My husband’s grandfather died at 96 last week. Even though I saw him only infrequently over the past several years, he retained an honored place in my pantheon of truly good people.
Whenever we were together, he treated me as one of his own. Although my background was entirely different from just about everyone he had ever known before my entering his family, he could not have been more accepting and welcoming.
He was the oldest son of a farmer, and thus was expected to take over the family farm when his father could no longer handle it. He accepted his responsibility even though he didn’t want to be a farmer; his interest and great skill was in things mechanical.
After several years, he passed the farm on to a younger brother, but continued doing all sorts of work on it while at the same time attempting to run a engine shop in town.
None of this made much money, and he had a family of six children to support, so in the 1950's he took and passed a state civil service test to become an inspector of weights and measures. The job took him away from home most weeks as he traveled his sector of the state calibrating scales, gasoline pumps and the like. He didn’t much like being away from his wife and children, but he was a quietly sociable man and made friends wherever he went.
When it came time to retire, he went back to helping on the farm and being a one-man building trades practitioner. It seemed to me there was nothing in the way of carpentry, electrical, plumbing and other construction and remodeling tasks he couldn’t do. And if the job was too much for one man, his brother left the farm in his own son’s capable hands and joined my grandfather-in-law on the job.
The two brothers ran a saw-mill, grew strawberries and made maple syrup as cash crops. They went fishing in summer and deer hunting around Thanksgiving time, and as in most close country families, at the right age, they opened these rituals to succeeding generations of sons and cousins. All men, though. Women’s lib hadn’t penetrated this domain, and as he always contended, a woman can’t play a decent hand of sheepshead. On the other hand, all of his daughters went to college and graduate school, and all had distinguished careers.
He traveled some—more than most in his circle—always to spend some time with one or another of the kids. But although he got to Europe, Africa and Asia, he never tried to appear as anything but what he was—a countryman, a contented one and a good one. He was a good man, whom I shall always remember and always honor with my gratitude for having known him.
We'd be interested to hear about someone who enriched your life in unexpected ways
Paula Gifford