I said that I planned to post my message from my grandfather’s funeral, and here it is. Before you read it, however, I should tell you that Papa did not want a traditional “sermon” at his funeral. This was because he had seen some of what I call “ministerial malpractice” at funerals (i.e., preachers condemning family members of the deceased). I tried to honor his request. I also should mention that my aunt, Brenda Hardesty, wrote most of the obituary in Part 1. I modified parts of it to be spoken from my perspective. 
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Funeral MESSAGE FOR CAREY LIVINGSTONE TRAMEL
By Steven Tramel Gaines, December 16, 2008
Part 1
Family and friends, we are gathered this morning to celebrate the life and death of Carey Livingstone Tramel…whose real name was Papa.
Papa passed from this life on Thursday, December 11, 2008, at the age of 92 years, 4 months, and 15 days. He was born on July 26, 1916, in Brinkman County, Oklahoma, the fifth of six children born to James Dennis Tramel and Verna Etha Tramel.
At an early age, he moved with his family to Bazette in Navarro County, Texas, where the family lived and farmed on property belonging to his cousin Jasper Tramel, an area later known as the Hancock Ranch. Papa attended school at the three-room Wilson Schoolhouse and then graduated at Kerens High School.
On January 20, 1944, Papa married Lola Jenkins…whose real name was Granny. They had a long and happy marriage, living in Corsicana, Dallas, Fort Worth, Oklahoma, and finally Midland, Texas. In Midland, Granny and Papa were long-time members of the Cuthbert & Austin St. church of Christ. After his Granny’s death, Papa moved to Schleicher County, Texas, near Eldorado, to live with Aunt Brenda and Uncle Danny.
Carey Tramel was predeceased by his wife, Lola, in 2005. He also outlived both his parents, two brothers, Doyle Tramel of Indiana and Elston Tramel of California, and two sisters, Coleen Pascal of Oregon and Vila Hill of Arkansas and Texas.
Papa is survived by one sister, Noma Paul, of California, and his three children, daughter Saundra Tramel Gaines and husband Larry of Odessa, Texas, son Carey Don Tramel and wife Sara of Austin, Texas, and daughter Brenda Tramel Hardesty and husband Danny, of Schleicher County, Texas.
Also grieving their Papa’s loss are 5 grandchildren: Michael Gaines and wife Bobbie of Odessa, Texas, Steven Tramel Gaines and wife Tamara of Spartanburg, South Carolina, Mark Gaines and wife Kendra of Farmington, New Mexico, Doug Hardesty and wife Shaina of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Lizzy Tramel of Austin, Texas. Papa leaves three great-grandchildren and numerous in-laws, nieces, nephews, cousins, and church friends.
[Now please join together in singing three hymns: “Amazing Grace,” “Sweet By and By,” and then “No Tears in Heaven.”]
Prayer
Heavenly Father,
We thank you for your amazing grace,
and we thank you for the hope of the “sweet by and by,”
and we look forward to Heaven where there will be no tears.
But today we do have tears,
and we invite you to comfort us as we mourn
and to give us joy as we remember.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
Part 2
Papa said he didn’t want any preachin’ at his funeral….
So I’ll try to control myself.
But I have to start with scripture this morning. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that we should “live such good lives” that people see the good things we do and glorify God. Papa was a good man, and he did lots of good things. And this is our opportunity to remember and celebrate his life, to thank God for all he was to us, and to let our memories of him shape our lives in a positive way.
Papa liked to read, and one of his favorite novelists was Louis L’Amour, so I found several quotes from that author that relate to Papa’s life.
One of those quotes says, “For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction, biography, and history offer an inexhaustible number of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time.” And Papa read a lot. He read many novels. He also read newspapers and commodity reports and even encyclopedias. And he read maps. No, Aunt Brenda says he didn’t read maps—he studied them, and I think he knew the location of every county in the state of Texas and many in other states.
He was a man in constant search of knowledge. But he didn’t just accumulate facts. Another Louis L’Amour quote states, “Knowledge is like money: to be of value it must circulate, and in circulating it can increase in quantity and, hopefully, in value.” Papa circulated his knowledge. He shared it with the people he loved. Carey Tramel was our grandfather, our daddy, our uncle, and more. He also was our professor. Sometimes he shared information to be interesting or funny. Other times, he taught us valuable life lessons.
One time when I was a child, my family was eating at Granny and Papa’s house. I ate so much and got so full that I couldn’t finish the food on my plate. But then I wanted dessert…because Granny’s desserts were out of this world. One of my parents objected. (Was that you, Mama?) But Papa interceded on my behalf and taught us all a very important lesson: little boys have two stomachs—one for regular food and one for dessert! I don’t think Papa learned that lesson from Louis L’Amour’s novels. He learned it from experience.
