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Jean Gaul shows her favorite picture of Austin Gaul that was made by photographer Susie Williams for his senior picture.
Though each day brings difficult memories, the Gauls are a practical, hard-working farm family still able to laugh at Austin’s “goofiness, his sense of humor.” Holidays were hard for the Gaul family, but surrounding themselves with friends helped.
Mark Gaul bought a toy Freightliner truck for Austin Gaul that looked like his son’s truck.
This is one of the many large displays of Austin Gaul’s youthful years that was displayed at his wake.
The never-ending needs of farm life keep the family busy while helping to keep their minds off the accident. Mark Gaul lines out the morning duties with his sons, Carter, left and Brady.
The Gaul men sit still for a photograph taken by Jean Gaul during a family vacation to St. Louis in August 2022: from left, Brady, Mark, Carter and Austin.
Jean Gaul shows her favorite picture of Austin Gaul that was made by photographer Susie Williams for his senior picture.
Though each day brings difficult memories, the Gauls are a practical, hard-working farm family still able to laugh at Austin’s “goofiness, his sense of humor.” Holidays were hard for the Gaul family, but surrounding themselves with friends helped.
Mark Gaul bought a toy Freightliner truck for Austin Gaul that looked like his son’s truck.
This is one of the many large displays of Austin Gaul’s youthful years that was displayed at his wake.
The never-ending needs of farm life keep the family busy while helping to keep their minds off the accident. Mark Gaul lines out the morning duties with his sons, Carter, left and Brady.
The Gaul men sit still for a photograph taken by Jean Gaul during a family vacation to St. Louis in August 2022: from left, Brady, Mark, Carter and Austin.
Most of the time, when we hear about an accident that takes a life we’re able to quickly move past the news unless the death happened to a family member or someone we know.
Last September, I read about a farm accident in Farley. Austin Gaul, 25, died when a 10-ton wagon of cut corn rolled over him while he, his father, brother and friends were working a neighbor’s field next to their East Dyersville Road farm at night.
I didn’t know Austin or his family but having covered too many accidental deaths in my career, I imagined the shock and pain they must be experiencing. I asked the Gaul family if they would talk about their oldest son and share what happened that night. They graciously accepted my invitation.
Austin was a big man – 6-foot-4 with wide shoulders and weighing about 300 pounds, yet his father still called him “Peanut.”
He drove a truck for Kluesner Construction, loved farming, trucks and machinery. He worked long hours saving money to buy some acreage, where he could build his own farm. Mark Gaul said, “Peanut liked driving anything with a motor, anything with wheels; always did. He was a professional driver.”
Like most, Austin had his habits and peculiar ways.
He wasn’t a beer drinker, like many of his friends, preferring chocolate milk, which he drank daily. “But it couldn’t be just any chocolate milk, it had to be Prairie Farms chocolate milk,” said Carter Gaul, 18, Austin’s youngest brother. “He drank chocolate milk every day and the only place he would get it was from the Quik ‘N Handi in Dyersville, the only place he would buy fuel.
“And he wouldn’t own just any truck, it had to be a Dodge,” Carter added. Austin had two of them, a beat-up work truck and one he babied.
“Even when he wasn’t running one, he always liked those old Freightliners,” Mark said. And he drove his white (semi) Freightliner 90% of the time.
“He had a one-track mind on a lot of things,” his mother remembers fondly.
“He had his opinion and you were not going to change his mind no matter what,” brother Brady assured. “He didn’t want to drive anything that had an automatic transmission in it, dump trucks or semis. He just thought it was no good. Whatever he thought, that was it and it didn’t matter who it was, what you thought, and that was the end of the discussion.”
Jean said, though most did not know it, her son had been diagnosed with OCD in elementary school and continued taking medication for it. She feared some might have misunderstood the big man.
Austin loved this work and even took the day off from his job to help with the harvest.
“He was just always wanting to help people,” his mother said.
He especially liked the chopper and chopper wagon they were using that fateful night, the ones the family considered selling before the accident. Austin talked them out of it. “That was his favorite chopper box (silage wagon),” offered Carter.
And he loved his phone.
