My grandfather passed away on Monday. He was less than two months shy of his 103rd birthday, if you can believe that. He was a very remarkable man. He was born in Langdon, ND in 1902. He married my grandmother in 1927 and they stayed together for nearly seventy years, until she died in 1996. They raised nine children, including my father. To his kids, grandkids, great grandkids, and to his one great great grandchild, he was known as Pappy.
I’m not sure where he got his zest for life. In so many ways he led a completely ordinary existence—if such a thing exists. He didn’t make a lot of money. He graduated from business college and worked for a while as a salesman for a bread company, but most of his professional life was spent as an over the road truck driver.
To my aunts, uncles, and my father Pappy was your standard Depression era father. He was the household mediator of corporal punishment for poor behavior. The fact that he could be gone for a week at a time on the road meant that when my grandmother uttered, “Wait until your father comes home!” the agony and anticipation might last for days. The family was kind of divided into two—the older kids and the younger kids. I imagine this is somewhat common in large families. My father was part of the younger group. The young ones got to experience some greater financial times for the family and even lived in a bigger house when the family left East Grand Forks for the suburbs of Minneapolis in 1958.
To listen to my uncles talk I see that they view Pappy much differently than me and the other grandkids do. To us Pappy was the kindly wood carver who was quick to chuckle and had a twinkle in his eye. I guess that is the privilege of aging.
I got to know Pappy much better in the last few years. I would often visit him on my own and spend a couple of hours talking to him about my grandmother and his life experiences. I wish now that I had written down some of what he had said. Already my memory is failing me and I know I’ve got some details wrong. He enjoyed baseball, but was only half the fan that my grandmother was. After he retired in the late 1960s he took up golf and wood carving. He started the annual family golf tournament that will be in its 36th year this fall. He last golfed in 1993 at the age of 91. His name is the first to appear on the ratty little trophy that gets passed on to the winner each year. I still have several of his carvings, including the set of horses he made for me as a child. My favorites were the birds he carved. Pappy never left me with the impression that he thought of himself as an artist, indeed some of his carvings are crude, but most have a sort of whimsical quality to them. But his birds are truly beautiful in the way he elongated their lines. It reminds of great Swedish carvings I’ve seen in museum exhibitions.
My most important memories of Pappy are from the early part of 2003. Just a few months after his 100th birthday he came down with pneumonia. In addition to the disease the doctors discovered that his kidneys were failing. One of my uncles was on his way back from a Mexican vacation so the doctors kept Pappy alive with machines until my uncle could return. The decision was to turn off his breathing device and take no extraordinary measures to preserve his life—which is what Pappy wanted. Somehow he made what could be described as a miraculous recovery. The next few months I visited him several times a week. I helped feed him and spent a lot of time talking with him. Prior to this most of my visits with him were done with my parents and my sister. It was nice to finally get to know him as two adults. I really value that time we spent together.
Unfortunately, the last time I saw him was back in April or May. I remember apologizing for my irregular and intermittent visits. He chuckled and said it was okay and that I was the most regular visitor of all the grandkids as it was. He knew that I was in grad school and working two jobs. He didn’t expect me to visit more than I could. But still, I wish I had seen him one more time.
The funeral is today at 1pm. Have a good rest, Pappy. You’ve certainly earned it.
