I attended Doug's funeral this morning, along with a very large Minn-StF & fannish contingent and an even larger collection of family and other friends.

The funeral was held at Westwood Lutheran Church in St. Louis Park, and the Pastor admitted that she didn't know Doug (an occupational hazard of her job is having to eulogize people she didn't know). She'd talked to a variety of people, though, because she referred to his involvement in the Shockwave radio show, and his interest in science fiction and movies, and she pretty clearly recognized that the front right section of the seating was Doug's friends from some of those activities. She also said that Doug wasn't a conventionally religious person, and didn't seem to be saying this was a bad thing. The service was conventionally Lutheran anyway (at least, it matched what was printed in the book); if that hadn't been what was wanted, they shouldn't have had it in a conventional Lutheran church, and nobody seemed surprised or upset.

And the real live actual Lutheran church-lady lunch did not have any hotdish or any jello salad. (But good fruit salad, and the cake was nice, and the sandwich was fine.)

I saw a certain amount of contact between the fannish and family groups, though I didn't go out and find somebody to talk to myself.

In addition to talking to people at Minicon about what music he wanted at his funeral, he had also requested that a model of the starship Enterprise be placed on his chair. A model was found, and placed. I don't know if the Spock picture was also something he had talked to people about or not.

[click]

Brian Westley told Scott Raun who told the Minn-StF natter mailing list --

Just got word that longtime fan Doug Friauf died at 2:50 AM
on Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Rest well, Doug!

(Minicon 42)


(Minicon 41)