Carter shows a Snapchat video his brother posted just two minutes before the accident. The video was time-stamped at 9:15 p.m. Approximately 120 seconds later, Austin was gone.
The accident happened at night while they were cutting and loading, trying to get ahead of a predicted storm that never arrived. Mark was driving the chopper, Carter drove the tractor pulling the wagon, while Austin and friends handled the hooking and unhooking.
“I had an empty one I just unloaded and I unhooked it there, and then I pulled out of the way so dad could hook on to the empty one and go,” Carter remembers. “I attached the empty wagon I had just got unloaded, then I pulled out of the way.
“It (the wagon) started rolling forward down the hill, and he grabbed onto the hitch on the front, the tongue. He was downhill from it and he was trying to turn the tongue when he tripped on a corn stalk and fell backward. The front tire ran over his head and then the back two tires ran over his back. He was trying to turn the tongue, holding on to that rod, trying to turn it, by turning the wheels.”
Brady, 21, the Gaul’s second son inserted, “We’ve done it before, but usually it’s empty, and it’s going backward instead of forward, so if anything was to happen it’s rolling away from you.”
Mark said, “I was looking off in the corner and all of a sudden I noticed his friend took off running. And right away, being around this stuff, I knew what was going on, and that’s when I opened the window and I said, ‘let it run.’ I hollered that at least three times, but God, it was too late.
“I didn’t actually see it, which I guess to me is a blessing because I don’t know if I could handle it, either.”
They called 911, while Mark, Carter and a friend administered CPR. Austin was rushed to the hospital but he was already gone.
“I still see him off the side of the machine because that’s the last time I saw him alive. I still remember him standing off the corner of the machine with a big smile on his face,” Mark whispered.
Brady said he was working at home. “They were working at the neighbor’s, I was working here. I was putting tractors away and I saw all the lights showing up, that’s how I figured it out.” He then ran home and got his mother.
The accident happened on their neighbor’s farm, on the same side of the road. “You can see the hillside where it happened,” Brady said, “behind the backside of our buildings.”
Jean Gaul became emotional remembering the outpouring of love and support their family received that night and the days following, her tired eyes filling with tears of gratitude.
“It was unreal. Over 300 people came over to the house the next four days with food, paper plates, cups, drinks, cookies — everything and anything. Or just to talk to you. They were here all week long. There was always somebody here in that whole process. That night, some stayed until early in the morning.”
“The night that it happened, when we came home from the hospital, there were about 15 people standing in the yard waiting for us. It was early in the morning,” Carter added. “We didn’t get home until after midnight that night. It was about 2 a.m.”
Jean said she realized right away that she would become a support and comfort for others experiencing accidents. “And I said that right away, that’s why all of those other people were there for us when it happened. You better realize how important they are to have been there. It’s going to happen again, it will.”
At least 53 trucks, semis and pickups, and tractors lined up for the funeral procession. Kluesner had Austin’s truck hand-washed. Brady said, “I was just going to polish his truck up a bit, and they sent it off and got all professionally done, and professionally polishing a semi costs well over $1,000.“ “And the fuel cost to run those vehicles?” Mark added. “There were at least 10 trucks from Kluesner alone.”
Brady drove the white Freightliner with his brother’s casket on his back in the procession to St. Clement Catholic Church in Bankston, the family’s parish and Austin’s favorite place to attend Mass.
One trucker, who had befriended Austin and Brady, was in Florida. “And when he heard about the accident, he drove back here,” Carter said. “When he saw the funeral procession, he drove past and dropped his loaded trailer at Kluesner, in the middle of the yard, and came back and got in the procession.”
“The church was packed full,“ Brady said. “A lot of people that don’t go to church were there that day. There were people standing outside on the steps outside of the church.”
The numbers humbled his mother. “I think Austin never thought he had many friends and if he was looking down and could have seen all the people that showed up for him.”
“It woke a lot of people up,” said Mark.
But not only did neighbors and friends offer support, but strangers from far away also sent cards and condolences.
“You hear that a lot in these small communities when somebody is down and out,” Jean noted.
“I wouldn’t pick a different place.”
