Obituary
Henry Gene Straatmeyer
3.4.1934-2.20.20
Due to complications after a fall and a broken hip, Henry Gene Straatmeyer, age 85, died in Galveston, Texas on February 22, 2020. Gene often said that his life changed when he started going to church as a child. He dedicated his life to God and became a Presbyterian Minister. After a very tough and trying childhood, the church became his life. He will be remembered for his gift of cross-cultural ministry from the deep south of Mississippi to the Arctic to Africa, as well as his constant jokes, and his larger than life personality.
Since he was born on March 4th during the Great Depression and the Dustbowl, it was always said that he was born to MARCH FORTH. He began by becoming the first in his family to graduate High School, and then went on to college and on to finish his Master of Divinity degree in 1959, and his Doctor of Ministry in 1978. Following the Scriptures’ guidance, he started early looking for “the least of these” to minister to, helping his churches become active in justice-based ministry in the process. As a young pastor he traveled to Mississippi to register African Americans to vote and, at one time, was even chased by the KKK. He started a farmer exchange program with white farmers from Iowa and black farmers in Mississippi. He led many mission trips to Indian reservations including Pine Ridge. After moving to Alaska, Gene saw the need for Alaska Native Leadership in the church and began encouraging Alaskan natives to become pastors of their own churches.
Maybe because he was so proud of his own 100% German heritage, he saw the impact of white pastors bringing the white culture with them to Alaska, and the need to preserve the Alaska Native culture. Gene continued on the mission of raising up indigenous Christian leadership, making that the focus of is Doctoral Studies. As a result, when he moved back to the Lower 48, he ran two different Native American Ministries Departments at two different Schools of Divinity: Charles Cook Theological School and University of Dubuque Theological Seminary. After Gene retired, he continued his cross-cultural work with a year in Malawi, Africa where he worked in a church and learned that culture. Indeed, he never quit learning. In his last years he did research and finished a book on the old German Synod of the West, to which he attributed his love of “mission work.” Even in his last years he was reading several books a month and enjoyed talking about his life’s work at Toast Masters.
Throughout life Gene used humor to interact with almost everyone. He often embarrassed his family by making cat noises in restaurants and then would sit back to watch all the waitresses look for the cat under all of the tables. Pun should have been his middle name. Most of the time, his puns were met with groans and sighs, which seemed to make make him laugh more than the pun itself, as if it were some sort of torture he enjoyed dishing out. On one Alaskan Christmas Eve he anonymously called his brother-in-law in South Dakota at 5am in the morning (1am Alaska time) and told him his cows were out. He waited 30 minutes and called back to laugh after his brother-in-law was back in the house grumping that he had found that no cows were out. It became a funny family story, that was really only funny to Gene at the time.
Gene was an imposingly big man--- 6’2” with a deep voice and was used to getting what he wanted…maybe because he was an only child. He loved to eat, but also loved to exercise. He started riding bikes and wearing shorts in the 1960s, which, in that day, was unheard of for pastors. He bought a green rambler instead of the traditional black car for pastors, which was scandalous in the Midwest. When he moved to Alaska he joined an adult basketball league. He started jogging. He loved to canoe, but had his wife gotten in one more time, they may have divorced, since he didn’t know how to steer them. (If he were here, he would deny that comment.) Gene documented every minute he spent exercising, making graphs and yearly announcements of how many hours he had done which exercise.
Gene knew everything and told everybody what he knew. He was rarely wrong, but even if he were wrong, he would insist he wasn’t. Gene knew a LOT of people and never forgot a face or name. He maybe should have gone into politics since he loved glad-handing everyone. In busy places he would scour the crowd to find people he knew and would go talk to them, which would lead to talking to the guy next to him and on it went. He did love to talk, which is probably why everyone said he was a such a great preacher.
His roots were in South Dakota where there was a concentration of German immigrants from Northern Germany. He heard German growing up, but was not taught German because of World War II. Gene especially enjoyed the summer of 2011 that he and Jean spent living in Northern Germany where much of his low German came back to him, allowing him to communicate in his quest to find out more about his ancestors.
He was born in Chancellor, South Dakota, 3/4/34 to Henry W. Straatmeyer and Gertrude Bossman. On the eve of his marriage to Jean Plucker, 6/11/57, at Germantown Presbyterian Church, they found out they shared the same great-great grandmother. Fearing at first that they were too closely related, they then decided it wasn’t that important and went ahead with the wedding. A family of genes, Gene and Jean had three children: Cynthia Jean (Karns), born 4/25/59, Sandra Jean (McCubbin), born 4/21/61, and died 11/2/2018 and Michael Gene, born 4/19/65.
Gene is survived by his wife of 63 years, his daughter Cynthia and son-in-law Rev. Dr. Curtis Karns of Eagle River, Alaska; his son, Michael Straatmeyer, of Crystal Beach, Texas; as well as his grandchildren: Jeanie Karns Talbot of Upland, California; Keith Karns, of Salem, Oregon; and Aaron, Tyler, Layni, Conner, Chase, Ashlynn, Kylee McCubbin all from the Houston, Texas area. There are 5 great-grandchildren as well.
Memorial services will be held at First Presbyterian Church in Galveston on what would have been Gene’s 86th birthday, March 4th at 2pm. A graveside service at Germantown Presbyterian Church near Lennox, South Dakota will be held sometime in the future.
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In lieu of flowers, we ask you donate to the Gene Straatmeyer Memorial Fund
Much of Gene's life was given to training indigenous Christian leaders. This fund will provide scholarships for future Native Americans students at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, who don't have the funds to realize their goals of ministry at this time in their lives. You will be giving to master degree programs in ministry. It trains followers of Jesus to empower others to join in God’s mission in a variety of callings. Graduates are equipped to pursue such callings as ministers of outreach, urban ministry, new church development, young adult ministry, teaching, or work with parachurch organizations. It would give Gene great joy to see you contribute to this very vital mission. Visit www.dbq.edu/Invest to make your donation.
Make sure to put GENE STRAATMEYER MEMORIAL in the Alternative Designation box
Addendum:
Gene religiously listened to Paul Harvey every noon on the radio, so with that in mind, here is “the rest of the story.”
Sadly in Gene’s later years in retirement, without the focus of a mission, without keeping himself so busy and distracted with his work, he succumbed to the need to continue the cycle of violence that was so prevalent in his own childhood. Having never dealt with his own demons of abuse, he plead guilty to violating his Texas granddaughters and spent the last five years of his life in prison with regret and shame. He was stripped of his ministerial ties to the Presbyterian Church USA. He was only two weeks shy of his possible parole.
In the prison infirmary, because there was no TV, radio, roomates, windows, or even his glasses, he reported that he would sing old hymns to pass the time. An old Stanley Brothers gospel song summarized his last years of struggling with forgiveness.
Oft I sing for my friends
When death's cold hand I see
When I reach my journey's end
Who will sing one song for me?
I wonder (I wonder) who
Will sing (will sing) for me
When I'm called to cross that silent sea
Who will sing for me?
When friends shall gather round
And look down on me
Will they turn and walk away?
Or will they sing one song for me?
So I'll sing 'til the end
Contented I will be
Assured that some friends
Will sing one song for me.
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