In Memory

J Duane Brattain



 
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01/21/13 05:20 PM #1    

Nancy Benner (Gerhardt)

Dwane was one of those guys who always had a smile on his face.............and loved to have fun.  I know he also worked hard at his father's lumber company too.  It is so sad to think that he is gone.........and at such a young age.  When I remember high school...............I always think of Dwane and his sister Sandy.

May he, "Rest In Peace."

 


02/26/13 11:03 AM #2    

Robert Davis

I spent enormous amounts of time with Duane over the years first at the Lumber Co as we unloaded boxcar after boxcar of lumber onto a stake truck and restacked it at the lumber yard. You really get to know folks when you work together like that. Heat, sweat and lots of laughter.

I built lots of appartments and homes over the years and always purchased my lumber, doors and windows etc from Harold and Duane and Duane helped me so much in getting the right product and getting that product to the jobsite on time.  They, Duane, made the process easier.

Later we vacationed together. He and Francy and Lana and I went to Sanibel Island camping for a couple of weeks. He and I were fishing under a causway one day and a sea snake about four feet long and white as a sheet of paper climbed up his line and down his pole - he threw the pole and reel into the gulf in such shock. Never saw anything like that before or since.  That same day we caught lots of puffer fish and knew them to be poison but a local fisherman who was with us taught us how to filet them and be able to eat the things safely. We ate them and I have never had a better fish in my life. What a risk taker he was, we were.

He was a great competitor and we raced motorcycles together for years with a great group, which included Steve James. Duane purchased a full race machine, a Kawasaki Baby Green Streak, a lime green flash of speed which fit him very well. He brought home some trophies with that and his talent. Always a speedster as I recall his track and field race times persisted on the wall of LHS well into the 1990's, perhaps even today. He loved to compete.

Duane was always up for adventure and we went spelunking in Kentucky, especially near the Red River Gorge region. He and Mike Neibert and I even slept in bags hanging from the walls of caverns to show the extent of the adventurer spirit.

While Duane could not hold onto the Lumber Company due to many forces he eventually became a male nurse in Florida and unfortunately had a heart attack on his way home from work one day.  It is interesting that in the end his life was dedicated to helping others.

Mike Neibert my wife and I attended his funeral at the Methodist Church in Lebanon. He was loved and liked and has been and will continue to be missed.


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