Today was my dad’s birthday. It’s been a while since I was able to tell him happy birthday in person. He died of pancreatic cancer in 1986. That’s one of those cancer diagnosis you don’t want to hear. Dad didn’t do treatments. The doctors said it wouldn’t help and Dad did not like doctors or their needles. He stayed away from doctors most of his adult life. I can only remember him going to a doctor twice and one of those times was for this cancer diagnosis. He had made it through some scary health times when he was a boy. His mother made him wear some sort of asphidity bag with garlic or onion to ward off the flu during the terrible flu epidemic of 1918. Then when he was a teenager he went to Louisville on a train to have his tonsils out. By himself. Things were different back then. Maybe that was enough to make him determined to not get near doctors after that.
But he was a good guy with an adventurous spirit. When he was twenty-one he bought a motorcycle and went out west all the way to Oregon. That was in 1932. He loved that motorcycle and it sat in the garage for many years. But I never saw him ride it. I think by the time I came along it needed some kind of repairs. But he had such great memories of his trips on the motorcycle.
He met my mom on a double date when he was in his twenties and she was in her teens. They were each on the date with someone else, but my mother said she knew as soon as she saw him that he was the man she was going to marry. They went on some dates on that motorcycle. Mom had those cute culottes that she wore to ride with him. The day after she graduated high school, they went to a preacher’s house and got married. She was nineteen and he was twenty-eight.
He surely would have liked a son, but he got three daughters. I was the last daughter and I have no doubt he hoped I would be a boy. But instead he had a houseful of females. But we were farm girls and worked in the fields and helped with the crops. Made for plenty of family time. We worked together. We ate meals together. We sat around the wood stove to stay warm in the winter time. We watched television together and generally the program he liked best on one of the two channels we could get to come in with the antenna.
He loved to play cards and was very competitive. He taught us girls to play Rook at a young age. My two sisters still don’t especially like to play Rook even though they like other card games. Dad had a wooden checkerboard that he would play solitaire on. He also liked any kind of puzzle that took brain power to figure out. He went to high school one day, didn’t like it and didn’t go back. But he could work all our algebra problems when we were in high school. Maybe not like the teacher worked them, but he got the right answers. He had an old math book and worked the problems for fun. He taught my son when he was four that six times seven was forty-two.
When I got my first camera, I never had to ask him twice to take a picture. He liked to pose for me. I like this picture of him with my mom on the left and my aunt, his only sibling, on the right. He and his sister were very close. She never married and was a special aunt for us girls.
He was a good dad back in the day when dads didn’t generally change diapers or wipe runny noses. But he did love us and would have fought tigers for us if tigers had been a threat. He taught us how to work and be responsible in doing whatever needed doing. He loved making homemade ice cream in the summer time and especially after the grandkids came along.
Sometimes, when we all came visiting with our young families, he would tell Mom to just look around the table at us and the seven grandkids and see what the two of them had started. If he was here now and able to look around at the extended families, he might be even more proud.
I remember his smile. Happy birthday in heaven, Dad.
What special memories do you have of your dad?
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I loved your post about your dad. My dad also died of pancreatic cancer. It was heartbreaking to go through with him but I cherish each moment that we spent after he knew he would die, long before any of us ever thought he would. We said beautiful things to each other that we never would have otherwise. I have so many precious memories. He was a man of the earth and spent a great deal of his time outside. I lived riding the tractor with him, walking behind him in the freshly orepared soil dropping the seeds into the soil as he made the special places for them. So many more memories creep up as I write!
Author
Wonderful, Linda. It’s wonderful to have such good memories of one’s dad and it sounds as though you have many sweet memories of times with your dad. Also, he must have been a special man to face death and to help you have a good parting. He gave you a gift there.
Thank you for these wonderful memories of your Dad, Ann. He was certainly a blessing to you and your family. My Dad was killed in France during WWII when I was three weeks old. I’ve always been just a bit envious of anyone who has,
or had, a father like yours.
Author
So sorry you never got to have your father hold you and take you fishing and all the other things Dads do. Very sad. And so many young men didn’t come home from the war. We should never forget that sacrifice they made and their families, like yours, made.
My throat grew tight reading about your Dad. It reminded me of my own who I lost in 1997. To have a good Dad (or Mom) is priceless. Happy Birthday to your Dad in heaven. He would have been so proud of you.
Author
I hope my post made you remember some good times with your dad, Donna. As long as those memories are alive in your heart, your dad is still with you the same as mine is with me.
Oh Ann! I just read your story about your dad, and it brought back some wonderful memories of my dad. Memories I will always cherish.
Both my mom and dad were farmers. Dad worked a number of jobs over the years, along with farming, but farming was in his blood. I believe he loved every thing about it, from raising crops to caring for the animals.
For several years he and mom were share croppers. The farm they lived on was owned by three brothers that mom and dad grew up with. And dad loved these men like brothers. They raised tobacco. And they all worked together, my dad, Frank, Howard, Paul and my mom.
They started work early in the morning, after my dad got home. Dad worked the night shift in a factory, then did his farmwork during the day. So when they worked the tobacco fields, mom quit work first so she could prepare lunch for everyone. Then we all came in and ate lunch. The men then moved out under a shade tree, to relax, cool down and give mom a chance to wash dishes and put up any food that might be left over.
There were no sandwiches or a light lunches to make it easy for mom. She cooked good heavy meals, that they all loved. Things like fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, beans, cornbread and a few other dishes. They all loved mom’s cooking, and she never let them down.
We too sat around the wood stove, talking and laughing, as we tried to keep warm in the winter time.
Dad took care of the animals we had on the farm. I remember how he taught cows to go to the barn, when it was milking time. And if an animal was so sick it seemed as if it might die, dad would work with it and after a few days it was as good as new. Dad went to the vet and got the vaccinations he needed for the animals. He never called the vet to care for any of the animals. He never needed to. He did it all himself.
Christmas time was always special to us, though the gifts were always slim. We appreciated what we had. But one thing we always had for Christmas was a big box of assorted fruit and candy. Dad always made sure we had that.
He loved to fish and hunt. He taught us that you never point a gun at anything you don’t intend to shoot.
Dad never turned away anyone who needed his help. There were times he took out loans to help someone in need.
He had a great sense of humor, and could even laugh at himself, when the time arose.
And he loved to play rook. When my aunt and uncle moved down the road from us, we would get together, and play rook all night long, when dad was off work on weekends. And we all enjoyed playing.
My dad passed away in 1982, from lung cancer. I still miss him. He was a great dad.
Author
What great memories of your dad, Bessie. Thank you so much for sharing them here. I know what you mean about those meals for the work hands on a farm. My mom did some of that kind of cooking too. And then went back out in the fields to work too as it sounds as if your mother did too. My husband likes to remember those meals when he was helping neighbors work in hay of tobacco when he was a teenager. Nothing like a country cook who can load down a table with good food. His dad always got the fruit and candy at Christmas too. I remember we got some candy but don’t remember a lot of fruit.
Nothing can compare to getting to grow up on a farm even if we did have to help in the tobacco fields and with the hay and wood. Wouldn’t change my childhood years for anything now.
Love this story. Reminds me a bit of my papaw.
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Glad you enjoyed reading about my day, Angela. So many memories.