-from Mark-

Hello Dad! It was one year ago today that you left us! It seems like only yesterday that we lost you. We all miss you so much and wish you were here. We all had a hard time on Father's day, your birthday and christmas! It just was not the same without you. We all have a huge void in our hearts because your gone!!! But, we know you are in a good place and you are not suffering any longer!!! We think about you everyday!! I regret not spending more time with you! Sometimes we mistakingly are too concerned about our own lives and don't spend the time we should with loved ones. Well dad, we will never forget you because you are our father and mentor! So long for now and we will see you someday soon in paradise!!! Love Mark and The whole Rogers Clan!!!

-from kleigh-

kleigh was visiting mark the other day. kleigh asked mark "did your dad die, grandpa?" mark said,"yes he did". kleigh patted mark on the back and said, "i get your dad back for you grandpa".

-from Mark-

Dad passed away one month ago today. Its been a very difficult month. That void that was left is still very present. I wish I would have talked to him more when he was alive. We are coming home next weekend and it will be very difficult because for the first time We will not be able to see him. I still get very sad and teary-eyed when I go to the website and his picture is there. Mom is still very tired and worn out. She told me two days ago that the grieving has been very hard. Keep Mom in your prayers!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love you Dad and will see you in heaven some day!!!!!

Love
Mark

-from Danny-

EULOGY
•
Rev. Thomas H. Rogers; 10/21/26-1/15/08
January 15, 2008; Minneapolis (Rev. M.L. King's birthday)

"First of all, I want to announce that I truly believe that my dad is listening from above today."

"Also, I want to mention that my dad presided over several funerals here, which I just learned about today. No wonder he wanted his own funeral here. It is such a beautiful place"

"My dad grew up in the backwoods of Tennessee during the Great Depression. He was born in a log cabin and grew up in abject poverty. He had a tough time as a kid. My dad went hungry as a child. Two years ago he told me he was used as slave labor as a child. They all had to work that hard just to scratch out a living as subsistence cotton farmers. My dad was plowing the cotton fields behind a mule as young as 8 or 9 years of age. The shack he lived in had holes in the roof and on those rare occasions when it snowed in Tennessee he woke up with snow on his head and blankets as a boy. He learned to sleep with his head under the covers to keep the snow off. This habit continued well into his adult life.
At age 9 his parents simply could not feed all 5 kids anymore so they sent him to live with his Grandpa William. Some other bad things happened to my dad when he was a child but things went a little better for him at Grandpa William's."

"As a psychologist if I had studied his childhood without knowing him I would have predicted that my dad would end up being an alcoholic, or a criminal or a wifebeater, or maybe all three. But no, not my dad, He managed to get a college education on the GI bit and then he devoted the next 33 years of his life to helping others through his ministry in the church. He tried to make a difference in people's lives. Now I don't know how he managed to overcome his difficult childhood enough to accomplish what he did but I guess it must have had something to do with the fact that he had such a wonderful wife."

"In 1989 I was talking to a therapist one night and he asked me this question. What did your dad give you? Well, I had never thought of this before but I have thought of it a lot since then, especially in the past week."

" Well, I came up with this. He gave his kids values. He gave us morals. He gave us ethics. And I like to think he even gave us a little bit of his integrity. I am proud to announce that out of his 7 kids not one of us turned out to be an alcoholic. Not one of us turned out to be a drug addict. Not one of us turned out to be a criminal; and, of his 5 sons not one of us was ever a wife beater, Well, nowadays that's a pretty good record. My dad deserves half the credit for the way we turned out. He tried to make a difference in our lives, too.

"One of the things about which we are so proud of with my dad was his social activism in the 1960's. In 1963 my dad was involved in that historic civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery Alabama with Dr. Martin Luther King. My dad met Rev. King, spoke with him and shook hands with him. It was a risky march. Just before the march started the authorities apprehended a van full of white guys with shotguns who were planning to open fire on the marchers. I shudder to think what might have happened if those guys had not been caught at the last minute."

"But dad made the mistake of marching that 40 miles while wearing his black, leather dress shoes that he always wore to church. I will never forget the look of his feet when he returned home from the march. His feet looked like hamburger. He was in pain and could not walk well for days but I never heard him complain. He felt like he needed to stand up against the ugly injustice of racism and segregation."

