Rest in Peace, Dad and Grandma

Today, 6 August, would have been the 105th birthday of my beloved Dad, Marion Edward Spiller (obit. 1995), who became my Father after the death of my real Father. He was the only Father I knew from age nine. He has been gone now for thirty years, and I still miss him. I think of him every year, as I watch the Czech Days parade with its tractors. There's always a Poppin' Johnny, Dad, a John Deere Model A, just like the one you taught me to drive.

And it would have been the 149th birthday of my equally beloved Grandmother, Pitronella Frederika (Nellie) Weismiller, nee Peterson. Born in Sweden in 1876, she came to Kansas at 11 in 1887. She survived my Grandfather by 57 years until the house burned down and killed her in 1973 when she was 97. I think of you, too, Grandma, almost every day.

They are gone but never forgotten. May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace, and may light perpetual shine upon them. Memory Eternal!

O God, who art thyself at once the Maker and the Redeemer of all thy faithful ones, grant unto the souls of thy servants and handmaids remission of all their sins, making of our entreaties unto our great Father a mean whereby they may have that forgiveness which they have ever hoped for.
Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.
R. Amen