Somewhere I read that memories are spurred by sounds and scents. Scents
for sure trigger my memories. Old Spice and cigar smoke those are my Dad. I
still look around when I smell them wondering what room he is in. Big, manly in the way men were in the
past, square jawed, muscled, hair on the chest, wearing ties and fedoras. That
was my dad—the person who gave me his strength, his widow’s peak, his zest for
life and his love
He was born in 1911 in the middle of the cold month of, February and it must
have been a difficult birth because Flossie, his mother, was bedridden for the next year. I have no idea
who cared for him during that time as his family carried stiff upper lip to the
extreme. I like to think it was one my great grandmothers, Survilla Bailey Kistler
or Catherine Roderick James, but I honestly do not know.
His mother
Flossie must have been a rebel in her youth though not much about her childhood
or teens are known. She married young and was seventeen nearly eighteen at his
birth. Country records show she and Charles were married in June of 1910 which
makes his birth barely with the honeymoon conception myth. Also Charlie was a
hired man on the Kistler farm and I imagine the conception was from a hayloft
tryst though this romantic image irritated his sisters.
I do know he was a looking boy as I have a
photo of him at age three in short pants and high button shoes staring out at
the camera from the wicker chair. His
gaze is solemn and even then the square jaw and wavy hair are attractive. The
jaw has passed down the generations with amazing consistency though the wavy
hair tends to skip around in the descendants.
The next photo is in his high school yearbook, actually in the yearbook
of all the Trumbull County high schools. His was a class of six-- four girls
and two boys-- at Lordstown High. He is listed as a three-sport athlete one of
which was baseball and as class president and valedictorian. The hair is still
wavy, but he is less solemn in this photo. He stares out at the camera
clear-eyed and with the optimism of youth. The devilish twinkle of someone who
liked to be part of the fun cannot be ignored. It is what will define his life.
[
He was no
saint. He was a young male with all the proclivities of young males then and
now. His graduation address which I still have written in his own hand is
optimistic and clichéd. “ We will be
successful.”, he states without sensing
the troubled nation he would soon be a citizen of.
College was not in his future as he
graduated in 1929. By September of that year, he realized the money was not
there from the farm income so he went to work for a year to earn the tuition. In
October the black Friday ended that dream as his income helped his sisters to
finish high school.
Sometime
during the depression years he married. He never spoke of it .I only know it
did not last long. I learned about this marriage when my cousin Patty angry at me
for some reason spit out at me, “ At least , I do not have a half-brother I
never knew about.”
I n tears I ran to Flossie and asked her if
this was true. I can recall her reply.” Yes he was married but the boy is nt
your brother or so your dad believes.” Years later fetching he hairbrush for
her I opened the drawer and saw a letter to grandmom from Charles Wheeler and
his photo was with it.
He had glasses like dad and the
widow’s peak we had all received as a genetic gift from Flossie. His picture
was much like Dad’s senior picture. Later I would learn his mother remarried
and her husband had adopted the boy.I never sought this man out and now I
wonder why I did not. I suspect it was because I was not supposed to know he
existed and I did not want to hurt my parents.
Dad was a big man 6’3” with a barrel chest and narrow waist. His hands were huge but I never saw them
raised in violence. I did hear several times as I matured people say,” that Roy
James if he ever gets mad, watch out.” I knew he had a low flashpoint on a big
temper but he never expressed physically to Mom or I. With others, I cannot be
sure but I know people did not try to arouse it. That temper was as brief as it
was quick. As often as I got him heated as a teen, he always cooled almost
immediately and quickly made things right. Like the John Wayne “ I am not going
to ---- the hell, I am not” quote, Dad often walked away only to come back to
end things one-way or the other. Never with physically violence but to talk
things out once he had cooled down. To be sure he never changed his mind but
eventually he would accept that you were entitled to your own viewpoint.
