WHEN HARRY MET: John Eversman (eight years later)

It was eight long years ago, although it sometimes seems as if those 400-plus weeks have passed like a flash of lightning (not really, though). That was when I first met John Eversman.

A year later, I wrote about him and his wife, Kathryn. What’s happened since is the reason for revisiting him today.

December was cold, blustery, kind of miserable that Saturday morning when I first came upon him, dressed as Santa Claus holding forth at Collinsville’s Trade Day. He wasn’t cold, not in that warm, red suit trimmed in white fur. He was smiling and laughing, handing out candy while waving to all who came by his booth stocked with hundreds of smell-good fragrances for either candle or electric use.

It was almost a year later before I contacted Eversman to ask for an interview, which he promptly gave. On a Sunday afternoon, I drove to his home on the southern end of Cedar Bluff. He and Kathryn were waiting for me.

I learned that he was a native of Brimfield, Ohio, the brother of three sisters; that he had served a four-year hitch as a diesel mechanic in the U.S. Navy, stationed, for the most part, in far off, ice-cold Newfoundland. He told of working that trade after his honorable separation, but later became a route salesman for the Frito-Lay Company in Polk County (Cedartown), Georgia, ultimately becoming owner of the route.

Fast forward a few years until retirement time. He had met Kathryn and they had married some 12 years before our meeting. They were a happy, contented, compatible couple, went everywhere together, especially to Sand Rock Baptist Church where they were active members.

A year before the interview, disaster had struck Kathryn; while recovering from open-heart surgery, she had a stroke, then a second one. About 10 years later, she became homebound, causing her husband to become a stay-at-home caregiver.

Kathryn died in February 2020. She and John had been married for a quarter-century, and he was devastated.

He wrote on Facebook, “There comes a time when you have to let go; since then, my life has been shambles, I have not been the same since her passing.”

John said that he had sat crying for his loss, that it had driven him into a mode of depression. “I couldn’t sleep, didn’t want to go anywhere,” he recalled. “I was miserable; that was not me.”

I felt for John Eversman. I knew that grief is hard, very difficult, but did not really understand his grief until August when my wife of 65 years passed away. Then, I really understood what he had said — what my mother had gone through after Daddy died.

But there has been a bright spot for Eversman. He became aware of a fellow church member whose husband had passed five years before. “We sat on the same pew at church; us on one end.” Marilyn Smallwood recalled. “He and Kathryn sat on the other end.”

He later wrote on his Facebook page: “I had been asking the Lord to help me, never dreaming it would be Marilyn; she is a fine Christian woman, everything a man would want. She has changed my life, giving me a reason to look forward to another day.”

A few days ago, I once again had the pleasure of visiting with Eversman and Marilyn, who were married earlier this year. We met in his workshop where he builds all sorts of things — with his CNC machine and laser cutter — to sell at Trade Day. She handles the fragrances. Oh, he still portrays the man from the North Pole when asked.

By the way, as I write this, the happy pair are in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, enjoying a week-long dose of old-time Gospel singing.

Good luck and best wishes to John and Marilyn; go with God’s blessing!

For information regarding family counseling, emotional support or grief therapy, please call the Family Success Center in Gadsden at 256-547-6888, ext. 109.

Harry D. Butler, a former broadcaster, is a motivational speaker and author of “Alabama’s First Radio Stations, 1920-1960.” Butler periodically sits down with someone of note, then brings the conversation to readers.

This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Harry Butler catches up with John Eversman