"For last years's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning." 
......T.S.Eliot
......T.S.EliotDON'S STORY
as written by Naomi Villmann
Jan. 2006
Many of us look forward to the beginnings in life. We celebrate in the upcoming year.. Fewer of us take stock of the old year and perhaps a minority mourn the passing of what has been in that year. The reason for this - endings are sad, something is lost. However if life teaches us nothing else, the lesson that continues to be whispered in the breeze and yelled from the mountain top is that without endings we cannot ever hope to have beginnings.
This New Year let us celebrate a new beginning given out of ending with selfless motives to keep a promise made years ago. The City of Jefferson can look forward to a new community center thanks to Don Shindler. Mr. Shindler, who in mourning the passing of his beloved wife, Phyllis, of 50 years, remembered his promise to Karen Wells to hold the building he owned at 107 N. Main should he be ready to sell. When asked why now, he said, "I just figured it was a good time, besides I'm knocking on 80 years." In selling the building Mr. Shindler made a financial arrangement with Wells and her committee that some felt was too good to be true. When asked about this Shindler smiled and said "I told Karen I would hold it for her. My word is more important than money."
Shindler also believes in the importance of having a place where families can spend time together. "You can't push the teens off somewhere," he states, "kids and adults need to meet together to share experiences." Shindler even plans to spend some of his time volunteering at the Community Center. That is the beginning, but in order to truly appreciate this gift that has been given, perhaps we too need to mourn the past or at least have an understanding of it. Truly a story that needs to be shared, is how the beginning of our new Community Center comes out of an ending for Mr. Shindler. A love that spanned 50 years.
As a young man, Shindler's favorite pastime was dancing. "We used to go out to the Cottonwoods Ballroom" he fondly remembers. "They had all the big bands. It was so crowded that people had to stand outside." Shindler then goes on to recall the events that led up to his meeting the woman who was to become his wife. He and a buddy were headed to the Cottonwoods and Shindler distinctly remembers telling his friend that he was never getting married. When they arrived he saw this gal standing by the wall, and within moments had forgotten his earlier declaration, now stating to that same buddy "There is the girl I am going to marry!" Shindler and Phyllis danced the night away, and at the end of the evening he asked for her phone number.
However, like all fairy tales, we must have a complication, and this there was. Shindler attempted to call Phyllis, but found that he did not have the right number. When asked if he tried to find her, he said all he knew about her was that she lived in Salem.
A year passed. Shindler was once again headed out for an evening of dancing, but this time in Aumsville. Who should be there? Of course it was Phyllis! Three weeks later on Thanksgiving the couple called the Justice of the Peace at his home, (who just happened to be State Representative Lane Shetterly's father) he rustled up a couple of elderly ladies to act as witnesses and well you can guess the rest.
Phyllis spent most of her life working right along side of her husband and many of those years at the facility that is now the Community Center's new location. About 10 years ago she became ill. At the end of this story, Phyllis underwent an operation that promised to relieve years of pain, but it was risky. A risk worth taking for both Shindlers. Initially it seemed that Phyllis had come through as she awoke the morning after without pain. For Shindler those were precious hours as they would be her last. Her lung collapsed and she was taken from this life shortly after.
So you see there is an ending to be mourned in the loss of Phyllis, but more than that a love to be remembered for a lifetime and a beginning of a community center that, God willing, will outlast all of us.
