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New Ulm and I will miss Pat Kneefe

It was shocking last week when I went to the Ulmer Cafe for coffee with the guys and heard that one of our regulars, Pat Kneefe, had been diagnosed with cancer a few days before. It was even more shocking less than a week later when I heard that Pat had died of his illness on Sunday. Even at 80, he had been as vigorous and full of life as a man of lesser years.

To call Pat a character is not enough. He was one of those characters that give a community character. He was a big part of the Irish cabal in town. Along with Bill O’Connor he had given me many interviews over the years for the St. Patrick’s Day blarney article. He was one of O’Connor’s favorite foils. O’Connor would say that the Irish had increased the fund to build a statue of St. Patrick big enough to dwarf the Hermann Monument, but then Pat blew it all when he bought his wife, Katie, a cup of coffee.

Pat could tell a joke like no one else, especially jokes with a foreign dialect. He could do an Irish brogue with ease (his father had been an Irish immigrant), but also Norwegian, Jewish, whatever it took.

He had an impish sense of humor. He once told his elderly mother, who was taking her first airplane trip, not to worry. The pilot, Pat told her, had been trained as a Kamikaze pilot in World War II. When his mother, in all innocence, told this to the stewardess, she laughed and told the pilot, who laughed and had to come back to meet her and assure her she was in good hands.

Pat worked at the F&M Bank (now the Alliance Bank). One time, with a wink and a grin, he told a customer who wanted to borrow money for some new false teeth that he could approve the loan, but the customer would have to slip the teeth into the night deposit slot every night until the note was paid off. Sure enough, one morning soon after a set of false teeth showed up in the night deposit box.

His best stories were about himself. Pat often said that he had studied for the priesthood until he learned what celibacy meant.

He was as proud as he could be of his grandchildren and their athletic accomplishments, while at the same time recounting his own failures and mediocrities on the ball field.

Pat could act ornery and cranky, but not very convincingly. He was always criticizing my editorials, no matter what position I took, just to get a rise out of me. I think he did the same thing with Msgr. Douglas Grams’ sermons on Sunday. But he had a huge heart, and if someone was down or sick or depressed, he was capable of great acts of kindness and charity.

If a real Irish wake were held for Pat, we would spend a long night drinking to his memory and telling stories about him.

I am sad that his illness took him from us before I got a chance to say goodbye to him. So I’ll say it now with the traditional Irish blessing:

May the road rise to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

The rain fall soft upon your fields,

And until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Kevin Sweeney has been the managing editor of The Journal since May 1985. A native of St. Paul, he worked at newspapers in LeSueur and Albert Lea before moving to New Ulm. Contact him at ksweeney@nujournal.com.

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