When death happens, especially unexpectedly, each surviving family member is left to swim in their individual grief. None of us process loss the same. We also wear our grief differently, depending on our relationship with the one who’s gone. A mother’s grief is different from that of a father, brother, sister, grandparent, or even a friend. Grief can never be lumped into one generic emotion or experience. And some days are harder than others. I was reminded of this when talking to the Gaul family.
Mark said “The hardest day for me was actually Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving) because you knew everybody was going to be home tomorrow. The next day we went to mom and dad’s, you know, you had people around. The day before I always know the boys won’t have to work tomorrow and everybody will be at mom’s for Thanksgiving. You knew that wasn’t going to happen. So, Wednesday night was kind of the hardest point for me.”
“Toward the end of that first week, you are trying to get through the wake and the funeral, planning, and so people kind of backed off toward the end,” Jean shared. “Then Thursday was the day before the wake. Obviously, we had things we had to get done. It’s when everybody is gone and you have time to think, it is hard.”
“That’s partly why I work all the time,” said Brady. “Even though it was hard being harvest time, it was also an advantage because you kept so busy during the day.”
“I think there is a reason things happen the way they do,” Jean said.
“If I could change it, I would. But I can’t. What can you do? You just keep going,” Mark Gaul somberly offered two days after their first Thanksgiving without their son.
Jean Gaul insisted, “You just take it a day at a time, it is all you can do.”
“Sometimes, an hour at a time,” Mark added.
Despite their deep pain, the Gauls are a practical, positive, hard-working farm family who masks their pain and laughs easily, especially when remembering the funny noises Austin would make in the morning, his stubbornness, his love for mac and cheese and green bean casseroles.
While Mark and Jean miss their son, they also realize others, some of the neighbors, have lost loved ones to farm accidents. And though their son is special to them, they realize every person lost in a farm accident is special to somebody.
“Before this happened, I would believe that you need to give them (those grieving) time. But I learned that’s not the case. Sometimes you don’t have to say anything, just be there. Let them do the talking if they want to talk.
“You think about what Austin would want. When we thought about selling the chopper after that happened we thought that is the last thing Austin would want. He loved that thing and he would tell you not to sell it. You kind of run that through your mind, what would he want us to do? Or how would he handle it?”
And for now, while that terrible night is still fresh in their minds and hearts, they prefer not to see Austin’s pickup truck parked in the front yard. It’s too painful. Mark said he put the work truck away, out of sight, “because if the truck was in the yard, he was home. If he was at work, the truck was gone. So at least for that amount of time, you weren’t sitting there looking at that truck because if that truck was here, he was here. In time, we will move it out.”
Brady shared, “It’s just weird not seeing him at work anymore. Usually, when I was there at the end of the day it didn’t matter what time of day I got there, he was always there.”
Jean said she misses her son’s “goofy sense of humor.”
“I guess I miss when he used to call me when he was done with work. ‘What are you doing?’ He would ask, ‘Did you make something for supper?’ If it wasn’t something he liked, he’d go somewhere else before coming home. Sometimes he would come home and I already had something made and he would say ‘you want to make me some mac and cheese?’ He was all about his mac and cheese. I would go, aah, I thought I had supper ready.”
Sitting at the kitchen table, her eyes water. “What you wouldn’t do now just to make some mac and cheese.”
Thankful in the face of grief
When reaching for some solace, some way to make sense of loss, some fragment of good or hope in the fields of pain, we latch onto any fact or small memory that brings comfort.
Even in their deep grief, the Gauls find things to be thankful for.
It is no small thing her firstborn son left this life the way he did. “He died doing what he loved,” his mother said, her blue eyes filling with tears. “And it happened quickly.
“Another thing I am thankful for is even though he was 25 and still living at home, it gave us that much more time together. If he had left home at 18, we would never have had the time with him.”
Going on a family vacation in August to St. Louis is something else all are thankful for.
“Originally it was just going to be the boys going to the tractor show because we are into old tractors, but she decided to make it a family vacation,” Carter said.
Jean is thankful she did.
“As long as they are still willing to go, I am going to take them along,” she said. “Thank God, you never know when it will be the last one together.”
“What I See” is an occasional feature through the eyes of photographer/reporter Dave LaBelle.
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