HANDS AND HEARTS. Dave Lendle and his wife, Carol, have been married since 1981. He was recently diagnosed with ALS, often called Lou Gehrig's disease. Their caps bear Gehrig's uniform number when he played for the New York Yankees in the 1920s and '30s. (Submitted photos)

His blue eyes. Blue as the sky. Blue as the ocean. That’s what you notice first when meeting Dave Lendle. And if eyes are the windows into one’s soul, then Dave’s mind, body, and soul are full of light, based on all he has accomplished in life.

As I arrive at the front door of the home of Dave and his wife Carol, a handprinted “BELIEVE” sign – a la Ted Lasso – greets me. Once inside, a cherrywood mantel with the carved words “Volkommen til Shalimar” catches my eye. “Welcome to the Abode of Love.” And the artisan? Why Dave, of course.
By his own admission, as a teenager, Dave, an Eau Claire native, lived life very much on the edge – until he went over the edge. Since then, Dave has lived life playing full out leaving nothing on the field. With the support of family, friends, and faith/spirituality, he is facing his latest challenge head-on, just as he has done for the past 50 years.   

Although he became a paraplegic nearly 50 years ago, Dave Lendle stayed active for decades, including through the use of the hand-powered bicycle.

ALS impacts people from all walks of life. It’s often called Lou Gehrig’s disease, after the first baseman who played 17 seasons in Major League Baseball for the New York Yankees. Gehrig, who wore jersey No. 4, earned the nickname the “Iron Horse” for his skill as a hitter and his endurance on the playing field. On his 36th birthday, he was diagnosed with ALS, and he died two years later. Newspaper reporter and author Mitch Albom reunited with his college sociology professor Morrie Schwartz who was dying from ALS. Mitch’s visits with him became a best-selling memoir Tuesdays with Morrie. Brian Wallach, an American businessman and lawyer who worked on the first presidential campaign for Barack Obama and later in the White House general counsel’s office, was diagnosed with ALS in 2017. His response was to create a nonprofit called I AM ALS (iamals.org) to raise awareness of and funds for ALS research. Brian is living with ALS.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I ever consider I’d be saying ‘I have ALS,’ ” says Dave, whose broad, bright smile belies his life’s journey.

After becoming a paraplegic, Dave went through the typical five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Yet his response to his new situation was simply “it’s different.” Life had given Dave lemons, and he chose to make lemonade – gallons of it.

In December 1973, he moved to Tempe, Arizona, to live with his older sister, a nurse practitioner, because getting around in a wheelchair was easier there because of the lack of snow. He retrofitted a used Volvo so he could get in and out and drive himself. He went to college there and soon found his love for the arts, learning to make jewelry and sculpture. While at school, he heard about Transcendental Meditation, known as TM. He learned it, loved it, and has practiced it every day since.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I ever consider I’d be saying ‘I have ALS.’ ”

“TM has helped me immensely in being resilient to whatever life throws my way,” he shares.
Dave returned in the summer of 1976 to set up an art studio at his parent’s cabin on Lower Long Lake near New Auburn. He discovered that he also had a love for wood carving and added that to his artistic portfolio. In addition, now Dave was getting around on crutches except when playing wheelchair basketball on the Chippewa Valley Wheelers team.

One day, while dining at the Déjà Vu restaurant (now Mona Lisa’s) on Water Street, he spied a cute waitress. When she showed up in the line at the Sunyata Food Co-op when he was running the cash register, he asked her out on a date, and luckily, Carol Stranathan said “yes.”

“It was his blue eyes,” she shares, “plus he was making jewelry at the time, and I love jewelry.”
Their friendship evolved into love, and they married in 1981 after Carol finished nursing school at UW-Eau Claire. Dave and Carol dreamed of building a log home, so together they designed and built one on the Eau Claire River. He moved his studio there, too.

In 1983, Dave’s mom had a stroke, and through her rehab, he became aware of a new career possibility. In 1986, Dave went back to college to study communication sciences and disorders.
Their one and only child, daughter Laurel, arrived in 1987, and Dave and Carol welcomed her with joy. As his daughter grew up, Dave never missed a single school event. Laurel also joined the Eau Claire Ski Sprites water-skiing club. While Laurel was in shows – skiing, doing acrobatics with a partner, and perching on top of the pyramid – Dave worked on the sound system for shows, and Carol helped on the dock and in the ski boats.

