June 14, 1987
Even though I am eighty years of age, I still remember many things about my father when I was growing up. His love for three-for-five-cent cigars. His ability to make strong black coffee, with no intention of doing so. His liking for lime-flavored Kool-Aid. It was safe in the refrigerator. No one else liked it. His love to settle disputes between parties, not marital. He was too wise for that, and stayed with fence arguments and measurements of cribs of corn and stacks of hay. He loved to take a little time and go over to the courtyard with anyone and help settle their differences. It was always put in writing, and each party got a copy. In old family records, I still have some of these.
When twelve years of age, he had his own horse-operated threshing machine. He was always reluctant to talk of his early days, but when it was brought up by others he talked freely and we all loved it. His stories of college at Normal, Illinois, held us spellbound. Father and his watch were inseparable. He was always on time and wanted all others to be. His watch ruled the day. He attended church regularly, but always came by himself on time. Mother came along at her own sweet time. I can still hear him singing “Blessed Jehovah” in a good strong voice. Upon leaving church, he often was heard to say to the pastor, “Well done. I couldn’t have done better myself.” Somehow Mother learned of this and it was not heard again. In retrospect, we all learned that the minister, Reverend Frederick Nichol, enjoyed the remark immensely.
Even when young, we seemed to realize that Father had the deepest respect for Mother. She seldom interfered in the business, but outside of that, she was boss. I overheard her tell Father one time that he was making dollars hand over fist, but the pennies were rolling out of his pockets. He said, “Will you sew up the holes?” and she said, “I will do my best.” While this conversation was taking place, Mother was sitting on Father’s knee. Such a display between them was seldom seen by us, and we thought they had lost their minds. Now I look back and realize they had the deepest affection for each other, but not openly.
When Father was gone in the evening, I remember I was always uneasy, and when he strode in, all was fine. Our dog could hear his car coming long before I did and we then knew he was almost home. Our dog liked to sit in Father’s lap and Father was agreeable. This was short-lived as Father’s three-for-five-cent cigars practically asphyxiated the dog. Father had a love of all animals and they seemed to realize it.
We always were strictly a grocery store, with one exception. We handled good horse collars, both the work horse and buggy horse types. He felt a horse needed a good collar, and he would fit them to the horse. I have heard him say that often runaways were caused by ill-fitting and oppressive collars.
Father never knew a stranger. He was well-read and could converse on most any subject. We children always liked to bring friends home from college because he was a wonderful host. My brothers, John and Joe and myself were members of the same fraternity, and how we did love to have Father come visit. At dinner with forty men, he was very much at ease and always himself.
When I was a senior, he visited me and asked how I would like to have a new car of my own. We had always had a car up there of some kind. This surprised and delighted me, and in a short time I came home and got a new Chevy. The next summer I came home to work, and Father informed me he had borrowed the money for the car in my name, and now I could pay off the note, which I did gladly.
Father didn’t learn to drive until he was about sixty. He put our hearts in our mouths many times.
With the traffic of today, he would have been in trouble. He never had a serious accident, and the joke in our family was that he felt the good Lord would watch over him.
At this point, I want to thank John Baldridge again for putting my writings in the paper. That really gets coverage. I have mentioned this about John before, but I get more calls and visits every day.
A young man was in town the other day looking for some homes that his Father had told him to look up. He stopped at Ruth Egly’s, thinking that that was the former Crabille home. She called me, and we got him straightened out. The John Comer home at the north end of Main Street was the former Crabille home. We also found where the Bernard Kelly home was, as well as the Gookin and Belding homes. Several people, including this young man, have asked about the Jenny Newman home. I have mentioned this home a long time back, but here is a little more about it. This home stood at the northwest corner of Main and Lucas. A large brick house was built there by Petrus Johnson after building a small home for Mrs. Newman on the west end of the lot. The little house is still there and Mrs. Newman was to live there as long as she lived. For years, this lady lived as a recluse in a house that could have been a setting for an English murder story. The yard was a thicket of briars, and the house was unpainted with shutters hanging loose. We delivered groceries there, and I remember well her dog, Queenie, sitting at the table in a high chair. She also said her husband and son were at the table too, but this was her imagination.
Since we had a bakery, we always had day-old merchandise and lots of it ended up in the hands of the needy. Father was very good about this and lots of needy were helped.
There was no ride this week as I had company.
No comments:
Post a Comment