FIRE AND LIGHTNING

Built on Solid Ground Lillian Schad &

Mark McMillin, left, and Lillian Schad go over some of the vintage records listed in the books for Lutheran Fire and Lightning Insurance Company, which started in 1933 after five area farmers were unable to Lutheran Fire and obtain insurance on their homes and livestock. Lightning Insurance Company

Mark McMillin is in awe of Lillian Schad, a nonagenarian who was educated, employed, married, seen loved ones birthed and buried, and still lives on in the same Stones Prairie community in which she was born.

“She is a treasure,” he said.

That’s because Lillian knows nearly everyone in the area that is centered around the church and schools that comprise the heart of the small community, where the Lutheran Fire and Lightning Insurance Company was born in 1933. The company serves Lutheran families throughout the state.

“There were five area farmers that went together to form the company after they were not able to get insurance in town,” McMillin said.

“Lillian’s dad, Elmer Rupp, was the first secretary and treasurer.”

As to the identities of the remaining five founders, it’s in the book.

“I wrote everything (about the company) down in a white book,” she said. “I loaned it out and I thought it came back to me, but I can’t find it anywhere.”

Lillian, who remembers not even being in high school, yet loved math and started helping her father in those early days of the business.

“I did most of the typing and bookwork,” she said. “I learned that I loved math, and that transitioned into working the books for the company. I started keeping the books and working with daddy when I was 14.”

Eventually, the records of policies and holdings transferred from huge handwritten ledger books to typed policies when Lillian was in high school.

She recalled some of the more amusing incidents that occurred when she was growing up in the area.

“Some of the school boys tied the school master up in the outhouse and attached the rope to his car,” she said. “Then they took the car for a joyride.

“They pulled all kinds of stunts,” she said. “We had the best friends. We played together, ate together and grew up together. We were all the best of friends.”

But when it came to the business, Lillian recalls some distant memories.

“Nearly everyone had the same amount of coverage on their houses, goods, implements and livestock,” she said.

“I remember a claim for a herd of cattle that got struck by lightning while they were standing in a walnut grove,” she said. You didn’t just hear of stuff like that. I don’t remember how many cattle there were, but they looked like they had just dropped one on top of another. It’s in the book.”

In addition to helping keep the books, Lillian helped on the family farm, working a team of horses in the fields before her father eventually purchased a tractor with steel-wheels, called lugs, instead of tires.

After she married her husband, Oscar Schad, and had children of her own, she continued working in the insurance business, as well as arising at 4 a.m. to milk 20 head of cattle, feed calves, hogs and chickens, make breakfast for the family, get the kids off to school, and all the other daily chores associated with living on a 162acre working farm.

“I’d get to the office around 9 a.m. and sometimes I would bring work home with me,” she said. “I’d spend some evenings working right at this kitchen table until 10 or 11 p.m.”

In those early days, Lillian earned $18 per month for her efforts.

“We typed everything, increases, decreases, losses — everything,” she said. “I retired from Lutheran Fire and Lightning in 1998 after more than 50 years. The retirement party was held at Biermann’s (Restaurant) in Freistatt.”

At about that time, Mark McMillin was winding down his military career in the United States Army, finally retiring in 2004.

“I had a job offer in Germany,” he said. “I had a job offer in Bosnia. And all I wanted to do was put on overalls, be nine years old again and farm. I got home and my mom and Richard told me I needed to get my insurance license.”

McMillin started helping with the company in 2005.

“I never planned on doing this,” he said. “It’s a family thing. My parents showed me the books and I decided I could do this and farm.

My whole approach is to treat people how I would treat my grandma. I strive to do that every time someone calls me.”

And call they do.

“I’m here for my policyholders 24/7,” he said. “I had a guy in the hospital who was facing surgery the following day call me in the middle of the night needing to make changes to his policy. He thought he was going to get an answering machine. I answered the phone and made the changes and wished him healing prayers on his surgery. Fortunately, this was before Facetime, because I wasn’t wearing khakis like Jake from State Farm.”

Another time, Mark and his bride, Connie, were vacationing in Louscha, Germany.

“I made sure my phone could make and take international calls,” he said. “I got a call from a farmer wanting to add a combine to his policy. He didn’t ask where I was, and I didn’t tell him. We talked for 15 minutes about the weather and the crops and the combine coverage he needed. All the while, my wife was melting down because she knew it was costing $1 per minute to talk to him. I let people talk as much as they want.”

McMillin also checks to ensure each policyholder has the coverage they actually need.

“Sometimes, you find that someone has insured grandma’s chicken house and I might suggest that they decrease their coverage,” he said. “I ask if their decision is based on an emotional attachment or if it’s a moneymaker. If they still want to insure something based on their emotional attachment, that’s ok.”

But people shouldn’t try to slide on the facts in order to get coverage.

“I turned down a referral call from a guy who couldn’t get insurance elsewhere,” McMillin said. “The first thing I asked was if he was a Lutheran, and he answered no. I asked if any of his family members were Lutheran, and again he said no. I told him I couldn’t cover him, because we were a fraternal company serving Lutherans and their families since 1933. He asked what if he called back and told me he was. I said, ‘Then you’re a liar, and we don’t insure those either.’

“The only reason I’m an insurance agent is because I deal with good people, honest people, and hard-working Americans who built this country,” he said. “There are times I have to call policyholders and remind them of their claims in order to get them to finish their paperwork.”

McMillin is extremely proud of the Freistatt Fire Department’s recent re-

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Lillian Schad stands next to a tinsel painting bearing the German legend that translates into “Me and my house will serve the Lord.”

ceipt of the Fire Department of the Year award from Missouri Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (MAMIC).

“They had a housefire from a lightning strike,” he said. “They went and hot-wired one of Lyle Youngberg’s front loaders to move a propane tank before it exploded, saving numerous claims and possible loss of life and limb. The folks at MAMIC told me the only thing that would have beat that was if someone had saved a busload of burning babies.”

Mark was also awarded the Distinguished Service Award for the year.

Notably, both Schad and McMillin have loved serving the people of their community.

“Awhile back, one of the neighbors went to check his mail across the highway during harvest season and was hit and killed,” McMillin said. “The neighbors all pulled their combines from their fields and came and harvested his crops so the family could focus on what they needed to do and not worry about it. Those are the people I love serving. Those are the people I came home to. You will not find neighbors like that anywhere else in the world.”

“My whole life, from birth until now, has centered around this church and this community,” Schad said. “I couldn’t have asked for a better life.” •