Mom and Dad seemed like polar opposites. He wanted adventure; she was a
homebody. He went at life full fisted; she took cautious steps. He was
passionate (I think this now based on how he lived); she was frigid (which I found
out only after I married.) while sex
between them was a given, I can remember her telling after I was married that
she often prayed long enough that he would fall asleep, and thus sex was
avoided. When I divorced years later, she told me,” Well no more of that icky
sex stuff. Aren’t you glad?” I can recall her shocked face when I told “that
was a part of marriage I would miss.”
How did they say married thirty-five years?
I think it was because once he left the steel mill and the macho male beer
drinking co-workers and was on the road five days a week they worked well
together. He had a secure home base with a faithful wife, and she loved the
independence his being gone gave her. I could sense his appreciation of how she
cared for him, and she liked the fact that if she needed him all she had to was
get in touch with him wherever he was. He was bigger than life and expanded her
world; he had an island of comforting care when he needed it.
Weekends for me were bliss. Dad would come roaring into our routine and
throw most of it out the window. His laundry would get done. (Thanks to him, I
still hate ironing__ another story). We would go out to dinner or do something
that did not happen during the week and one day of every weekend he and I would
go to the movies---mostly westerns but I did not care I was with my dad.
Dad made life zing; Mom made it
stable. Both made me behave. A vivid memory comes up as I write. I was five orsix
at the most, and begged Dad to go watch a high school basketball game with him
and his cronies. He took me but when bored, I began to fidget and whine. He
took me to the car, and I was triumphant sure we were going home. No way, we
sat in that car while he explained to me that we were going back to the game,
and I would sit still and be good because it was my choice to attend. He did
not rail at me in the gym but took me to the privacy of the car to settle
tings. It was a gift not many of my generation would have when caught acting
out. I only needed that lesson once and
today kids who cannot sit through a movie, play, church service etc. are a pet
peeve.
.]
When his health gave way and he had to quit work and rely on mom for
help, it broke my heart. But he accepted it with quiet dignity and though I am
sure he did complain at times, he and Mom never repeated those compaints to
each other or to anyone else. He loved
for us to visit and to bring our two rambunctious girls to liven up the place
while Mom worked to help with expenses. The day Mom called and told me to come,
I foisted the girls off on someone and to this day I do not recall who, called
Bud , my husband,on the CD, fueled the car and drove across Nebraska and Kansas
at night to be with him. I pulled into their drive as I ran out of gas, slept a
couple hours and went to the hospital with Mom. Dad was not fully aware of
things and was only being kept comfortable by choice. I stood by the bed, took
his hand, said, “I’m here”. A few minutes later, as I sat beside Mom, he moaned
turned a bit toward us raised his hand and was gone. I will never know if he knew I was there, but
I like to believe he did.
23/10/2015 revised and done
Somewhere I read that memories are spurred by sounds and scents. Scents
for sure trigger my memories. Old Spice and cigar smoke those are my Dad. I
still look around when I smell them wondering what room he is in.
[Big, manly in the way men were in the
past, square jawed, muscled, hair on the chest, wearing ties and fedoras. That
was my dad—the person who gave me his strength, his widow’s peak, his zest for
life and his love
He was born in 1911 in the middle of the cold month of, February and it must
have been a difficult birth because Flossie, his mother, was bedridden for the next year. I have no idea
who cared for him during that time as his family carried stiff upper lip to the
extreme. I like to think it was one my great grandmothers, Survilla Bailey Kistler
or Catherine Roderick James, but I honestly do not know.
His mother
Flossie must have been a rebel in her youth though not much about her childhood
or teens are known. She married young and was seventeen nearly eighteen at his
birth. Country records show she and Charles were married in June of 1910 which
makes his birth barely with the honeymoon conception myth. Also Charlie was a
hired man on the Kistler farm and I imagine the conception was from a hayloft
tryst though this romantic image irritated his sisters.
I do know he was a looking boy as I have a
photo of him at age three in short pants and high button shoes staring out at
the camera from the wicker chair. His
gaze is solemn and even then the square jaw and wavy hair are attractive. The
jaw has passed down the generations with amazing consistency though the wavy
hair tends to skip around in the descendants.
