This past Sunday, Eric and I spent the afternoon with Dad, after having had to miss a few months because of wintry weather. My intention was to write down what he did in the military for posterity. There’s something very cool about having a servicemember for an ancestor. For instance, a tintype of a soldier in uniform will sell for a higher price than a tintype of an ordinary civilian. And even the old 1950’s family Bibles have several pages for Military Service in the family. The perennial question everyone wants to know is “What did you do in the war, Daddy?”
I even had a Bible verse ready for this post:
“... but the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits.”
~Daniel 11:32
So, armed with two photo albums and a pad of paper, we headed to Dad’s house in southern Indiana after church. I thought, “I’ll just turn to the pictures of his overseas locations and start writing when he tells me what they were.”
But that’s not how it turned out.
I was pretty sure at least one of the albums was something he had handed me several years ago, saying he didn’t want it but I might like to have it. Probably all the pictures of him with my mom were an eyesore to his second wife, and she wanted to be rid of them. So I was careful to avoid all the pictures of our little family that I treasured but he might not – where my parents obviously loved each other.
But now, both of Dad’s wives are dead and buried, and presumably both are in Heaven. So Dad was not willing to skip all the pictures I thought he wouldn’t like. Surprisingly, he recognized them all as his happy memories, too, most of which he’d taken himself! And he wanted to flip through both albums, page by page, and tell me stories. I couldn’t have loved that more! So I took lots of notes and we began at the beginning. This is Part 1, most of which I’ve covered before, but scantily. This time, a few more details, as Dad told me the old stories.
Flipping to the beginning of Album #1, so as not to miss anything, Dad exclaimed, “Oh, that was our wedding night!” (January of 1956)
Yes, that’s what it probably was, but I don’t know who took that picture! It was captioned simply: “Wow”
Not much further in, he saw pictures of Mom pregnant with me like this one:
“That car! I loved that car! It was a ‘47 Hudson. We wore it out, pulling the trailer across country. Poor car!”
Then he told me how when they were married, he didn’t have a driver’s license but she had one. He said he flunked the test a couple of times, the first from making too wide a turn, and the second from hitting a cone while trying to parallel park. Both were needed skills for towing that trailer, their first home, when it was time.
“Oh look! There’s my mother!” And in fact, there were several. My mom loved my Grandma Cheva. Here’s a really wonderful picture of her. She told me a long time ago that Grandma had fine, baby-soft hair. It looks like she has just been arranging Grandma’s hair for her in this picture from 1956. Mom must have been just barely 18, and Grandma probably was about 38-40.
And then, I was born.
“Oh look! There’s you! There’s a LOTTA pictures of you! I used to take a lot of pictures. That was me!”
Yes, I had discovered that! Here’s me, at three hours old, at Walter Reed Army Hospital. It’s my first baby picture, from October of 1956! And it is an observable fact that people have been pulling those lousy masks down under their noses for decades.
And when I grew up (to about 9 months old), and my mother was already pregnant with Rennie, we took our cross-country trip to Dad’s next station in California.
“Did I ever tell you what happened on the way to California?”
Before they reached California, the little family experienced something pretty scary: one of the tires on the trailer blew out, causing the trailer to swerve into the other lane – and it just missed being hit by a semi truck! I might have had a real short life and Rennie might not have seen the light of day if God hadn’t kept the truck at bay.
Mom and Dad ran out of money and couldn’t get all the way to California (probably from having to get a new tire), so they called Grandpa Ware. I guess they must have figured out how he could wire them some money.
When they got there, in August of 1957, they found a good church and before long (at least in my album), Dad was baptized.
“Look! There’s my baptism. That was before we were married,” he said.
“Oh yeah? Why does it say, “August of ‘57” on the edge of the picture?” But it was definitely Dad. Baptized in water by full immersion. This is precious to me, because my dad, early in his manhood, made a decision for Christ. Like me, he was baptized as a public testimony to the inward change. There was another picture nearby.
“In THAT church!” he said, pointing. And it was obviously a precious memory to him, too.
I loved how my dad loved those pictures. These were both meaningful to me, and meaningful to him. This is really not very far into Album #1, so there will be more stories from time to time. Just know, it was real. I was brought up with God – that’s how my mother and father wanted it. And I have never forgotten that.
When I left, my dad was watching from the porch and waving, his face beaming. It had been a very good day, a wonderfully healing day! And, again I am amazed at how much better God’s plan is for me, when I'm listening for His voice, than what I can ever dream up myself.
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