Dave (wearing No. 15 at right) played wheelchair basketball in this 1981 newspaper clipping.

In 1990, Dave graduated from UW-Claire with a master’s degree in communication disorders. So, now in addition to being an artisan, he began a new career as a licensed speech and language pathologist for a private rehab company and at the Northern Wisconsin Center for the Developmentally Disabled in Chippewa Falls.

While the entire family practices TM, in 1997, they joined Hope Lutheran Church in Eau Claire to provide a faith community structure for their daughter and also as a way to volunteer at Beacon House and the Community Table, which they believed was important.

Through the years, though, using crutches had taken its toll on Dave’s hips, and in 2001, he required a total hip replacement to keep walking. Over the next year and three months, he had six hip surgeries, and after the last hip replacement and its dislocation, he began to use a wheelchair again. This experience led to him to design a new wheel-chair accessible home and serving as the general contractor. Built on a hill down the road from their log home on the Eau Claire River, they moved into the new home in 2002. And to continue physical activity, as Dave had been physically active all his life – even after his spinal cord injury, he loved to swim, walk, hike, work outdoors, and do carpentry on the log home – he purchased a hand cycle to bicycle again.

So after the ALS diagnosis last year, there was no doubt that together he and Carol would rally. In fact, daughter Laurel and granddaughter Lilianna had moved in with them during the COVID-19 lockdown and beyond, and have stayed on to help with the “new normal” of ALS. Dave and Carol, now both retired, immediately joined the local ALS Association’s support group. This led them to get involved in the Walk to Defeat ALS on Saturday, June 10, at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair Grounds in Chippewa Falls. They formed “Team Dave,” joining about a dozen other teams and countless individuals to increase awareness, and most importantly, to raise money for research into the cause of and cure for ALS.

Dave carved this cherrywood mantlepiece, which reads “Volkommen til Shalimar” (“Welcome to the Abode of Love”).

In the process of seeking sponsorships for “Team Dave,” Dave got in contact with a friend from high school, Tim Benedict of Benedict’s Refrigeration in Eau Claire. Tim let them know that Bill Towle, a fellow high school classmate, had died of ALS in 2019. Tim put Dave in touch with Bill’s brother, Jim, who works at First Supply, a wholesale and supply company in Eau Claire. Jim then created a team honoring his brother Bill, and First Supply generously became a sponsor of the ALS walk. 

When Dave and Carol heard the diagnosis in Rochester last fall, doctors told them to get their affairs in order. And they have. Dave has already written his obituary, among handling other details. ALS will eventually affect his ability to move, speak, eat, and breathe.

This spring, six months after his initial diagnosis, Dave is coming to terms with his new reality. He will be selling his beloved racing hand bicycle. “I used to love riding my racing hand cycle in the hilly country roads around the apple orchards in Chippewa Falls,” he said. “I would ride up to 30 miles in one day. My strength has been diminishing due to ALS, and now I can’t even get on the bike.”

“My inner life is a fathomless, unchanging ocean of silence permeated with bliss, peace, and contentment, whereas the complications of ALS are waves on the surface that merely come and go.”

Dave describes ALS as “like a spigot left open 24 hours a day draining my energy, strength, and function.” He continues: “The rate of flow changes depending on the exertion level of all activities throughout the day and the effects are cumulative. Restful sleep and TM are the lowest rate of flow. They help me recover slightly but they do not reverse the progressing deteriorating effects.

“My inner life is a fathomless, unchanging ocean of silence permeated with bliss, peace, and contentment, whereas the complications of ALS are waves on the surface that merely come and go.
Just one of the many benefits of my daily TM practice. It helps immensely with how I live with the progressive devastation of this disease.

“My drive for independence in life, which has served me so well, is constantly now being chased and overtaken by the rapid destructive nature of ALS,” he concludes. “ I never considered all the activities I did after my spinal cord injury as extraordinary. I just chose to live a full life with all the things that brought me joy, despite my injury. ALS brings with it a progressive diminishing of strength, function, and ever-increasing exhaustion. Yet, my passing of ALS will not be the end merely a new beginning.”

On July 4, 1939, Lou Gehrig said farewell to baseball with his “Luckiest Man” speech at Yankee Stadium. Gehrig concluded: “So I close in saying that I may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for.” The same could be said for Dave Lendle. 

For more info about the Walk to Defeat ALS on Saturday, June 10, in Chippewa Falls, visit the ALS Association website.