The next photo is in his high school yearbook, actually in the yearbook
of all the Trumbull County high schools. His was a class of six-- four girls
and two boys-- at Lordstown High. He is listed as a three-sport athlete one of
which was baseball and as class president and valedictorian. The hair is still
wavy, but he is less solemn in this photo. He stares out at the camera
clear-eyed and with the optimism of youth. The devilish twinkle of someone who
liked to be part of the fun cannot be ignored. It is what will define his life.
[
He was no
saint. He was a young male with all the proclivities of young males then and
now. His graduation address which I still have written in his own hand is
optimistic and clichéd. “ We will be
successful.”, he states without sensing
the troubled nation he would soon be a citizen of.
College was not in his future as he
graduated in 1929. By September of that year, he realized the money was not
there from the farm income so he went to work for a year to earn the tuition. In
October the black Friday ended that dream as his income helped his sisters to
finish high school.
Sometime
during the depression years he married. He never spoke of it .I only know it
did not last long. I learned about this marriage when my cousin Patty angry at me
for some reason spit out at me, “ At least , I do not have a half-brother I
never knew about.”
I n tears I ran to Flossie and asked her if
this was true. I can recall her reply.” Yes he was married but the boy is nt
your brother or so your dad believes.” Years later fetching he hairbrush for
her I opened the drawer and saw a letter to grandmom from Charles Wheeler and
his photo was with it.
He had glasses like dad and the
widow’s peak we had all received as a genetic gift from Flossie. His picture
was much like Dad’s senior picture. Later I would learn his mother remarried
and her husband had adopted the boy.I never sought this man out and now I
wonder why I did not. I suspect it was because I was not supposed to know he
existed and I did not want to hurt my parents.
Dad was a big man 6’3” with a barrel chest and narrow waist. His hands were huge but I never saw them
raised in violence. I did hear several times as I matured people say,” that Roy
James if he ever gets mad, watch out.” I knew he had a low flashpoint on a big
temper but he never expressed physically to Mom or I. With others, I cannot be
sure but I know people did not try to arouse it. That temper was as brief as it
was quick. As often as I got him heated as a teen, he always cooled almost
immediately and quickly made things right. Like the John Wayne “ I am not going
to ---- the hell, I am not” quote, Dad often walked away only to come back to
end things one-way or the other. Never with physically violence but to talk
things out once he had cooled down. To be sure he never changed his mind but
eventually he would accept that you were entitled to your own viewpoint.
Mom and Dad seemed like polar opposites. He wanted adventure; she was a
homebody. He went at life full fisted; she took cautious steps. He was
passionate (I think this now based on how he lived); she was frigid (which I found
out only after I married.) while sex
between them was a given, I can remember her telling after I was married that
she often prayed long enough that he would fall asleep, and thus sex was
avoided. When I divorced years later, she told me,” Well no more of that icky
sex stuff. Aren’t you glad?” I can recall her shocked face when I told “that
was a part of marriage I would miss.”
How did they say married thirty-five years?
I think it was because once he left the steel mill and the macho male beer
drinking co-workers and was on the road five days a week they worked well
together. He had a secure home base with a faithful wife, and she loved the
independence his being gone gave her. I could sense his appreciation of how she
cared for him, and she liked the fact that if she needed him all she had to was
get in touch with him wherever he was. He was bigger than life and expanded her
world; he had an island of comforting care when he needed it.
Weekends for me were bliss. Dad would come roaring into our routine and
throw most of it out the window. His laundry would get done. (Thanks to him, I
still hate ironing__ another story). We would go out to dinner or do something
that did not happen during the week and one day of every weekend he and I would
go to the movies---mostly westerns but I did not care I was with my dad.
