George McGovern's life of service recalled at funeral

• Hour-and-a-half funeral service for George McGovern held in Sioux Falls
• Attended by friends, family, included personal stories and reflections of his life
• McGovern died at 90 on Oct . 21

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- George McGovern's life as a humanitarian, politician, war hero and St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan was remembered Friday as friends, family and admirers said goodbye to the legend.

The hour-and-a-half funeral service included a mix of personal stories, reflections on McGovern's influence on poverty and politics and plenty of humor about a man whose place in history is now set. The three-term senator and 1972 Democratic presidential nominee died Sunday at 90.

Former Sen. Tom Daschle said that if McGovern never had done another thing after his 25th birthday, McGovern's funeral still would have honored a hero. McGovern earned the Distinguished Flying Cross in World War II, flying 35 combat missions as the pilot of a B-24.

But McGovern's career after the war was one in which he championed food for the hungry, peace in Vietnam and other conflicts and decency in politics.

"I believe America would be a better place if George had been president of the United States," Daschle said. "That doesn't mean his campaign was a failure. Far from it."

McGovern was remembered as a man who developed friendships with people who didn't share his political beliefs. Monsignor James Doyle quoted conservative commentator William F. Buckley, who said of McGovern: "He was the single nicest human being I have ever known."

McGovern, Doyle said, proved that you didn't have to be a hawk on foreign policy to be a patriot of the United States.

"So rest in peace, dear friend," Doyle said. "The world is better because you passed our way."

The service included moments of poignancy, and many moments of humor.

Daschle recalled hurtling through a South Dakota night with McGovern at the wheel, doing 95 mph. McGovern was pointing out the stars in the night sky to a terrified Daschle.

"My eyes were frozen on the road," Daschle recalled. "I said, 'George, look at the darn road.' "

But it was a story that reflected metaphorically and in actuality about McGovern: He "plowed down" the road of life, "his eyes focused on something beautiful and something distant," Daschle said.

Jim Rowen, McGovern's son-in-law, told the story of how McGovern came to love the St. Louis Cardinals.

McGovern's father, who was born in 1868, was a stern Wesleyan Methodist minister by the time McGovern was born in 1922. One day, when McGovern was about 12, he and a brother were playing catch with a baseball at a tent revival. His father asked to see the ball, and George feared he was going to get in trouble.

"They were stunned when their father took the baseball and threw it on a straight line to the corner of the tent and hit a mouse," Rowen said. "It was apparently a transformative experience."

McGovern learned that his father had played baseball professionally for a Des Moines, Iowa, team that had an affiliation to the Cardinals. That began a lifelong devotion to the team that would find McGovern scanning the box score in the newspaper each day and digesting the team statistics.

The service ended on a serious note with Methodist Bishop Bruce R. Ough's reflections. McGovern was a Christian believer, but he practiced a social gospel in which government could be used to solve problems in the name of Christianity, such as hunger and poverty.

Ough said that people don't need a lot of religious training to know the right course of action. But what set McGovern apart from others was that he actively pursued social justice.

"Well done, good and faithful servant," Ough said. "You knew what to do, and you did it."