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Now my father has gone the way of all the earth and there will be a memorial at which I will speak about his life. To prepare, I’ve begun to connect with people who knew him. The picture is better than I’d imagined for this firstborn of a large family.

 

 

They were poor by modern standards, all packed together in a two bedroom house that probably measured 800 square feet. Dad, LaVerne, Mervin, Jeroldine, Robert, Jimmy, and David. The lone girl got her own room, a space carved out of the tiny attic along with storage and Grandpa’s little shop. Eventually she shared that with my mom, who my grandparents rescued from what may have been a reasonable expulsion from her own home at age 18.

 

 

His sister told me that one year she got a box of Kleenex tissues for Christmas. Another year, each child got a candy bar. There may have been a small tree some years. Christmas was not a big deal there, she said.

 

The dynamics of the family sound as close to idyllic as such a situation could provide. If the weather was good, the kids played outside. If not, they amused each other in the tiny house.

Weekends they often visited relatives, particularly the grandparents in Battleground. A favorite resort for summer fun was Lewisville park. The pictures from those days are recognizable as the same park that one can visit today. Same entrance sign, same river, same layout, and the same capacity for fun.

 

They packed into a 1920ish Chevy and spent the day.

 

It appears that dad had a very pleasant childhood. It couldn’t possibly prepare him for the challenges he married.

 

He had a buddy from school named Walt. Walt lived over past the high school they attended and his little brother tagged along when dad and Walt did things together starting in about the fifth grade.

 

The little brother was named Pete, and dad’s departure has been a particularly unkind event for him because he and my father became the best of friends to the end.

 

I drove them in a car ten years ago and could feel that same beautiful chemistry between them that I know from close friendship.

 

These conversations with others who knew him remind me of that newspaper I discovered under the house, wrapped around the water pipe for insulation. Dated 1955, it was as new. The stories and advertisements brought an intimacy of detail to those days that simple broad facts can’t match. There was just as much going on from day to day back then as now.

 

Dad had just short of 30,000 days on the planet. Knowing some of the grief he dealt with, I am pleased at learning of good times he enjoyed with good people. It also appears that I inherited some of his characteristics : )

 

 

 

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