He Died With His Boots On

My Grandfather was born between 1880 and 1888. All my grandparents were. As far as I know he was born on his Dad's ranch in Kansas along with all his siblings there. I'm 62 and my parents were born in 1916 and 1919 three years apart. I was born around 1950 and started having children in 1974.

My grand Dad (father's father) was kind of like a wiry John Wayne, who like my Dad stood about 6 foot 2 1/2 inches tall. Since he had red hair as a younger man than I knew him when he was a baseball pitcher in Kansas his nickname was "pinky".  I'm sure the guys that called him that had better have been good buddies or they might have gotten a punch in the mouth if I know him. Last night I was in southern California and my cousin was telling me about his experiences with Grandpa. My cousin (who is now about 65) said that Grandpa when my cousin was 9 years old told him to rototill by himself 2 acres of his land. My cousin dutifully rototilled (with a rototiller with none of today's safety features so it was actually quite dangerous) about one acre of land and told grandpa he had had enough. Grandpa responded by saying, "If you finish both acres I'll take you fishing." So my cousin finished the 2 acres thinking he was going fishing with Grandpa. However, when he had finished and asked Grandpa to take him fishing, Grandpa told him he was busy. My cousin within a few hours decided how to punish Grandpa for this. There were 6 windows waiting to be installed in one of Grandpa's houses on his acreage and my cousin dropped a big rock through them all and broke them all.

So, Grandpa was ready to beat my cousin but my cousin's mother stepped in and confronted Grandpa about his broken promise to my cousin. She was the only one of the five kids who could win an argument with Grandpa. I think it was because my aunt was an incredibly beautiful blond actress that was a lot in temperament like Grandpa. In other words "She could be tough as nails if she had to be".

Another time my aunt found out that her sister's husband had beaten her. She didn't say a word and simply went up to her sister's husband and put him in the hospital with a broken nose. Her sister's husband later thanked her for doing that and they had a great respect for each other after that.

As you can gather from this so far it sort of sounds like you are in a cowboy movie or something. And yes, my Dad's families attitude was straight out of the wild west of the 1880s which went something like, "I'm going to survive no matter what! Get out of my way!" This sort of sums up the "Never say die!" attitude of my father's very pioneer like family of survivors no matter what.

These incidents so far took place between 1937 and 1950. I should add my young experiences with Grandpa to show you my relationship with him. I was his youngest Grandson born 1948. His oldest grandson was born some time between 1936 and 1940. So my memories of Grandpa start when I was about 3 years old when I pushed a little girl from an acre or two away down a flight of cement stairs on my Grandad's 2 1/2 acres. He promptly beat me within an inch of my life because I deserved it and because she(my 3 year old friend from next door) got pretty banged up falling down a flight of cement stairs. Even I had a vague idea of why I was being beaten when I saw what happened to my little friend.

The next memory was of walking to this little girl's house to play ( a couple of acres away by myself). I was allowed to do this at 3 or 4 because everything was different than now back then. On my way I got too close to a hornet's nest and they began to sting me repeatedly. So, because I was in pain and terrified I ran back screaming in pain and horror. My Grandad calmed me down and asked where the nest was. He showed me the gasoline can and told me he would burn them up for what they had done to me. My Grandad had made a friend for life right then and there.

As recently as 10 to 12 years ago I used this trick myself to rid my back yard from a hornet's nest to protect my own 3 year old daughter from a nest in our backyard. Although most people aren't used to what gasoline can do so I might recommend something else like kerosene or something else that won't flash up as much as gasoline does. Someone told me that a cup of gasoline has the potential explosive power of 7 sticks of dynamite. (However, I think that would be when it is measured when exploding in a gasoline engine during combustion). As a caveat I once tried to light a fire during the winter in a wood stove in my shop in snow country because I couldn't feel my fingers very much. However, I wound up burning off one side of my mustache and the eyebrow and eyelashes on that same side when I was about 28 years old. So, remember if you use gasoline it can surprise you if you burn up a hornet's nest with it.

So Grandpa at about age 45 or 50 decided he was going to retire from being an Electrical Contractor in Seattle, Washington (at least during the spring and summer). So, at 45 he decided to let his oldest son run his business for 6 months of the year by himself (My Dad's oldest brother). So Grandpa would leave my Grandma 6 months a year from spring until fall alone in Seattle while he went to his 2000 acre mining claim that he had built a cabin on and did this continuously (as far as I now know) from  just after world war II until he died in 1970 around November, I believe.

I could tell many amazing stories about my Grandad that might remind you of someone like a Davey Crockett or Daniel Boone kind of character in a slightly more modern day setting but not today. Today I just want to share the very end of my Grandad's life. Two months before I had seen my Grand Dad under not very good circumstances. I was 21 and I had just been excommunicated from my parent's church and lost the lady within the church who I had planned to marry and wasn't in very good shape. In a very terrible way his prediction of what would happen to me if Dad raised me in a christian cult had happened and it was taking a toll on my as I was headed then for near suicide off and on for a few years. Since I reminded him so much of himself this was very hard for him to take. I loved nature like he did and was very stubborn like him and like him I never gave up once I set my mind to something. So, I think he suffered a lot with having his worst fears realized for me, his youngest grandson. The next month my grandmother suffered a stroke and was put in a convalescent home. The next month Grandpa was dead.

Grandpa had a Panel Truck that he bought from the U.S. Forest Service that he traveled back and forth to and from Elk City, Idaho every spring and fall every year. So he would winter in Seattle where the ocean keeps it a little warmer and keeps the snow to a minimum and then spend every spring and summer near Elk City, Idaho where he had his 2000 acre mining claim.

Only this year after what had happened to me and then his wife having a stroke and put into a convalescent home, he wasn't doing very well. So when he drove over the dirt road along the river to his mining claim a wheel bearing froze in one of his wheels and it through him into the river. Luckily, (or unluckily) depending upon your point of view, men who were wearing wet suits were dredging the river and vacuuming it for gold so they rescued him so he didn't drown. Then they helped winch his panel truck(Van) up the embankment and back onto the road again and a mechanic changed the wheel bearing and he just drove to his cabin. Now, there was no way while grandpa was conscious that he would ever let someone take him to a hospital again. So he just stayed in his cabin and someone phoned his son Bob. (probably Grandpa) to come help him. Bob left Grandpa there for 3 days likely knowing that Grandpa wanted to die from his injuries without going to a hospital and Bob likely didn't want to have to watch all this happen. My cousin's mother pestered Bob to go get him and finally after 3 days he drove from Seattle to Idaho to check on his old man, (Grandpa). By then that time of year at that altitude Grandpa was blue from the cold. His three spoke old fashioned chair he was sitting on had broken somehow and one or two of the spoke was stuck into his back and he was on the floor turning blue. When Bob arrived Grandpa asked for a cigarrette and Bob told him he had to go to the hospital. Grandpa died between his cabin and the nearest hospital so he died with his boots on and not in a hospital like he always wanted. I'm so happy to hear last night that Grandpa died the way he wanted to and not in a hospital or convalescent home. I hope I'll be that lucky when my time comes too.