Warmth Of Saints 900 Mourners Fill Cathedral To Honor Slain Waverly Couple
The border guard took one look at the Royal Canadian Legion members in funeral dress Thursday morning and waved them through.
“I know where you’re going,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
Canadian veterans walked beside the Washington Air National Guard, ROTC cadets and Veterans of Foreign Wars members from Colville to Rockford to attend the double funeral of Allen and Trudy Mattausch.
More than 900 mourners crowded into Our Lady of Lourdes Cathedral to honor the slain couple, a piece of the Palouse set for a moment in Spokane. One child kept touching her mother’s face, wet with tears for more than an hour.
“Our grief is compounded by the shock of the unexpected,” said the Rev. Bill Vogel. “It is natural and understandable that our hearts be broken.”
The couple were shot Jan. 23 in the bedroom of their Waverly farmhouse. They had befriended the two men who have confessed to the killings.
With the caskets flanked by military honor guards and the couple’s four sons - Robert, Richard, Ronald and Roger - mourners listened to the story of the good Samaritan.
Vogel said that from offering coffee at the Sprague rest stop on Interstate 90 to giving box loads of food to Spokane shelters, the Mattauschs were charity in action.
“Their lives were practical demonstrations of religion at its best. Allen and Trudy lived the faith - with a warmth and compassion we usually associate with saints or people of God.”
Typical was Trudy hand-knitting sweaters for one young mother’s kids, while Allen paid her electric bill.
Such stories abounded at a funeral luncheon at Spokane’s VFW Post 51, as nearly 300 people passed casseroles and cakes in a scene that felt like a family reunion. In fact, it was a family reunion.
From the Palouse, where shirttail relations are as common as shirts, Mattausch cousins, aunts, uncles and in-laws gathered as they had for so many holidays and harvests.
Raised in Rosalia and Rockford, the couple met in Japan when they both were serving during the Korean War.
He was working in the mailroom for the Army, she was a secretary for intelligence operations. They married in 1954.
Allen worked for a few years for the postal service before turning to farming full time.
Over the years, they farmed up to 1,200 acres in wheat, peas and lentils, but Allen most loved raising chickens, cattle and turkeys, one son said.
With the boys raised, Trudy went to work at the Fairfield Good Samaritan Center, where she earned a reputation for good cooking and even better humor.
One Easter, she dressed as a chicken and carried a sign: “Unfair! I do all the work and the rabbit gets all the credit!”
She and her husband hosted VFW bingo at the center monthly and when a new resident who’d served in the military arrived, the Mattauschs paid their lifetime dues to the VFW.
Both were active in the organization. Allen almost single-handedly breathed the Cheney Post 11326 back to life. He spearheaded an effort to become sister posts with The Royal Canadian Legion in the West Kootenay area of British Columbia and worked on scholarship essay contests, military funeral services and volunteering at the veterans’ hospital.
About 6-foot-3 and husky, he was known for turning one-minute conversations into three hours.
“His heart was as big as he was,” said friend Lillie Buringa.
As commander in Cheney, Allen was named all-American post commander two years in a row and was on his way to the third national award.
Trudy’s church, St. Joseph’s Catholic in Rockford, never could have held the massive funeral. But the faith she practiced there permeated Thursday’s services.
Son Ronald said that his parents’ faith taught their children to care for those less fortunate - even now.
“I’m going to leave this situation to the Lord. He’s going to do his justice and I’m going to follow in the footsteps of my parents and be merciful and forgiving.”
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