Josef Fletcher Rule

Josef Fletcher Rule, age 82, was reluctantly released from this mortal life by his family on December 26, 2009 in the home which he built with his own hands in 1956 for his new bride, Gloria Blackwell Rule, who preceded him in death in June 2007. After growing up in the difficult days of the Great Depression, he quit school in late 1944 to serve his country in the Pacific theater where he served on the USS Lexington and participated in the occupation of Japan. He married Gloria Blackwell in 1950, and spent his whole career building custom homes with three of his brothers. In his retirement his mechanical genius and peerless cabinet skills were indispensable to his son’s small organ building firm; he devised and built machinery, clever devices and tools large and small to solve the unique problems encountered in organ building, and built enormous amounts of organ cabinetwork on large and small scale. His skill and knowledge will be utterly irreplaceable. He loved his wife all his days, as Christ loves his Church, with a fierce and unwavering love. He loved all his children and imparted to them that rare faith comprised of simultaneous solemnity and joy; this was accompanied by a quiet and easy humor, which could unexpectedly find expression in the sharp, dry observations of the foibles of the human condition (including himself and his own frailties). He demanded hard work, and expected his children to aspire to excellence in whatever they did, recognizing that any work done before God is a high calling and thus not admissible of half-measures; yet he seldom upbraided the failings of his growing children, but patiently undertook to teach them instead. His high standards of excellence are to be found in the work of his hands as a cabinetmaker, carpenter, machinist and inventor. The sheer output of his hands leaves a legacy of beautiful work which will be passed on for generations, and the legacy he leaves of unwavering faith, integrity and uncompromising excellence will resonate through generations yet to be born. He was also preceded in death by parents Oscar Wilbur Rule and Elizabeth May Fersch Rule; siblings Albert Rule, William Rule, Oscar Rule, infant brother John Rule, Maybelle Rule Argie. Survived by sisters Jeannie Saunders and Rose Charnock, brother George Rule; sons Josef Rockwell Rule and Bradley Andrew Rule; daughters Malinda Rose Whillock and Tracey Marie McFarland; Grandchildren: Amanda Powers, Tiffany Lawson, Preston Dean Whillock, Holly Coberley, Nathan McFarland, Thomas Whillock, Hannah Kate McFarland, John Wesley Rule, Patrick Rule, and four great-grandchildren.

Tributes

Josef Fletcher Rule

January 2, 1927 - December 26, 2009