Obituary of Anton Beenackers

Anton Beenackers Anton Beenackers passed away February 7, 2012 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan after a brief illness at the age of 85 years. Anton was born on September 2, 1926 in Molenshot, The Netherlands to John and Maria Beenackers and he was the oldest of 12 children. He is survived by his spouse Rhea Wolf Lehmkuhl of Fort Collins, Colorado; his siblings Nellie Van Bilsen of Glencoe, Ontario, Rita Willemse of The Netherlands, Toni Van Oers of The Netherlands, Pete (Mein) Beenackers of The Netherlands, Annie (Jan) Botermans of The Netherlands, Kees (Helma) Beenackers of The Netherlands, Janus Beenackers of The Netherlands, Carolyn (Ad) Van Alphen of The Netherlands; his sister in law and husband Mary and Walter Van Mol of Ridgetown, Ontario; three nephews and four nieces in Ontario and several nephews and nieces in The Netherlands. Anton was predeceased by his parents John and Maria Beenackers of Molenshot of The Netherlands; his brothers Hein and Frank; his sister Sjan Van Tilburg; brothers-in-law, Martin Van Bilsen, Kees Van Tilburg, Cor Willemse, Pete Van Oers, and sister-in-law Ria Beenackers. As Anton worked at Justamere Farms in Lloydminster, Saskatchewan since 1952, Anton will also be sadly missed by his "Justamere" family; Molly Fox, Lyal and Virginia Fox; Lyal, Rose, Peter, Spencer and Isaiah Fox; AJ Fox and her partner, David White; Jon, Shelly, Tyra, Jonny, Jim Bob and Jorja Fox; Stirling, Sheena, Bexson and Broker Fox; Ben, Linda, Emma, Sutherland and Ben Fox Jr.; Angie, Devon, Charlie, Porter, and Major Jay Fox Jr. He was predeceased by Charlie Bob Fox, Jonathan Fox III and Major Jay Fox. The funeral service was conducted on Tuesday February 14, 2012 from the McCaw funeral chapel, Lloydminster, Alberta with Father Louis Fowoyo officiating. The eulogy was given by Jon Fox IV. Interment followed at a site close to the golf course, in the Lloydminster City Cemetery, Lloydminster, Saskatchewan. Honorary Pallbearers were Jim Hill, Wolf Roberge, Alex Gerrard, the Cactus Club Golf members, and the Justamere Farms crew from 1952 to present. Active pallbearers were Tony Myer, Jack Robertson, Gerry McKee, David White, Lyal Fox II, Jon Fox V, Peter Fox and Ben Fox. The following eulogy was delivered by Jon Fox IV. Anton's date of birth falls between the two great world wars, which affected the entire world in many ways; but Europe profoundly. The first ended in 1918 and the 2nd war began in 1939, when Anton was 13 years old. He often told us stories of the war and gave us a first hand understanding of what it was like to live on a farm in the Netherlands at that time. Anton was interested in everything around him and he said he was often late for meals because he would stay working in the fields so he could watch the planes over head and listen for the advancing armies. In Anton's words, "When we knew we might be in danger out in the field from incoming enemy or allied shrapnel, or bombs, we would place our wooden shoes upside down over our heads and stand as straight as we could in order to avoid being hit by the material falling from the sky." He vividly remembered the German Army coming into their farming communities and confiscating almost everything they owned, including animals and anything with wheels, such as bicycles and wheelbarrows, or wagons. Anton and his brother tied two bikes high up in the trees so that the invaders would not notice them and the family would still have two implements to work with when the German Army was not looking. Of course he well remembered the collapse of the monetary system and the burning of useless currency in the streets. Anton moved to Canada at the end of the war and worked in the logging industry in Ontario before moving west. The Polkinghorn Family of Marsden welcomed this hard working young man to work in their grain, dairy and beef cattle operation there. In 1952, Anton rode a bicycle from Marsden to Lloydminster and asked for a job at Justamere Stock Farm. And as we all know, Justamere would be Anton's beloved home for most of his life. He always loved to tell the story of the $5.00 bill. Apparently, Grandpa Jonathan Fox decided to test the integrity of this new young recruit and so he tacked a $5 bill to the wall of the bunkhouse where the new Mr Beenackers would live. He thought he would just see if the young man would assume someone had left it there by accident and that he might as well just go ahead and use it. Well, Anton, who always ate his meals at the home of Jonathan and Molly, brought the $5 bill up to the house after several days of working at the farm and left it in front of Jonathan's plate one evening. Grandpa knew then the value of this man who never left his employment and continued to live at Justamere in the summer time right up until last fall (2011), when he and Rhea left once again for their winter abode in the U.S. to escape the cold weather. Anton built almost every farm building on Justamere - including the shops, sheds, pavilion and the grain mill. When he was going to build something, he