"In 1965, my dad and thousands of other ministers participated in a peace rally in Washington, DC. Again, my dad met and shook hands with Rev. King. My dad tried to make a difference in this way, too.

"Now I am going to tell you a story about my dad that no one hears knows. Maybe my mom remembers the first part of the story but no one knows the second part of the story because I have never told anyone. This is a true story about my dad."

"When I was in high school in Wadena, MN one of my classmates blew off his own hand in a hunting accident. His name was Chuck Furan. Well, Chuck never went to our church once and neither did his parents. My dad had never met Chuck but he went to the hospital several times that week to spend time with him. My dad spent several hours talking with Chuck, helping him and counseling him. When I heard about this at the time I thought it was a pretty nice thing to do."

"And now, the rest of the story. It was 3 yearrs later and I was living in the YMCA in St. Paul. I was walking down the street one night in downtown St. Paul, which is a pretty big city. Well, who came walking past me but Chuck Furan. I said, "Chuck, is that you?' He said I looked familiar but he could not place me or recall my name. We got to talking on the street and it turned out that he needed a roommate and I needed a place to live because it was too lonely in the YMCA. So a few days later I moved in with Chuck. Although we only lived together a few months He told me my dad really helped him a lot. Chuck was so impressed that a complete stranger cared enough to spend so much time with him. This meant a lot to Chuck and helped him adjust to life without his right hand. So, my dad tried to make a difference in Chuck's life, also."

"My dad was a good family man too. He and mom were always taking us on family picnics to Phalen Park and Como park on Sunday afternoons. Or he would take us to Phalen Lake where we would swim all day or we would go to como Park Zoo. He took us to Twins games and even to a couple of Duluth Dukes baseball games. When we were teenagers he bought a boat and took us fishing often. When I was in junior and senior high school I went to Methodist Church camp every summer for a week. On two occasions my dad was one of the camp counselors. At first, I was a little embarrassed because I was the only kid there who had their dad along as a camp counselor. But by the end of the week, kids were coming up to me and saying things like, Is that your dad? He's pretty cool. Another would say, You have a groovy dad. Then I was even more proud of my dad. My dad loved young people and he tried to make a difference in their lives."

"And who among us Rogers kids will ever forget dads legendary, "George Washington Bridge?". How many times did he drive us crazy with that song? The same 3 words over and over again. It almost got to the point of being like 100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall! Of course, we all pretended we hated it when he sang that song. But, secretly, we liked it when dad sang the George Washington Bridge song because it meant that he was happy. We liked it when dad was happy. Besides it was the only time we could ever get away with telling him to shut up. That was pretty fun too."

"Now I am going to wrap up these remarks by asking all of you to join me in reciting The Lord's Prayer, which was one of my dad's favorite prayers."

"our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever. Amen."

(Looking upward);
"We love you dad.
And we ARE proud of you,
Because you did make a difference.
So rest in peace, my friend.
We will miss you.
So farewell until we meet again.:

- Daniel C. Rogers, in loving memory.

-from Lisa-

Star Trek was wrong when it said,
" Space, the final frontier."

For this last week we lost you to the true final frontier---death.

the one journey we must go alone.
And you The grandfather, The Father,
The Pastor, The Leader
left us one final lesson.

A lesson of dying with grace and dignity.
A lesson of leaving those you loved with hope-
The hope that we shall all meet again.
and
A lesson on how to face death when our time comes.
For we must walk through death alone as well
but
now we have the hope that you are waiting.

Rest in peace.

love lisa

-from Kelly-

To my "pocket-size-boss-hog" where do I begin? I am sad to know that you are no longer here on earth but I know that you are here with us in spirit everyday. I do not believe in goodbye because you will never be gone. You are a remarkable man and I am proud to call you my grandpa!

