Shirley Rasmus remembers respect community showed in greatest time of need

Last modified: Friday, October 13, 2006 11:09 PM CDT

Shirley Rasmus remembers respect community showed in greatest time of need

TOWN OF LAFAYETTE — For 13 years, Chippewa Falls students filed past Paul Rasmus as they boarded a yellow bus on the way to school each morning.

The children brought an infectious smile to the bus driver’s face. He knew they were on their way to earning a diploma, something that was priceless to Rasmus since one had eluded him most of his 78 years.

But that changed in 2005.

Rasmus had left high school in New York back in World War II, joining the Navy to become a Seabee. He served in the South and Western Pacific during 1944-1945 and in the invasions of the islands of Eniwetok, Saipan and Okinawa.

But in the summer before his death in a bus accident near Osseo, his high school awarded the 78-year-old Rasmus a high school diploma. It was an honor bestowed upon school alumni as a thank-you for serving in the war.

“Paul was so proud of that diploma that he carried it in his briefcase everywhere he went,” said Shirley Rasmus, Paul’s wife.

He would have been equally proud of the way his community honored his memory and reached out to his family in one of its greatest times of sorrow.

Shirley Rasmus learned a lot about people in the days, months, and even year since her husband’s death.

It’s a lesson that didn’t surprise her, but renewed her faith in the human spirit.

It began the afternoon of Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2005, when she looked outside the window of Horan Funeral Home and saw lines forming on the street a half hour before Paul’s visitation was scheduled to begin.

The phenomenon continued for the next 6 ½ hours, as people stood in line for as much as two full hours to pay their respects to the Rasmus family.

“So many people had been on his buses over the years and knew him from either his tour buses or his school bus routes,” Shirley said.

Just as many people knew Paul from his years in the community.

Shirley can’t help but laugh as she recalls the many times the couple went out together and how much time Paul spent visiting with people.

“It would take Paul forever to go across a room because he knew so many people,” Shirley said.

And so many people were proud to know Paul.

He loved kids, and that week the kids showed their love in return. It seemed that anyone who had ever stepped onto a bus driven by Paul Rasmus appeared at the visitation

and funeral the following day, sending their favorite bus driver off on his final tour.

“He would have been smiling at the fact that that many people showed up for him,” Shirley said.

“But it didn’t surprise me, because he was a ‘people person’ and that’s just the kind of guy he was.”

Paul Rasmus’ school bus kids left hundreds of heart-felt messages on multiple banners on that amazing night at the funeral home.

The human spirit can be an amazing thing, Shirley says.

Take the outpouring of the Chippewa Falls area, for example.

Just a few weeks ago the doorbell rang at Shirley’s LaFayette home. She went to the door and found a neighbor and her daughter standing at the door with a fully-cooked meal for Shirley to enjoy.

“There has always been such a tremendous outpouring of people, kindness and nice words, and it’s still very much that way.” Shirley said.

But being a lifelong resident of Chippewa Falls, Shirley knows the people here well.

“I was never surprised, because that’s just the kind of people that live in this community,” she said.

“Whether it’s a wonderfully cooked meal, yard work, snow removal or a simple card in the mail, this community is still pitching in.”

Shirley’s mail carrier must have had a sore back in October 2005. That would be expected from carrying crates and crates of mail to the Rasmus front door.

“He must have been bringing us those crates for a month,” she said.

They were filled with cards from people of all walks of life from throughout the country. Many of those people had lost loved ones; others were so broken-hearted by news of the tragedy that they were compelled to send their love.

Shirley read each and every card personally. For a time she kept them close to her favorite living-room chair because they helped keep her spirits up.

“There’s something special about a card,” Shirley says.

Maybe it’s because she knows that someone — in many cases a stranger — had to take time out of their busy lives to show they cared. Or maybe it was the grateful, sympathetic or kind way the writer let the Rasmus family know that their hearts went out to them.

“It’s very humbling to know that people across the country cared so much about Paul,” she said.

Shirley has saved all the cards and well wishes, but admits that they don’t get read as often as they used to. However if she needs a little pick-me-up, the cards are tucked away in a room ready to help as part of her healing process.

Shirley Rasmus is proud that after 55 years of marriage, she knew her husband so well.

“I could tell the minute he walked in the door what kind of mood he was in,” she said. About 99 percent of the time he wore that infectious smile on his way through the door, excited to share a story about another person he had met through his day’s travels.

Since his death, Shirley learned a lot about herself and her own human spirit.

“I think half of me went with Paul that day because I’m just not the same anymore,” she said.

But Shirley has found comfort in a little courtyard in downtown Chippewa Falls, where her husband’s smiling face proudly looks over the Chippewa Falls Marching Band that marches in a mural in Harmony Courtyard.

It’s in that courtyard that Shirley sometimes finds herself sitting on the bench engraved with the name of Paul Rasmus reflecting on the events of the past year.

“It’s beautiful,” Shirley says of the wall. “It’s a wonderful tribute.“

But going deep beyond the images on that downtown mural, Shirley sees how she persevered through a terrible tragedy.

“I have to pat myself on the back, because I did a pretty good job this year,” she said.

She has accepted the fact that God takes even the best people from this Earth when their time has come, and has worked hard through her faith in God not to dwell on the loss of her soulmate.

“I learned that I have a very strong faith in God, and without that I would have never made it through.”

Reach Jeffrey Hage at jeff.hage@lee.net.