Dad made life zing; Mom made it
stable. Both made me behave. A vivid memory comes up as I write. I was five orsix
at the most, and begged Dad to go watch a high school basketball game with him
and his cronies. He took me but when bored, I began to fidget and whine. He
took me to the car, and I was triumphant sure we were going home. No way, we
sat in that car while he explained to me that we were going back to the game,
and I would sit still and be good because it was my choice to attend. He did
not rail at me in the gym but took me to the privacy of the car to settle
tings. It was a gift not many of my generation would have when caught acting
out. I only needed that lesson once and
today kids who cannot sit through a movie, play, church service etc. are a pet
peeve.
.]
When his health gave way and he had to quit work and rely on mom for
help, it broke my heart. But he accepted it with quiet dignity and though I am
sure he did complain at times, he and Mom never repeated those compaints to
each other or to anyone else. He loved
for us to visit and to bring our two rambunctious girls to liven up the place
while Mom worked to help with expenses. The day Mom called and told me to come,
I foisted the girls off on someone and to this day I do not recall who, called
Bud , my husband,on the CD, fueled the car and drove across Nebraska and Kansas
at night to be with him. I pulled into their drive as I ran out of gas, slept a
couple hours and went to the hospital with Mom. Dad was not fully aware of
things and was only being kept comfortable by choice. I stood by the bed, took
his hand, said, “I’m here”. A few minutes later, as I sat beside Mom, he moaned
turned a bit toward us raised his hand and was gone. I will never know if he knew I was there, but
I like to believe he did.
23/10/2015 revised and done
Somewhere I read that memories are spurred by sounds and scents. Scents
for sure trigger my memories. Old Spice and cigar smoke those are my Dad. I
still look around when I smell them wondering what room he is in.
[Big, manly in the way men were in the
past, square jawed, muscled, hair on the chest, wearing ties and fedoras. That
was my dad—the person who gave me his strength, his widow’s peak, his zest for
life and his love
He was born in 1911 in the middle of the cold month of, February and it must
have been a difficult birth because Flossie, his mother, was bedridden for the next year. I have no idea
who cared for him during that time as his family carried stiff upper lip to the
extreme. I like to think it was one my great grandmothers, Survilla Bailey Kistler
or Catherine Roderick James, but I honestly do not know.
His mother
Flossie must have been a rebel in her youth though not much about her childhood
or teens are known. She married young and was seventeen nearly eighteen at his
birth. Country records show she and Charles were married in June of 1910 which
makes his birth barely with the honeymoon conception myth. Also Charlie was a
hired man on the Kistler farm and I imagine the conception was from a hayloft
tryst though this romantic image irritated his sisters.
I do know he was a looking boy as I have a
photo of him at age three in short pants and high button shoes staring out at
the camera from the wicker chair. His
gaze is solemn and even then the square jaw and wavy hair are attractive. The
jaw has passed down the generations with amazing consistency though the wavy
hair tends to skip around in the descendants.
The next photo is in his high school yearbook, actually in the yearbook
of all the Trumbull County high schools. His was a class of six-- four girls
and two boys-- at Lordstown High. He is listed as a three-sport athlete one of
which was baseball and as class president and valedictorian. The hair is still
wavy, but he is less solemn in this photo. He stares out at the camera
clear-eyed and with the optimism of youth. The devilish twinkle of someone who
liked to be part of the fun cannot be ignored. It is what will define his life.
[
He was no
saint. He was a young male with all the proclivities of young males then and
now. His graduation address which I still have written in his own hand is
optimistic and clichéd. “ We will be
successful.”, he states without sensing
the troubled nation he would soon be a citizen of.
College was not in his future as he
graduated in 1929. By September of that year, he realized the money was not
there from the farm income so he went to work for a year to earn the tuition. In
October the black Friday ended that dream as his income helped his sisters to
finish high school.
Sometime
during the depression years he married. He never spoke of it .I only know it
did not last long. I learned about this marriage when my cousin Patty angry at me
for some reason spit out at me, “ At least , I do not have a half-brother I
never knew about.”
I n tears I ran to Flossie and asked her if
this was true. I can recall her reply.” Yes he was married but the boy is nt
your brother or so your dad believes.” Years later fetching he hairbrush for
her I opened the drawer and saw a letter to grandmom from Charles Wheeler and
his photo was with it.
