FUNERAL SERMON FOR CHARLES ELI PLATT
Preached by William Ingligh Jr. at Strode Funeral Home, Stillwater, Oklahoma September 29, 1999
Many years ago, a fascinating book was published entitled "If I Had One Sermon to Preach". The editor of the book had written to hundreds of preachers across the country, asking them to reply to a single question: "If you could preach only one more sermon, what would it be?"
The thoughtful answers to that question, recorded in the book, reveal many similarities, as the ministers laid aside their doctrinal differences, shed their denominational stereotypes and returned to the core of the Christian faith and fundamental purposes of Christian preaching.
One eminent preacher rather effectively summed up all the answers in his brief statement: "If I could preach only one more sermon," he said, "it would have to be a joyous, victorious sermon, for this is a spirit which properly belongs to the Christian faith. As to subject matter, it would have to deal with death. For aside from all its benefits, the kernel of the Christian gospel is the fact that only Christ can answer satisfactorily the oldest and deepest question that faces every person born into the world: If a man dies, shall he live again?"   That is, when I die, when you die, when any of us dies, will there be an afterlife, a life beyond death? Or is this all there is? That, according to these preachers, catches the essence of life's ultimate question.
And for most, if not all, of us here, our answer to such a question is identical to theirs. Yes! Yes! Through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we do indeed believe in a life beyond death, in a life eternal.
Another person in complete agreement with us was the Apostle Paul. In the fifteenth chapter of I Corinthians,' he writes, "The last enemy to be destroyed is death"--the last enemy to be destroyed is death. In Paul's mind after every other foe has been vanquished, after all adversaries have been defeated, one rival will still be standing, and that rival is death. It is the enemy who withstands our best laid plans, our finest intellectual arguments, our most stubborn denial, our angriest protests, our last line of defense. Make no mistake about it: death is an enemy, Paul says, the last enemy.  But, he concludes, when the end comes, after every rule and every authority and every power has been destroyed, death will meet its match, death will be overthrown. For "in Christ all will be made alive." "Then will come the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. 0h, death where is thy victory? 0h, death where is thy sting?" Says the Apostle Paul, death will ultimately be defeated.
     Still another person who could make this same confession was Charles Platt. Charlie had accepted Christ as Lord, and he believed with all his heart the promise of the resurrection, that death would not be the supreme victor, but that the gift of eternal life was his through God's grace. And because of Charlie's faith, and because of ours, even as we grieve today, we can also celebrate--celebrate that he is in a better place, and celebrate the good life he shared with us for over 90 years.
As I surveyed Charlie's life, there were three areas that seemed to dominate, three places that he gave most of his time and energy, three niches which got the lion's share of his earthly efforts. Those were work, family and faith.
First his work. The work ethic is a genetic trait of the Platts, I believe. Charlie acquired it early on from his parents, and he, in turn, made sure that Cork and Mollyann inherited it from him. Both of them, in fact, told me that it seems as if they started working in one form or another as soon as they were able, virtually since they were born.
One of Charlie's best stories was of working as a teen for his father, who owned the Stillwater Ford agency, driving Model T's from Oklahoma City to Stillwater. This was quite a feat for two reasons.  First, that back then, there were no paved roads--the trick was to get in a good rut and stay there.  And second, that the cars had no frames-in those days the body and the frame came separately, being assembled at the dealership. And thus he made the trip sitting on a milk crate, as the bodies had no seats.
In his adult life, Charlie basically had three jobs, two of which were very similar. For 12 years, he was employed as a wholesale salesman for the Midwest Creamery and then for 18 in a similar position for the General Baking Company. Meaning that for 30 years, six days a week, he was in virtually every store in Stillwater, delivering either milk or bread. Now being out and about in the community as he was, day after day for three decades, Charlie got to meet practically everyone in town, and since he never met a stranger, he got to know practically everyone in town, as well. Everybody knew Charlie. He was one of the most well-recognized people in all of Stillwater.  And in these jobs, Charlie was known for his honesty. As he came in and  out of the various stores, there were receipts for the owners and managers to sign, attesting to how many bottles of milk or loaves of bread held brought in. But so trusted was Charlie that they almost never bothered to count how many of each item there was. If he said held delivered a dozen loaves of bread, they knew he had delivered a dozen loaves of bread, and they'd sign the receipt without a worry.
From 1960 until he retired in 1974, he served as the manager of the Receiving Station at OSU, responsible for receiving and sending all freight shipments for the university, and once again, this was a position where Charlie got to know everybody who was anybody at the college. He endeared himself in such a way to the faculty, in fact, that they fondly called the Quonset hut housing the Receiving Station "Charlie's Mule Barn," and Charlie took that moniker as a compliment, which it was.
