When I was a child many of my friends had an elderly relative living with their grandparents. Nursing homes were available but parents usually stayed with one of their children when they could no longer live alone.
Both sets of my grandparents had my grandfather’s fathers living with them while I was young and I don’t think of their homes from that time without remembering each of my great-grandfathers sitting in “his” easychair in an out-of-the-way corner.
My maternal grandfather’s father was called “Bi” (pronounced as “bye”) though I discovered later his real name was Almon Ezra. I don’t know how he got his nickname but none of us called him “Grampa” or “Grampie”; just “Bi”. He was a thin, small man with great, shaggy eye brows and good sized ears. A navy blue cardigan, patched at the elbows, and black, laced ankle shoes were everyday wear, summer or winter. When I was very young he would weed in the vegetable garden and a fine, early evening would often find him out there with long tweezers plucking slugs from the new leaves and dropping them in a jar containing a few inches of kerosene. Bi ’s toes had been amputated and he walked stiff-legged on his heels. We were always warned not to run or play near Bi while he was walking outside because his balance was precarious and an unintended shove would easily knock him over. I recall being very careful to stay a good fifteen feet away from him as he tottered along the uneven lawn and yelling at my younger brother to get away from him. I’m sure “S” would run much closer to Bi just to hear me carry on.
Bi’s chair was in my grandmother’s kitchen in a cozy nook between the woodstove and a window that gave him a view of the road and several of the neighbor’s houses. Actually, he could see all the way to the little general store and postoffice that sat at the end of the street. The window ledge and a small table held an assortment of his stuff; pipes, matches, tobacco, a magnifying glass and other old man accoutrements. Bi didn’t interact much with his great-grandchildren. His feet were apparently very tender and if we started horsing aound in the kitchen and got too close, he would lift his feet and holler, “Old man’s feet! Look out for old man’s feet!” That, of course, would invariably bring a grownup to scold us for playing too closely to Bi.
My paternal grandfather’s father lived a mile or so up the road so I saw him more. He was tall, pleasant and quiet. He usually sat in his chair in a corner of the dining room by the kitchen. The dining room was only used for large family gatherings a few times a year but it was a “pass through” room from the kitchen to the rest of the house. Great-grampa had a small bedroom off the dining room and, unless it was warm enough to sit on the porch, he would always be in his chair or napping on his bed. He never said much to the other grownups but would listen to the conversations in the kitchen from his chair just outside the room.
There were ten of us cousins at that time and when we all got together it could be quite wild. My mother would never allow us to run or yell in the house and I guess my great-grandfather appreciated that because he eventually began to call me to his chair occasionally. He never bothered to learn my name, just called me “little girl”. His son, my grandfather, didn’t like my name because it was too different and he called my by a common variation of my name until the day he died. Maybe that’s why great -grampa just called me “little girl”. Anyway, he would call me over and give me five or six gumdrops, always with the caveat to “…not tell the others”. Then I would sit on the old leather hassock close by and listen to stories of his family and passed generations while chewing on gumdrops. I realize now that he had a real love of history and family history in particular as did his son, my father’s father. Unfortunately, I cannot remember any those stories that he told me when I was between seven and nine years old. By the time I was ten he was becoming increasingly frail and didn’t talk to much of anyone.
Both of these great-grandfathers died in 1964 when I was thirteen. They were quiet men and they smelled alike of tobacco and old pencils.
They have now had their temple ordinances done for them and their families. What an extraordinary thing it is to participate in that work, to link these beloved ancestors back through time for the purpose of living without time in an eternal family.
I let Bogey’s hair grow all winter so he’ll be warm enough since we rarely turn the forced hot air furnace on here. R and I just add more layers if we get chilly and Bogey’s hair grows and grows.
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