A former Wessington Springs priest who served at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, wrote a letter to friends in the Springs area on September 25, 2010. A portion of it was addressed to the late Gladys Moldrem, while other items addressed local friends.

My Dear Friends:

What a wonderful surprise I’ve had today when I received a great letter from Msgr. Edward Burian (Wessington Springs). It is too bad that “old age” has taken away my ability to walk at all, and rheumatoid arthritis has “taken over” my almost 92-year old body, or I would be there to see you wonderful friends at Springs: Msgr. Ed., Pat and Don Wenzel, my “betting pal” Craig Wenzel, Duke, Karen and the rest of the great Springs friends. Perhaps we could even persuade Kyle Evans to come down from his quiet, happy home, to give us some of his heavenly music!

You should get a chuckle from this:

When I was still in the grades at school, I was called out of class and told to go to the nearby hospital “with no delay.” When there, I was taken to a room where they had my oldest brother, Joe, and I was told he was “badly burnt”. As I came up to his bed, I noticed that his entire body was burned… and the nurse whispered to me, “He is dying.”

A later explanation told me that was he went down into the basement of the new house he and his wife had just built, he lit a match to start the “pilot” and the entire furnace exploded into flames!

I went over to the chair my mother was in and I said, “Don’t cry, Mom, Joe was also so kind to all of us, he will be in heaven.”

My mother turned to me and said, “I know…. He takes the GOOD ONES FIRST!” There were nine of us children in the family — and all are departed BUT ME!

Faithful and sincere friends of South Dakota: yes, you’ve been good to me!

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