christmas morning and the children were playing with a room full of expensive gifts. Roger brought them each a flashlight, and they immediately abandoned their elaborate gifts and played with the flashlights all day. He was interested in all the children’s educations and what they were learning at school. One year he made each of her three children a needlepoint Christmas stocking.
Each evening, Roger watched JEOPARDY, the television program, that tests one’s knowledge in every area. He always called Mandy Morgan, and they matched wits to see who could answer the last question. Mandy will never watch Jeopardy again without thinking fondly of Roger.
I was amazed at how he remembered when each student graduated and who he or she dated or married, who their parents and grandparents were, and where they came from if they had moved in from “off.” No telling how much knowledge was stored in his brain.
Recently, I have been blessed to learn how close he was to his church and how faithful the priest and the sisters have been to come and visit him during the time he was in the hospital and nursing home. I remember once many years ago in the teachers’ lounge at the high school, Roger announced in response to something the group was discussing, I’m a Catholic.”
The P.E. teacher, who was the only Catholic on the faculty, was delighted, and immediately claimed a kinship with him. I knew that Roger attended another church, so I said, “Now, Karen, Roger is not a good enough Catholic for it to do him any good. He is just enough of a Catholic to keep the Mormans and the Jehovah’s Witnesses from annoying him.”
Roger did not contradict me, but in a few weeks he began his journey to become a Catholic for real. I understand he has been faithful communicant and even a mentor for other beginning Catholics for many years. I don’t know if what I said had any effect on him, but if it did, I may be the only Baptist who helped convert someone to devout Catholicism!
Roger, who is one of Tom Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation, has lived a good life, has injured nobody, has thousands of friends, has nurtured many of his surrogate children, grandchildren, and even a great-grand child, has inspired artists and actors and lovers of literature, has helped and not hindered, has loved without judgment. He has been an asset to the world he lived in. He will be missed.
Roger would never forgive me if I did not quote at least one poem. Billie Lee Conley, one of Roger’s oldest friends told me that “Envoy, which means “last message,” by Rudyard Kipling, was one of Roger’s favorite poems. I will share it:
ENVOY
When earth’s last picture is painted, and the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and faith, we shall need it—lie down for an aeon or two,
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew.
And those that were good shall be happy: they shall sit in a golden chair;
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comet’s hair.
They shall find real saints to draw from—Magdalene, Peter and Paul;
They shall work for an age at a sitting, and never be tired at all!
And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall bleme;
And no one will work for the money, and no one will work for fame.
But each from the joy of the working, and each in his separate star
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are.
I feel that Tennyson’s “Crossing the Bar” would be a fitting message from Roger:
CROSSING THE BAR
Sunset, and evening star
And one clear call for me.
And may there be no moaning of the bar
When I put out to sea.
But such a tide as moving seems asleep
Too full for sound and foam
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight, and evening bell
And, after that, the dark
And may there be no sadness of farewell
When I embark.
But though from out our bourne of time and place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to meet my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.This tribute appeared in the Paintsville Herald on 5-31-2002 and 06-07-2002. It was written by June Rice. It shows the respect and love that Roger earned and gave.
Contributed by Walter Preston