Besides his regular employment, though, one of the greatest testimonies to Charlie's work ethic was the first house he bought, the house where Cork and Mollyann grew up. It was all of 900 square feet, cost $2500 and required 10% down.
Now unlike myself, those of you who lived through the depression can identify with Charlie's plight. He didn't have the $250 to put down, or anything like $250. So what he did was work it off. For every house in that subdivision, he dug the septic tank, dug all the laterals and lathed each wall, all this done at nights and on weekends, all for the princely sum of $250.  It was hard work, very hard work, but it was also a labor of love, because it meant that his wife and son and daughter would have a home, a place to call their own, and in Charlie's mind, this sweat equity was time and effort very well invested.
Which leads me to his family. Charlie was a family man through and through. The foundation of a good family is a good marriage, and Charlie and Donna Mae had one. She was just 16 and he 20 when they promised their plight to each another, but they'd been high school sweethearts, and Charlie had known she was the only one for him from day one. And she was. It's difficult to imagine a man who loved his wife more than Charlie loved Donna Mae. Theirs was a relationship that never seemed to wane. There was always a fire there, and he was like a giddy school boy around his wife, head over heels in love with her for 66 wonderful years.
Of course, they didn't have much, especially at the beginning. But it didn't seem to matter, because they both knew that as long as they had each other, they were rich.  Maybe not rich in the things of this world, but rich in the things that money has never been able to buy, rich in things more valuable than silver and gold.
One of their riches was singing, songs that they taught their children and then their grandchildren.  Songs that families.... well, songs that almost no one sings any more, but songs that were fun and brought joy to evenings at home or to simple car rides (when there finally was a car)  songs that could warm your heart or tickle your innards.
No doubt the song that most typifies Charlie and Donna Maye's relationship, one they sang often, what could be called their "theme song," was "Side By Side." Imagine, if you will, that Charlie is playing his ukulele as they sing together:
Oh, we ain't got a barrel of money, Maybe we're ragged and funny
But we'll travel along, singin' a song, Side by side.
Thru all kinds of weather What if the sky should fall,
As long as we're together, It doesn't matter at all.
Joining Charlie and Donna Mae, side by side, were, of course, Cork and Mollyann. And as the three of us talked Monday afternoon and they reminisced, it was clear how grateful they were to have a father who loved them so, and whose gentle spirit nurtured both of them through their growing up years and nurtures them even now. Charlie's seal is indelibly stamped on both of their souls.
Perhaps the best story of family they shared was of their cousin Leonard knocking on the door late one night, wearing his Navy uniform, just discharged following the war, and saying, "Uncle Charlie, I'm going to enroll at A&M next semester, and I'd like to stay at your house tonight, if I could."  You have to understand that neither Cork nor Mollyann had ever met their cousin Leonard, and that he was a little shaver, knee-high to a grasshopper, when Charlie had last seen him. But that didn't matter. He was family, and Charlie said, sure, you can spend the night.  And in fact, he spent the night in that 900 square foot house for the next four years, and nobody ever complained or thought a thing about it. That's just the way it was when you were part of Charlie's family.
Finally, I think of Charlie's faith. Cork and Mollyann both said that among the things they were grateful for these past few years was the way their father accepted their taking over his life, that he never gave them a minute's problem. When they suggested his moving to a nursing home in Ardmore, he didn't fight it--though he loved Stillwater dearly. He simply understood that they had his best interest in mind, and so did what they wanted.
But more than Charlie trusting his children, I think at a deeper level his trust was in God, a God who his minister father had taught him cared for all his children as if each of them was the only one he had to love.  A God whose promises were sure. A God who was always with him, even in the valley of the shadow of death.
Among the things that Charlie turned over to his son were his finances, and he had only one question about how his money was being handled, a question he asked Cork virtually every time they talked: "Did you write a check to the church this month?" Even in his last days, his concern was for the congregation that had nurtured his faith for so long.
Charlie went to worship every Sunday in the nursing home, and, no surprise, he really loved the singing. And when there were community sing-a-longs, he would sometimes be the leader, and a dear memory for Mollyann is that the last song she and her daddy sang together was "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder":
When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound and time shall be no more
And the morning breaks eternal, bright and fair;
When the saved of earth shall gather over on the other shore,
And the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there.
For Charlie Platt, the roll up yonder has been called, and we have to believe that he's answered that call, that he's taken his place, side by side, with Donna Mae, and that he dwells now in the house of the Lord forever.
Email Me.. Table of Contents
Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1