planned it all very thoroughly first, so that he could anticipate any problems that might arise and be avoided. He even built a small model, to-scale of the feed mill, before he started the real thing!! Anton was also the manager of the farming operations at Justamere where he was responsible for growing not only the cash crops but also, all the feed and bedding for the very large cattle operations. Anton respected Mother Nature and always knew that without her help he could not grow a crop. He paid close attention to rain fall and weather patterns and every year he made a seeding plan before he started. While going through some of Anton's belongings last week we came across a file folder full of 30+ years of rain fall amounts as well as all the seeding & fertilizer information as well as the blue prints to the mill for the operation. One year, Anton walked the entire Lloydminster parade route on his home-made stilts that were high enough that he had to get up on his bunkhouse roof to get onto them. Grandma said she found the farm truck with a platform built on the back parked in town, where Anton had joined the parade. Besides his well known prowess as a bowler and a golfer, Anton was a long distance runner. Everything he did, he did well - and with much planning and thought. He has a certificate authenticating his "hole in one" on the Lloydminster golf course. He also achieved a hole in one in Arizona. He was a champion bowler and held the title of mens high average for 10 years running. One year, Anton was featured on the annual Justamere calendar standing in a field of canola that happened to be his pride and joy that year! As we study the history of the Netherlands' miraculous reclaiming of the Zeider Zee - it is interesting to note that in order to get the sea floor into crop production, they would first sow reed seeds into it from the air - in order to suck up some of the moisture. The next crop they sowed into it after the reeds was rapeseed. The reclamation areas were ablaze with yellow canola flowers in the 2nd stage of reclamation. I guess we never realized how meaningful that photo must have been to Anton, as he took pride in his heritage back in the Netherlands. There are very likely many, many great stories. All who knew Anton Beenackers could tell and share and perhaps will, as we enjoy a time together today, in his memory. We, the Fox family, appreciate so much the hard work and dedication of this strong and valiant man and feel especially proud on his behalf to welcome members of his family here today. David White remembers Anton when Anton used to bowl with his mom and dad every week at the Lloydminster Bowling Alley. Anton and Pearl and Ernie would go bowling and then if it happened to be a Saturday night, Anton would come over to Pearl and Ernie's place and have a few drinks and play some cards, some times until the wee hours of the morning. David always remembers Anton being dressed on these special Saturday night occasions in a crisp, clean white button down shirt. This would have been about the mid 1950's and Anton wouldn't have had probably two dimes to rub together but he always went out looking like a million bucks in his fresh and clean white shirt. During one of the recent conversations Anton had with David, Anton told David a story about what it was like in Holland during WWII. Because Holland was occupied by the Germans for a large part of the war, the Germans would simply come into farmers yards and take whatever they thought they might need, whether it was food, transportation or equipment. Anton's family of 11 kids plus his mom and dad didn't have a motor vehicle to get around but they relied largely on peddle bikes as their mode of transportation. The Germans would come along and whenever they felt like they needed a bike, they would just take it from Anton's mom and dad's farm. Anton had had about enough of this disrespectful behaviour and when the Germans had cleared them out of all of their bikes except two, Anton's ingenuity kicked in. He decided that probably the safest place for the bikes would be in the trees of his family's orchard. So he managed to get both bikes up into the trees and secured them so that his family was able to keep them away from the Germans for awhile. Unfortunately, when the Allies arrived to free Holland, they arrived in their tanks and likely thinking only of their mission to free the Dutch people, they boldly drove their tanks over the country side knocking things over including Anton's family's orchard. There went the bikes he had so valiantly protected!! My most vivid memory of Anton is him always taking at least 10 white bread and Gouda cheese sandwiches every morning when he was working in the fields. When we were all growing up, Anton came and had all of his meals at Lyal and Virignia's house. I was always amazed as a child that, first of all, anyone could eat Gouda cheese and secondly, he would just continue making sandwich after sandwich until he had an amazing stack. He never took any other kind of sandwich with him. His stack of 10 sandwiches and his