He had glasses like dad and the
widow’s peak we had all received as a genetic gift from Flossie. His picture
was much like Dad’s senior picture. Later I would learn his mother remarried
and her husband had adopted the boy.I never sought this man out and now I
wonder why I did not. I suspect it was because I was not supposed to know he
existed and I did not want to hurt my parents.
Dad was a big man 6’3” with a barrel chest and narrow waist. His hands were huge but I never saw them
raised in violence. I did hear several times as I matured people say,” that Roy
James if he ever gets mad, watch out.” I knew he had a low flashpoint on a big
temper but he never expressed physically to Mom or I. With others, I cannot be
sure but I know people did not try to arouse it. That temper was as brief as it
was quick. As often as I got him heated as a teen, he always cooled almost
immediately and quickly made things right. Like the John Wayne “ I am not going
to ---- the hell, I am not” quote, Dad often walked away only to come back to
end things one-way or the other. Never with physically violence but to talk
things out once he had cooled down. To be sure he never changed his mind but
eventually he would accept that you were entitled to your own viewpoint.
Mom and Dad seemed like polar opposites. He wanted adventure; she was a
homebody. He went at life full fisted; she took cautious steps. He was
passionate (I think this now based on how he lived); she was frigid (which I found
out only after I married.) while sex
between them was a given, I can remember her telling after I was married that
she often prayed long enough that he would fall asleep, and thus sex was
avoided. When I divorced years later, she told me,” Well no more of that icky
sex stuff. Aren’t you glad?” I can recall her shocked face when I told “that
was a part of marriage I would miss.”
How did they say married thirty-five years?
I think it was because once he left the steel mill and the macho male beer
drinking co-workers and was on the road five days a week they worked well
together. He had a secure home base with a faithful wife, and she loved the
independence his being gone gave her. I could sense his appreciation of how she
cared for him, and she liked the fact that if she needed him all she had to was
get in touch with him wherever he was. He was bigger than life and expanded her
world; he had an island of comforting care when he needed it.
Weekends for me were bliss. Dad would come roaring into our routine and
throw most of it out the window. His laundry would get done. (Thanks to him, I
still hate ironing__ another story). We would go out to dinner or do something
that did not happen during the week and one day of every weekend he and I would
go to the movies---mostly westerns but I did not care I was with my dad.
Dad made life zing; Mom made it
stable. Both made me behave. A vivid memory comes up as I write. I was five orsix
at the most, and begged Dad to go watch a high school basketball game with him
and his cronies. He took me but when bored, I began to fidget and whine. He
took me to the car, and I was triumphant sure we were going home. No way, we
sat in that car while he explained to me that we were going back to the game,
and I would sit still and be good because it was my choice to attend. He did
not rail at me in the gym but took me to the privacy of the car to settle
tings. It was a gift not many of my generation would have when caught acting
out. I only needed that lesson once and
today kids who cannot sit through a movie, play, church service etc. are a pet
peeve.
.]
When his health gave way and he had to quit work and rely on mom for
help, it broke my heart. But he accepted it with quiet dignity and though I am
sure he did complain at times, he and Mom never repeated those compaints to
each other or to anyone else. He loved
for us to visit and to bring our two rambunctious girls to liven up the place
while Mom worked to help with expenses. The day Mom called and told me to come,
I foisted the girls off on someone and to this day I do not recall who, called
Bud , my husband,on the CD, fueled the car and drove across Nebraska and Kansas
at night to be with him. I pulled into their drive as I ran out of gas, slept a
couple hours and went to the hospital with Mom. Dad was not fully aware of
things and was only being kept comfortable by choice. I stood by the bed, took
his hand, said, “I’m here”. A few minutes later, as I sat beside Mom, he moaned
turned a bit toward us raised his hand and was gone. I will never know if he knew I was there, but
I like to believe he did.
23/10/2015 revised and done
