Richard Valentine Naug 1997

Susan’s hand: (Roger’s talk at Memorial Service) Mom, please share obituary with Marilyn & Wayne. I’m sending them copies of talks but not obituary. Thanks

Thank you for coming to share with us a celebration of and reflection on our father and close friend. Richard Naug.

As some of you know, Dad and his wife Estelle moved from Peoria Ill to Gainesville Ga in 1982. Dad was 73 years old at the time...and had already lived longer than the average length of life for a male born in the United States. He lived another 15 years and that is the period during which most of us got to know him.

I would like to thank you for receiving him so warmly into your community. He valued his family and friends greatly and fellowship in this church. During the last year he also became very attached to the staff and clients at the community Guest House in Gainesville.

The African proverb says that "it takes a whole village to raise a child"; today I would say that it took "a whole village to help Dad enjoy retirement''. Throughout the past 15 years several neighbors have been particularly close and helpful--Homer and Gerry Deal, Harrell and Eunice Stephens, and Ford and Katrine White. Many of you have graciously helped him through difficult times: Thank you Wes and Adele (Chafin) and Janie (Whitlow) for driving him to church. Thank you Al and Kelly Berurett for your hospitality. Thank you, Bany, for visiting him and praying with him. Thank you to members of the church who stood and praised and thanked Dad during his last service in this church. Thank you, Mack Kudlak, for sharing his home with him last year. And thank you Joe (and Nell) Dale for building the house that became his home. Thank you to the Hand in Hand Hospice staff for home care and to those with the Community Service Center for providing Meals on Wheels. And thank you, Hani and Nouhad (Atrash) for adopting him as your Grandpa and sharing your love and visits with him. And thank you. Sherrill and Mike (Morris) and other family members for loving and caring for him. especially this past month in Illinois.

I first met my father-in-law in 1966 one week before Susan and I were married. I could not have

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known that one day he would become one of my best friends. I had had one previous discussion with him--when I telephoned him in Peoria from New Orleans 4 months earlier to ask the hand of Susan in marriage--a protocol I followed because he requested it. That was the first time that I was to learn he liked things done right.

When he and his wife migrated from India to the United States in 1960, neither could cook. Both were employed outside the home. and he learned to cook...and he prepared excellent chicken curries, Indian stews. banana fritters. tomato chutney (often with tomatoes from Homer's garden), shortbread cookies, and marmalades and jellies from plums, grapes, raspberries and quince.

Because his wife’s health failed before his did, he also maintained the home and the vegetable garden, and up until about a year before his death he enjoyed riding the lawn mower.

He always enjoyed meeting others...I think he never met a stranger. He nearly always wore a smile. A few months ago the Guest House gave him an award for being "The Most Considerate gentleman". .l estimate he shared his place and warm hospitality with over a 1000 people, including my colleagues and friends in public health and friends of the family from Atlanta and Peoria. During the past two months two nephews. John and Rex Naug, who hadn't seen him for decades, flew in from Canada md Australia for one last visit with their "Uncle Bobbie".

His open friendliness. his patient long suffering care for his wife, his warm smiling acceptance of

others and his helpful. cheerful disposition often led us to call him a saint.

Those of you, who like I, only got to know him late in his life, may wonder where he came from. He often regaled his friends with stories of India--he acknowledged some were true, some fiction. He was born in the village of Midnapore in the state of West Bengal in India. His grandfather was a large landowner in Midnapore and sent his son to Oxford University in England to become a lawyer. His father completed law school, married a British lady, and practiced law in England until he learned that his father had been robbed. shot and killed. He returned to India about 1900 and became a judge. He had 7 children of which Dad was fifth in line. All the others died before Dad.

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The older children were sent to different schools--some Catholic. some Protestant but his own father died prematurely and Dad and the other two younger siblings went to the railway school. I have often wondered how much of Dad's enjoyment and tolerance of others resulted from having a father, a judge who was raised in the Hindu religion. a mother who was raised in the Church of England, and siblings who were variously Catholic and Protestant. This interracial, interreligious. cross-national family was a small "melting pot'' of its own. Dad Naug and his wife did not make a personal commitment to the Christian faith until 1947 when he was 38 years old and all his children were born. Dad, all his brothers and his wife worked for the Indian Railway--the most common form of commercial transportation of 'his time period. When he retired and came to the United States he worked briefly at Caterpillar Tractor Co., but did not enjoy the coarse language of fellow workers and quit in order to work in the less remunerative but more peaceful position of janitor in a local church.

Up until the last few weeks. Dad always had an enthusiastic "Let's go!" response to any suggestion of going out of the home--to work in the yard, to go to the mall, to go for a drive. And on Sunday

morning, he was dressed in full suit 1-2 hours before someone picked him up for church. Around the home he sang hymns and played hymns on his mouth organ--a harmonica. For my mother's 80th birthday 4 months ago, he sang a full hymn over the telephone to her--3000 miles away:

All the way my Savior leads me What have I to ask beside? Can I doubt His tender mercy, Who through life has been my Guide ?

At the Guest House he was known for leading the spiritual devotions. And his usual farewell to others was "God Bless you".

Dad was not a complainer. In 1989 at age 80 he learned he had prostate cancer which had already spread to his ribs and spine. He took the surgical and medical treatment anti continued to care for his wife until she died 3 years ago. During the last 8 years- he has also had knee replacement

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surgery and cataract operations to improve his eyesight, Only two years ago he and his brother-in-law flew around the world. He stopped to visit his sister Betty in New Zealand and relatives in Australia and England. He wanted to live until he was 100. I often kidded him--I told him he was too old to die--he'd past the age of dying—I read the obituary columns and noted that those who died were nearly always younger than him. Of course, we all know we will die, but I found it easier to talk openly with him of death and dying than with my own father with whom I felt close but who lived 3000 miles apart during my adult life.

Dad was caring, devoted, affectionate husband and father. He enjoyed greeting with a hug and a kiss. During his last few weeks many of us experienced a special word of love from him. Ten days ago Susan, Suzette and I visited him in Illinois. At one point he reached up and embraced me with his arms of steel and said "Roger, I love you so much.

Dad, you have blessed us so much in your life : I bid you farewell. God bless you. And may he grant me a small portion of the loving good disposition that you shared with so many. And may God bless all of you who are here today. Thank you again for helping Dad enjoy his retirement on Lake Lanier.