thermos of black coffee was what he took with him day in and day out as his lunch in the field. I also remember Anton smoking Sportsman cigarettes from the time that I can remember Anton. He smoked them for years and then one day about 5 years ago he gave up. No Champix, no patch, no gradually easing into a non smoking lifestyle after probably 65 years of smoking, one day he just woke up a decided to quit and he did. Such was his steely determination at the age of 80 years old. Anton suffered from a collapsed lung shortly after quitting smoking and he always said, he never would have had a collapsed lung if he would have kept smoking. I am very grateful that our family had the privilege of having Anton as part of our family for four generations. Anton was around Justamere when Jonathan II and Jessie Fox (my great grandma and grandpa) were still alive and at the farm. When Anton first came to Justamere, Dad and Uncle Bob were just little guys. He watched them grow up and provided them with a reserved guidance. Next he watched myself and my siblings grow up and as best as we could, we would take to heart his words of guidance as abrupt and as gruff as they sometimes were. We wouldn't be telling the truth if we said Anton was like a jovial, come-and-sit-on-my-knee Grandfather figure to us kids. He wasn't. He was stern and gruff and we knew we had no option but to pay attention to him when he was trying to show us something. We can only thank him for that. He commanded our utmost respect from the time we were old enough to say his name. While Anton spent the last 20 years in Mesa in the wintertime, he and Rhea would still come back to the farm during the summer and he has watched the development of our kids from infancy to teenage years. Shelly remembers when she was only 17 and started working at Justamere. On her first day of work dad sent her to the shop to get some fencing pliers. Her first encounter with Anton in the shop was him studying her up and down wondering what she was up to and saying " What are you doing here Ya?" Shelly replied I have started working here. He gruffly replied "you're never gonna make it here girl." When Anton returned the next spring to his amazement Shelly was still here. He promptly said "you're still here huh!" And after that he accepted Shelly and they worked together for many years. Anton was rushed to St Paul's Hospital in Saskatoon the early morning of Monday February 6th for emergency surgery for blood clots in his legs. Shelly, AJ and myself made it to the hospital the evening of the surgery and Anton knew that we were there and he thanked us all for being there. Despite the trauma and pain he had been through and despite his semi-consciousness, he was the epitome of politeness to all the nurses and the surgeon. He would say thank you each time a nurse came in to shift his position or give him some pain medication. When we went back to the hospital early the next morning on the 7th of February, he was still semi-conscious and once again he thanked us for being there. No commotion and no outbursts from him despite the pain we knew he was in. Once we were able to get his pain in check, he eased into a peaceful sleep and he very peacefully passed away at about 10AM Sask time and with AJ, Shelly and myself in the hospital room with him. We were very privileged to be there with this great and honourable man. In closing my personal thoughts on this great man, would be to thank him for his decades of service and dedication to Justamere and the Fox Family. Most of you here know the tragedy that befell our family in late Decemeber 2011 when my brother Jay was killed. Shelly contacted Anton and let him know what had happened and he told her at that time he wanted to come home. I remember when Dad & I finally got there 3 weeks later to pick him up he was sitting in his chair eagerly glancing out the window waiting for us to get there. When he saw it was us Dad & I knew it was time to get him home and he was so happy to climb in that truck and get headed back to Lloydminster with his family where he belonged. As you leave today remember the value of hard work and the satisfaction we all can have living an honest straight-forward life. Anton knew this and it served him well for 85 years. Anton's wife Rhea, Rhea's family, Anton's family and his adopted "Fox" family would like to express their gratitude to the community for the cards, flowers and messages sent from family and friends. Thank you to the Lloydminster and St. Paul's Hospital in Saskatoon for the excellent care given to Anton during his final days. Special thanks to McCaw Funeral Service for your professionalism and excellent service during this difficult time. Thank you to Father Louis for a unique and very appropriate service as well as to Cis Nakonechny for being the organist. Thank you to the Knox Presbyterian Church and ladies group for preparing a great lunch. Molly Fox, Lyal & Virginia Fox, and the rest of the Fox families Rhea Lemkuhl and family Anton's family Donations in memory of Anton may be made to the charity of the donors choice.