Earle Blackley

Earle Richie Blackley, 81, of Afton, MN, passed away on Wednesday, December 20, 2017 at his "up north home" with family in Breezy Point, MN ending his recent brave battle with Lymphoma.

Earle was born in a farmhouse in Garden City Township, MN to Hamilton and Enid Blackley on December 9, 1936, growing up on a farm, eventually leaving to pursue a degree at Mankato Teachers college. After his short few teaching years he spent 39 years as a computer programmer for Unisys. For more of his own remembrances, you can read below.

He is survived by his two children: Daniel Blackley and wife, Jean and children and daughter, Deneen (Blackley) Kloster and her children, as well as other relatives including his sister, Elaine (Blackley) Rohloff and her family as well as many other nieces and nephews. His mother, father, wife, brother and son-in-law precede him in death.

Funeral services will be Saturday, January 20, at Memorial Lutheran Church in Afton, MN at 11 am with a visitation 1 hour prior and a gathering time following. Memorials to Memorial Lutheran Church are preferred.

"I Remember" by Earle Blackley, edited by Deneen (Blackley) Kloster

My earliest memories are of living near Vernon Center, MN where my folks rented a farm by the Watonwon River. We had a dog named Sport who helped my brother and I catch frogs for fishing. My older brother, Bill and I walked to school, about one and a half miles away. One year the snow was so deep and crusty that dad could drive his car on top of the drifts. As the youngest kid in my grade, born in December and only 4, I was flunking first grade because I did not know my ABC's. Ma set me down and drilled me so I did not flunk.

When my folks purchased a farm in Lincoln Township, seven miles from Lake Crystal, MN I rebelled and hid behind the woodstove that was used to heat the house. They finally convinced me I had to move.

This was the early 1940's with a hand pump for water and an outhouse outback. We had plenty of chickens and eggs, so every Saturday night we would sell them to buy groceries in town and often bought a pint of ice cream as a treat to divide when we got home. There was always something to do whether it was work or play. My brother and I had a good relationship. We had a basketball hoop, bikes, firecrackers, forts and make believe cannons. Years later a baby sister, Elaine would be born.

In the early days I remember churning butter in the old wooden churn. I still love butter. I remember mother making soap from hog fat and ashes. We always butchered hogs for most of our meat, except for chickens.

The teacher lived with us for a number of years. I was sometimes called the teacher's pet. At school we played all sorts of games: softball, ante all over, cowboy and Indians. One day we tied a girl up, forgetting her when the bell rang. The teacher made us go untie her.

When I was 12 my brother and I detasseled eight acres of corn. He gave me his old 22 single shot rifle as payment for my help. It was a terrible job in the heat and often in the mud.

Chores on the farm included: feeding and watering livestock, castrating pigs, cultivating, plowing, disking, dragging. 4-H meant showing livestock and gathering with other kids in people's homes. One summer I attempted to show Rastus the pig at the county fair, but he got sunstroke and went wild jumping fences attempting to find shade.
The eighth grade year ended country school and then we went to Lake Crystal for high school. There were 30 some kids from 2 or 3 country schools. I did fairly well in high school, graduating valedictorian. I went out for football and played guard on offense and linebacker on defense. We took the district championship the last two years of high school. I was elected co-captain my senior year.

I choose to go to Mankato Teacher's College where I started studying engineering but my math background had not prepared me. So, I concentrated on mathematics and science, getting a double major with teaching degrees in both. I worked almost all the time during college as a meat cutter, dishwasher, laborer in a soybean processing plant and then a fry cook at a café. With wages that ranged from 50 cents an hour to $1.50 an hour for meat cutting, but the soybean plant paid $3 an hour. During the summer I worked in road construction.

I met a young lady one night while I was working as a pin setter at a bowling alley. I had seen her at the café where I worked. She later confessed that she was enamored with my muscles when I was carrying a stack of dishes out for the fry cooks. This was the start of my relationship with Bonnie-Lee Chester. We dated and before my senior year in college, I asked her to marry me. I was not yet 21 and she was 18.

After graduation, I taught in several schools including Pemberton and Waterville. It was then that I started responding to non-teaching positions in the newspaper. I eventually was hired at Remington Rand Univac in 1961 as a computer programmer. The company changed names several times but I worked for them for 39 years on numerous projects, designing system software and having the occasion to travel to places such as Denmark, Japan, Germany and eventually working in England for 3 and half years. Where as a family, now with son Daniel and daughter Deneen we were able to travel Europe in our 1970 Volkswagen camper with our new miniature Boarder Collie, Ruffles (who ended up being the best dog we ever had).

While in England I led a small group working on operating systems. In 1974, after having been voted employee of the year in the London facility, it was decided the family should return to Minnesota. A home was purchased in Afton, near family. In 2000 I decided to retire.
Bonnie and I took a few cruises to the Mediterranean, Alaska, Hawaii and Panama Canal. For several years we enjoyed yearly Blackley camping trips with our kids, their spouses and our grandkids. Bonnie's health deteriorated as her back was giving her pain that could not be treated.

In 2014 we decided to rent a house from our daughter in Breezy Point and began moving gradually in that direction. We were in the process of doing this when Bonnie began having heart problems. In 2016 she died on August 8th from the result of a heart attack. Part of her ashes were scattered at the Breezy Point house where she so wanted to live and the rest of her ashes will be buried with me in Afton.
--- this ends Earle's record of his remembrances...

As his daughter, I will always remember dad as a strong, honest man, who worked hard and loved nature, especially rocks - building retaining walls by hand and then rearranging them, in an attempt to keep mom happy. I think she just liked to see him flex his muscles, even past retirement.

In his last months, as his body weakened, he felt and relied on the strength of the LORD, asking that he be found in Christ, asking for the salvation that only Jesus can give and gain. This brought dad a peace that passes understanding and a hope and a future of the renewed body, mind and spirit with the LORD in Heaven.