Those who came to pay their respects at the funeral service of Carl Finch were overwhelmingly positive about his influence on them.
“Everybody just went on and on about what a wonderful man he was – honest, upright, friendly,” said his wife of almost 63 years, Ann Finch. “They said you could look the world over and not find anyone who could say a bad thing about him.”
Carl R. Finch Sr. died Oct. 12 at the age of 82, following a long struggle with cardiopulmonary disease.
“He had a full life and a busy life,” Ann said.
The two met as young adults in St. Louis.
“I worked at Famous-Barr downtown, and my girlfriend asked me to go home with her and watch some boys play cart ball – that was hitting bottle crowns with a broomstick,” Ann said. “He was one of the players, and we met and just hit it off. His friend was having a picnic on the Fourth of July, and Carl asked me to go with him. And, you know, that was it. We’ve been together ever since.”
The two were married in 1950, and had seven children over a 27-year span. The family was busy and lively, and Mr. Finch was its firm but loving head.
“He was very strict; he had his rules,” said his son, David, 50. “But I think he got softer with age.”
David said faith was the cornerstone of his father’s life.
“He was a member of First Assembly of God (Church) in De Soto,” David said. “He was a very devoted Christian. And he lived his faith. He lived what he preached – he didn’t drink, he didn’t smoke. He was an excellent role model.”
Mr. Finch was a truck driver by trade, but had worked in a bakery, and still enjoyed decorating cakes as a hobby.
“He made them for our friends, and for things at our church,” his wife said. “I would bake the cakes and he would decorate them. He learned when he worked at White’s Bakery in St. Louis.”
The Finches briefly operated a bakery of their own in De Soto.
“He used to make Dixie Crème doughnuts – they were the best,” Ann said of her husband. “They don’t compare to the ones they have now.”
Mr. Finch loved gardening, and his family was the beneficiary.
“We won’t hardly buy a can of green beans,” Ann said with a laugh. “We like the home-grown ones. I canned tomatoes, green beans, all kinds of things.
“He lived for that garden in the summer. The last couple of years, when he couldn’t do much, he got the kids involved. They weren’t the gardeners he was, but they helped him.”
Vegetables weren’t the only things sprouting in the Finches’ yard.
“He was really into ham radio,” David said of his father. “He talked with people all around the world. We always teased him about his yard looking like an antenna farm. He had one in the top of a tree, and my brother and I had to climb up and move it as the tree grew.”
Another hobby Mr. Finch enjoyed was hunting.
“It is a tradition; all the kids and grandkids get together and go deer hunting,” David said. “My dad used to be into quail and squirrel hunting. Then one of my brothers got into deer hunting, and that kind of got the whole family into it. For years, we used tents. My one brother had a big tent with a woodstove in it, and that would sleep 12 or 15 people. We had a camper for a while, and later on, we’d stay in lodges.
“It was unbelievable all the pictures from deer camp we had at the funeral. There are just a lot of good memories.”
One humorous story had to do with Mr. Finch’s cooking prowess.
“He would always cook for them at deer camp,” Ann said of her husband. “One time, he went to fix hamburgers for them and went to put oatmeal in there, like you would bread crumbs. But it was cinnamon apple oatmeal, and they still laugh about it today.
“They were hungry enough that they ate them, but they got a big laugh out of it.”
As his health deteriorated, Mr. Finch was increasingly unable to do the things he loved.
“He developed a lung problem about two years ago, and it just gradually got worse,” Ann said. “He told everybody it was from smoking 30-some-odd years. Event though it had been 30 years since he quit, the damage had been done. He would say to people, ‘Look what happened to me!’ to get them to quit or, better yet, to never start.”
Ann said she knows exactly how her husband would like to be remembered.
“In the lid of his coffin it says, ‘I hope the work I’ve done speaks for me,’ and that is what I believe,” she said. “He was just a good man.”
“Life Story,” posted each Saturday on Leader Publications’ website, focuses on one individual’s impact on his or her community.