I am a little delayed in sharing this eulogy given at my dad's funeral by his grandchildren, Brittany and Matthew. So very proud of them for the wonderful job they did on Ken/Dad/Grandpa's eulogy on Dec 3rd.

Hello, my name is Brittany Leick, and this is my Cousin Matt Incitti, both of us are Ken’s grandkids. First of all, thank you all for coming, seeing everyone here today just shows how much Grandpa was involved in the community and speaking on behalf of his entire family; we appreciate you all taking the time to be here with us today to celebrate his life.

To me, grandpa has always been a grumpy teddy bear. He’d be complaining about something one second then smiling from ear to ear about something else the next. Now when it came to Minnesota sports, whether it was for the Vikings, Twins or anything sports related, he was the most diehard, stubborn fan out there. All in all, I guess that’s where the Leick family stubbornness comes from.

My Grandpa was a proud German who grew up in a farming community in New Ulm, Minnesota. After high school he enlisted in the Navy as a Boatswain's Mate, who was responsible for overall maintenance of the ship, both inside and out. There could not have been a better job for Grandpa to have as this is a “jack of all trades” job within the Navy. While with the Navy, he served on the USS Stormes, a Destroyer class ship. One of his highlights was when his ship picked up a capsule containing the first monkey set to orbit the earth in space along with joining the blockade to support the Nations defense during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

After serving 4 years in the Navy, Grandpa came home and worked on the farm. Shortly after, on January 4th, 1963 Grandpa went “cruising” in Sleepy Eye where he happened upon a lovely young lady by the name of Lois, “aka Grandma”. Over the years, Grandpa has been giving Grandma flowers on the anniversary of the day they met. In August of 1964, they got married and over the next few years, their trailers grew progressively bigger as the family grew. After they saved up enough, Grandpa built a house in his off hours from his day job on a piece of land in Lafayette, MN, just outside of New Ulm. After 5 years, they moved to New Ulm where they opened the first fitness center in town. Once all their kids graduated in the mid 1980’s, Grandma and Grandpa packed up and moved again, this time to the twin cities, in Hopkins. Grandpa started in real estate but found he loved working in construction, where he met his good friend Tom. Later, he turned an old retired ambulance into his work “truck”. After the police told him he couldn’t keep driving around with “ambulance” written on the side, Grandpa painted some of the letters and left BULA up; which sometimes would startle more than one neighbor over the years. Living in the Hopkins house for 33 years, Grandpa was blessed with the perfect match for a neighbor in Bob. Those two guys had enormous amounts of fun playing practical jokes on each other while collaboratively reducing the neighborhood population of squirrels, rabbits and raccoons. All those raccoons can finally rest easy that no one anytime soon will be after them in the tree, or as they come out of a chimney that someone lit bottle rockets in at the bottom.

Grandpa lived life to the fullest; he went deer hunting at 79 and shot his first deer before shooting his 2nd a year later. Even in his 70’s and 80’s, he was still putting in doors, playing volleyball with his friends, picking raspberries for grandma, fixing old benches for the grandkids and much more. He might have complained about it sometimes but we all knew he loved being out there, and he poured his heart into everything he did, no matter how small or insignificant the task may have seemed at the time.

When I think of grandpa, I think of bowls of raspberries and ice cream, salt covered steaks and Nordeast beer. I think of him falling asleep on his old leather chair with a newspaper on his tummy or him bragging about all the trees he replanted along the road by their old house. My fondest memory is seeing him pat my husband on the shoulder and shake his hand on our wedding day this past October and saying, “Finally, you’re a part of the family.” Then afterward, despite how tired he was he joined us as we played volleyball and even scored some points. I will always cherish these precious memories for the rest of my life and wish I had the opportunity to make more.

For as long as I can remember, one of our family traditions is to spend a week up at the lake each year for fishing. I remember all the years up at Bin Jo Sands and the time spent learning to fish from him, followed by the years camping at Lake Carlos State Park. There was all types of fun to be had, but we all knew fishing was what Grandpa was there for… There were many times where he would wake up, have his breakfast and a cup of Orange Juice, then be gone until the dinner bell rang with whoever was his fishing partner. But once it was dinner time, he was already ready to eat, because nothing was better than Grandma’s home cooking, especially her homemade pies. All that home cooking was usually used up due to the amount of time he spent in the fish-house after dinner cleaning fish, because no fish caught would go to waste, not even the “tater chip” sized ones. In the later years, this became a family joke when we were on the lake with multiple boats, as we all would see who could throw fish into Grandpa’s boat, knowing he would keep them because nothing ever went to waste around him. After all the hours in the fish-house it was time for the summer time staple of raspberries and ice cream. If there was anything left over, you would often hear “can’t let that go to waste” followed by Grandpa eating whatever was left of the ice cream and raspberries followed by a few of his favorite beverages, MGD or in the later years, a nice Nordeast.

Grandpa wasted nothing, from the house to the garage, there was always something that could be reused at a later time, even after 20 years of rummage sales; and don’t even get me started on the sheer number of hats he owned; he had one for every occasion, whether it was the rummage sale, fishing, or weddings, he had a hat for it. He lived his life through his hats, no matter which one he was wearing at the time, for whatever event he was at.

To say Grandpa was a social individual does not do the term “social butterfly” justice. You couldn’t go anywhere without him running into someone he knew,  followed by the time he took to stop, talk, tell stories, and of course the typical “Minnesota goodbye”. But if you thought you were done there, you were in for a surprise, because that led to another full conversation followed by another shot at the “Minnesota goodbye”. He loved being involved in many groups: Knights of Columbus, Lions, Disabled American Veterans, American Legion, Golf groups, card groups, bowling groups as well as helping with countless church events. His retirement dream was to be a snow-bird and he made his dream come true 15 years ago when he started making trips down to Florida to play, yes, you guessed it, GOLF. And for the last 15 years, he would fly south and spend longer and longer time frames in Florida each year before finally buying a trailer last year. Now he was a true snow-bird.

Grandpa loved his 3 kids, 9 grandkids, 6 great-grandkids, and many others. He helped all of his kids get started in their first homes with countless hours of handyman work on every house project; then was there for all his grandkids if we needed anything; he was always there to help, as long as you got your stuff from Menards. All this hard work would be exhausting for the average person, let alone an 81 year old man; and if you knew grandpa, he could take a nap just about anywhere; in fact, as a kid, I remember many times how at peace Grandpa was in church, which we knew due to the occasional snore that may occur, followed by whoever was next to him giving him a little nudge to help “regain” his attention. The last time I was able to talk to him, the Saturday before he passed, I had woken him up from a nap. Even then, fresh out of a nap, the first thing on his mind was making sure work was being done. He was still concerned about all the things that needed to get done at the condo, especially the new light fixture. Grandpa’s illness helped bring his family back together; all the grandkids helped take him to chemo treatments while family and friends came together to get them moved to the condo. Once he knew everything was going to be taken care of, Grandpa was able to let go with peace of mind and take his final nap. His family would take care of Grandma.

At ease Grandpa, we have the watch.