Some of my favorite memories are the times I spent at your house. I laugh just thinking about it. I could always expect to have fun and a big bag of cheezies when I was there. Most of my memories are from Spring Lake Park. I loved to pretend to have a restaurant at the bar downstairs. I loved to dig in the drawers and find new things to play with. I remember using a pliers to change the channel on the TV with the rabbit ears downstairs. Nikkol and Chris and me and Chad would play hide and seek and somehow I always had to hide in the laundry chute! The four of us would chase each other and run in the front door and out the back and your famous words "who's play'in door" always filled the air. I remember one of my most favorite things was living room gymnastics!! Jeff would always say "next, Kelly Skalicky will take the floor". No matter how bad I was, all of you "judges" gave me a good score! I think you judges either had vision problems or knew nothing about gymnastics!! You and grandma always brought our family together for fun. All of the nights out in the screen porch listening to the Twins game, playing croquet in the back yard and playing with the old phone in the closet.

You have left a legacy with all of us and we intend to honor that. My belief system stems from you. To treat others with dignity and respect, to help anyone who needs it and to put family before yourself. I will pass these beliefs down to my children and your legacy will live forever. Like I said, I do not believe in goodbye this is just a pause until we meet again. I love you!

It is our turn to take care of grandma and each other. We learned from the best so we will be just fine!

I will miss you and love you forever!

Love,
Kelly

-from Nikkol-

My Grandpa was a wonderful man. He was full of wisdom and great knowledge. I am very fortunate to have had my Grandpa in my life for almost 36 years. He taught me how to love unconditionally, how to be compassionate and to be nonjudgemental. And best of all Grandpa taught me what family meant. I will always remember when I was growing up seeing both my Grandpa and Grandma at my choir concerts, they never missed a one! Grandpa loved music, especially live music sung by choirs. Because Grandpa knew so much about history, I was able to go to him for help with my homework when I was growing up. I loved listening to him and his life stories, they were absolutely amazing and so interesting! And how about when I went to LPN school then on to RN school...Grandpa was right by my side rooting me on. He was always very supportive of his grandchildren in everything we did.
"Grandpa, I know you will always be watching over me and the rest of the family. Your strength will keep us all strong. I really miss you. I am so thankful for the 36 (almost) years I had you in my life, you made a difference and you taught me so much. Grandpa, I feel comfort knowing that you are with God and that you are no longer in pain. I would rather you were here with us, but I know everyone has a time when our journey here on earth must come to an end. I look forward to the day when we will meet again in the Lord's Kingdom. Check on Daisy for me, I'm sure she came running up to you looking for food as soon as she saw you walking through the Golden Gates. And I know Snickers was right there waiting to hop in your arms and give you a licky! I love you, Grandpa and miss you, alot! As I promised, I will be sure that Grandma is taken care of and she will be okay."
You will be in my heart forever, Grandpa,
Your Granddaughter Nikkol

-from Mark-

Dear Dad. After seeing your photos on the website it made me think that you should still be here!!!!!! It seems so strange that your not here!!! A main link in the Rogers family bond is missing that can never be replaced!!! I wish you were still here! I know your here in spirit!!! Yes its a great loss but we as a family have already grown closer together as a result!!! I'd like to say hi to all the Rogers family who are reading this post and say I love you and keep mom in your prayers!!!!!
Love
Mark

-from Mark-

Hi, my name is Mark. Im the youngest son of Tom Rogers. Im going to miss my Dad very, very much!!!!!!!!! It was so hard to say goodbye. I will miss his wisdom, his sense of humor and his love for his family!!!!!! I will miss never hearing his voice again!!! The three things I value the most as far as what he taught us was-1. Love for family.2. His deep concern for the poor and needy and all those who are less fortunate. 3.Not to ever be prejudice. I admired him greatly for standing up for what he believed and never waivering from that. Even though we didnt always agree on everything I still respected his opinion because he had such great wisdom. My Dad was one of the most intelligent men that ive ever known. I DEEPLY regret that I didnt make more of an effort to get closer to him and spending more time with him!!!!!!!!!!!!
I take comfort in knowing that he is now in heaven with Jesus Christ and he is no longer suffering and is actually doing better than we are down here on earth. I Love You Dad and I will see you in Paradise!!!!!!!
Love
Mark

-from Paul-

I will never share blood with Tom, but from the start i have never doubted that i was a welcome member of his family.

Today i was proud to carry you home. And i will always be proud to call you Grandpa. Thank you for treating me like a grandson. I'll see you again soon...

Love,
Paul