Another important lesson he shared with my brothers and me from his experience was that we should learn how to do things, not just how to tell other people to do things. Remembering that lesson has often helped me get my head out of the clouds once in a while and get my hands dirty in practical work.
And Papa practiced what he preached. In his lifetime, he did many kinds of work. When he was just a little kid, he picked cotton and caught opossums and sold their skins for 50 cents apiece to people who made hats out of them.
Later on, he worked on airplanes and a few helicopters. He was a mechanic on trainer planes during the war and on private planes in the oil industry. He worked for a while with Braniff Airlines and even dabbled in flying planes himself.
Other work adventures included working for a dairy—working the cows and delivering milk—assisting in a funeral home, selling insurance, and doing carpentry.
He worked a while in shrimping and even lived on a small shrimp boat. In fact, he was a shrimp boat captain.
He also was a truck driver and went to every state in the nation except Deleware, Hawaii, and Rhode Island. And even though he never went to Rhode Island, he got a parking ticket from there once!
When I was a young lad, Papa helped Granny with the poodle grooming business in their house.
Later on, he was a commodities trader. He was careful in this work, not one to take unwise risks. But he was committed to the task, and he was still involved in it when he died. A little over a week before he passed on, he got so sick that he had to go to a nursing home. But just a few days before that, Aunt Brenda came home and found him crawling around on the floor figuring out how to reconnect some computer cables so he could work better. (He was quite tech-savvy for a 92-year-old.)
Papa was a worker. And some of his best work was not for pay. Year after year in his backyard garden, he raised sweet potatoes, zucchini, onions, tomatoes, okra, and the best cantaloupe in the world.
He totally remodeled the kitchen in his house, and he put more than one roof on that house, even when he was too old to be doing it. (But he scolded me whenever I got up there!)
He was also an inventor. He designed his own drilling system and built a well in his backyard, and he created his own irrigation system, and he made his own lawnmower from spare parts. (And he let me drive it around the backyard, even though I crashed it into the storage shed.)
His most famous invention was the tent that has served many picnics at the cemetery we’ll go to in just a few minutes. He made it, stored it, transported it, and set it up. It was one way in which he loved his family and his community. And the fact that he cared about his family and community were obvious when, in the last year of his life, in poor health, he attended the Hudson family reunion, the Jenkins family reunion, and the Bazette Prairie Point Picnic.
L’Amour wrote that “all education is self-education.” And Papa was a self-educated man. He was always learning. He taught me about animals he had never seen. He taught me how to work his homemade lawnmower. He taught me that even a 90-year-old man connected to an oxygen tank can work a garden and fix a lawnmower. He also taught me not to get too proud of my education. I went off to college and got a few pieces of paper that said I was smart, but whenever I would visit Papa, he would ask me questions I could not answer. And I learned that wisdom is more than knowing a bunch of information.
But Papa never assumed himself to be more than he was. One time, long before I was born, he spoke for his local congregation and warned the people that he didn’t have anything new to say, and that they should be concerned if he did say anything new. Surely he had read these words from Ecclesiastes: “There is nothing new under the sun.”
Papa also knew how to have fun. I remember sitting on his lap in his living room playing some old hangman-type game that was hooked up to the TV. He enjoyed a good game of 42 and could hold his own in playing cards. Some of you could tell stories of how he liked to have fun in his younger days. Shortly before his last breath, Aunt Brenda visited Papa before going on a work trip. He was in pain, but he was still cracking jokes.
Dorothy Jo emailed me this story: “Uncle Carey’s wit and sense of humor are two of the most memorable things about him to me. The day before the Prairie Point Picnic this year, some of us gathered to put the awning over the Jenkins’ table. Stan rode his motorcycle to that gathering. James asked Uncle Carey if he had ridden that motorcycle all the way from west Texas. Uncle Carey answered that he had. My 8 year old granddaughter, Adelyn, heard that conversation. Later she asked me how he had carried his oxygen on the motorcycle. When I told Uncle Carey about her question, he got a big laugh out of it.”
I’m sure that you have your own memories about this great man, and I encourage you to share them with each other. Remember him. Thank God for him. Learn from him. For, in the words of Hebrews 12, he is now a member of that “great cloud of witnesses” that watches and cheers as we run the race of life.
Papa said he didn’t want any preachin’ at his funeral….
But his life was a sermon.
