Carl Joseph Block, age 98
Devoted Husband & Father of 11 children, Dairy Farmer, Gardener, Fiercely Independent, Intelligent, and Resourceful.
23 January 1928-4 April 2006
Today, we gather to honor my father, Carl Joseph Block, a man whose 98 years were defined by strength, faith, discipline, and unwavering purpose.
I wish I could be there in person today.
But I am with you in spirit, and I am with my father in the way that matters most, through the life he gave me, and the values he lived every single day.
My dad was a Catholic man, a husband of 74 and a half years to my mother, Doris, and a father to eleven children, seven sons and four daughters.
To understand him, you have to understand the land.
He was born on a farm near Grenville, South Dakota, on January 23, 1928. He lived and worked on that same land for 93 years.
That farm was not just where he lived.
It was who he was. Its roots go back to 1924, when his father, Joe M. Block, bought the original 160 acres at a time when banks were trying to unload land they had taken back. Even decades later, pieces of that history remain: a large rock in the southwest corner where a man named Gus Ewalt once sat playing violin for his children, a huge rhubarb plant nearby, and the faint remains of an old homesteader’s foundation.
In 1925, the barn was built during two months in the fall by about 30 neighboring farmers. It stood as a testament to community, ingenuity, and hard work.
My dad became part of that tradition early in life.
As a young man, he worked alongside other farmers building barns, the youngest in the group, marking lumber so it could be cut precisely. These endeavors taught him responsibility, accuracy, and pride in doing things right. Dad was proud to have been a part of the team that built Bill Jaskulka’s barn. Bill and Adeline Jaskulka were longtime friends and neighbors to Mom and Dad.
Years later, as kids in the 1970s, we watched Dad carry that building knowledge forward as we built the granary together. He taught by doing, by expecting your best, and by showing you what that looked like.
He was practical and resourceful. He dug a cistern 8 to 10 feet deep and lined it with clay, on the advice of another farmer, and was pleasantly surprised that it did not leak. He sometimes hired Dennis Dargatz, to assist with improvement projects on the farm. Dennis’s son Vincent Dargatz helped Dad build the two leans on the barn.
This was who he was: thoughtful, capable, and always determined.
He and Mom built that farm with their hard-working hands, milking Holsteins in a massive barn with towering haylofts, raising chickens, growing crops, harvesting grain, and raising ten children with strong personalities. Dad’s alfalfa was so exceptional that he earned recognition across South Dakota for 25 years, and once at the national level.
He didn’t do that by chance. He was incredibly intelligent. He reached out to South Dakota State University for soil and crop analysis, studied the results, and adjusted his farming practices. He believed in learning, in improving, and in doing things the right way.
Initially, Dad farmed with two Belgian horses before buying a used tractor in 1953. He knew what it meant to work without new equipment. It seemed he was constantly welding something that needed fixing.
And he raised his children the same way.
He expected us to work hard, to be responsible, and to figure things out.
He was self-reliant. Fiercely independent. A man of deep moral conviction. Forthright and strong.
Dad had a way of expressing life in a few simple truths: “I will see you when I see you.” “It doesn’t have to make sense.” “You cannot run roughshod over it.”
Those words stay with me. Because they weren’t just things he said, they were how he lived.
He loved learning. He was well read, drawn to stories of grit and resilience like The Grapes of Wrath, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Unbroken, and The Boys in the Boat.
He loved to dance waltzes, polkas, and the two-step with Mom at the Grenville Legion Hall.
He paid attention to the world. He thought for himself. He stood firmly in what he believed.
And he loved the farm deeply, and completely.
That farm existed because of his abiding stewardship, Mom’s monumental contribution, and our collective hard work in spite of meager funds, and constant challenges.
When they chose to sell the farm, they did so to continue the farm stewardship legacy.
My dad’s life shaped mine in ways that are still unfolding.
I grew up in that same world of hard work and responsibility. And I loved going to school because like him, I was curious. I wanted to understand how nature worked.
As a child, I read our National Geographic magazines and dreamed about studying the ocean, even though I was surrounded by wheat and barley fields.
Over time, that curiosity about nature became my life’s work.
I became a Biology teacher and spent 34 years sharing with my students the cathartic sense of wonder in nature that the farm instilled in me. Now, I am in graduate school pursuing a second master’s degree in marine science.
The inspiration for my current conservation research comes directly from Dad and the farm.
Dad respected the land, paid attention to nature, and believed in learning and commitment.
Three weeks ago, I had the gift of sitting with Dad.
For four days, I held his strong, capable hands that helped build a life for all of us.
And I told him: I love you. I respect you. Thank you for being my dad. I will miss you, especially our weekly conversations about history, science, religion, gardens, and nature.
That truthful discourse is what I carry forward.
The truth of a man who lived with dignity, worked harder than most, and stayed rooted to his land, his values, and his family for nearly a century.
We now entrust him to God with gratitude, faith, and love.
Dad, “I will see you when I see you.” With love and deep gratitude, your daughter, Joyce Carol Block