A family shares their own version of the perfect gift to celebrate Father’s Day

Family members Steve Perillo, left, Robbie Steiner, Tom Funk and Jim Funk combined their musical talents to create a touching tribute to an ancestor. (Submitted photo)

By John Shaughnessy

In its own way, it’s the perfect Father’s Day present, the one gift that most dads hope to get in life.

Yes, far more than a tie or a tool, fathers hope their children will hold onto the life lessons they share with them, understand the love and even the occasional tough love they pour into caring for them, and cherish the traditions of family and faith that are at the heart of their hopes for them.

All of which leads to the story of what the Funk family—with its roots across Indiana—has done in a touching tribute to Luke Funk and his brother, Paul.

As a father and a grandfather, Luke always strived to provide three gifts for his children and grandchildren.

The gifts of faith, family and music were so intertwined in his life that they flow together so naturally when his children and grandchildren share their favorite memories of him.

“My grandpa’s faith provided an unwavering sense

of joy which one could literally hear when in his presence,” notes Robbie Steiner, who grew up in

Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in New Albany. “He moved through life with a song ever on his lips, quite literally. He could hardly allow a moment to pass without humming or singing a tune.

“To me, this was an outward, joyful sign of a man rooted in faith. Make no mistake, his life was not easy, but he faced life’s challenges with optimism and contentment, confident in God’s love.”

Luke’s son, Jim Funk, shares this memory of his father: “When I was 5, my dad was a member of the choir of Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Indianapolis. On Sundays when they sang, he would take me up to the choir loft with him, and I would sit in one of the pews there during Mass. When they stood up to sing—there were about 20 men—I was overwhelmed by the sound and the beauty of the music.

“I never forgot that. I didn’t understand the Mass and what was being said yet—the Mass was in Latin!—but I understood the beauty of the music.”

Most of all, the grandson and the son understand what the powerful combination of faith, family and music meant to Luke Funk, who died in 2015 at the age of 92. And in the past year, Steiner, Jim Funk and other members of Luke’s bloodline came together to pay tribute to him in a project that has combined those three loves of his life.

Songs of innocence in a time of war

When a 2023 conversation between members of the extended Funk family turned to memories of Luke, it was casually mentioned that he had written two songs that were recorded in 1945.

With no musical training, Luke shared the lyrics and melody for “There’s a Place for You & Me” with his brother Paul who had received extensive training in classical piano at Indiana University. Paul composed the music for the song, a nostalgic tribute to Indiana. Then, Luke wrote another song, “Your Eyes Are Blue.” Both were recorded by Edna Odell, a popular singer known as “The Hoosier Songbird.”

While the two songs had a short life, the conversation about them intrigued one of Jim and Tom Funk’s cousins, Steve Perillo, a musician. After listening to the songs, Perillo had the idea to rearrange them and record them as a family project.

The plan excited Jim, who has long sung and played guitar during Masses and weddings at different parishes in the archdiocese, including one wedding where he met the woman who is now his wife of more than 40 years, Trish.

Jim’s brother, Tom Funk, who plays electric bass during Masses at St. Pius X Parish in Indianapolis, also embraced the plan. So did Steiner, a singer with extensive musical theater experience who previously has sung as a cantor and choir member at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish.

“The impromptu family combo worked from a simple lead sheet and a faint 1945 acetate recording,” Tom Funk says. “The songs have the feeling of small-town Indiana while wars were raging around the world. In fact, just months after these songs were written, my dad would be called to serve in the Pacific.”

After Perillo updated and expanded the musical arrangements for the two songs, the four musicians rehearsed the new versions in the music room of Our Lady of Grace Monastery in Beech Grove, where another family member—Benedictine Sister Mary Margaret Funk—has embraced her religious vocation for nearly 65 years.

Pleased by the results of the rehearsal, the four family members headed to the recording studio with Steiner on vocals, Perillo on piano, Jim on guitar and Tom on electric bass.

The creation of two music videos followed—filmed along the Wabash River in West Lafayette and at the former Funk family farm where Luke and Paul grew up with their nine other siblings.

A website also captures the journey of the songs across 80 years, from the 1940s to the 2020s—tinyurl.com/LukeFunkSongs.

‘Faith hiding in plain sight’

While the two songs and their music videos don’t have a particular faith element to them, they do reflect qualities that are at the heart of the Catholic faith—an appreciation of God’s creation of the land and nature, a celebration of marriage, and the gift of love that leads to family and community.

“It’s faith in action,” Tom Funk says. “It’s faith hiding in plain sight. It’s the fourth of the Ten Commandments, ‘Honor thy father and thy mother.’ ”

That element of honoring his grandfather resonates with Steiner.

“By revisiting these songs that my grandfather wrote, it is my hope that we are both honoring and continuing to learn from the joyful faith that sustained him during his time on Earth,” says Steiner, who is 37. “The songs express a genuine appreciation for the simple gifts of family, home and love. They celebrate and elevate the ordinary, just as Christ’s incarnation celebrated and elevated the ordinary human experience.”

Perillo says there were unintended benefits to the project beyond the music.

“Every project begins with a goal, but God often works through the unexpected,” Perillo says. “For us, it has meant rekindled family bonds, new friendships, and creative doors we never imagined opening.

“That’s the miracle that unfolded when four cousins began this musical journey—not only to resurrect Uncle Luke’s music, but to honor his spirit, his creativity and the faith that shaped his life and ours.”

Ten years after his dad’s death, Jim Funk views the updated two songs as one more way of thanking his father for the joy that music has brought to his life.

“It was a way I could give back to my dad for introducing me to music with the Immaculate Heart of Mary choir those 60-some years ago, and to honor the beauty and joy he found in music all his life,” says Jim, now a member of Christ the King Parish in Indianapolis. “We hope that we will be able to reach others and bring them joy through music—and see how music can bring a family together.”

The songs live on. So does the love, the bond of family and the embrace of faith.

They’re all parts of a Father’s Day gift to cherish. †