Memorial Day

[osprey_archer]

Memorial Day is a day for soldiers who died in battle. Without any intention of disrespecting them, however, I am going to write about my grandfather, who served during World War II, but lived to old age.



My grandfather’s battalion never went overseas; they were stationed, inexplicably, just north of Mexico. He learned a very little Spanish while he was there, and once I started studying Spanish he liked to repeat it to me. ¿Como estás? Bien, abuelo.

I’ve always wondered if he learned some saltier stuff – this was the army – but Grandpa would never have used that kind of language in front of ladies.

He grew up on a farm, and was very much in the tradition of the innocent, old-fashioned farmboy with a hidden penchant for romance. My grandmother isn’t and never was a city girl, so they aren’t a couple out of that old story; but she did meet my grandfather when he climbed through the window at the courthouse where she was working. He saw her tap-tap-tapping away at her typewriter, and she was just so pretty that he just had to meet her.

So yes, he was old-fashioned. It wasn’t always in a good way. I remember one time he commented, in a tone of perplexity and wonderment, that the next county over had a colored man in the district council. But he sent both his daughters to college, along with his son.

I think he was sometimes a difficult father. My mother smoked for a year during college, evidently purely to rebel because she made a point of doing it when she went home for Thanksgiving. Her father sat at the edge of his seat, saying it was FINE, perfectly FINE, gripping the arms of the chair: it wasn’t fine but damned if he’d admit to being defied in his own house.

But he was also very kind. Maybe he’d mellowed by the time I met him. He used to till up a garden patch so my brother and I could run around in the soft soil. He loved to garden, and I found out at the funeral he used to grow so much produce that he’d just give it away, bushels of tomatoes to charity.

And there was always ice cream at my grandfather’s house. My grandmother would make cherry pies (she can’t anymore, her hands are too stiff), and Grandpa would get out the ice cream and say, “You scream, I scream, we all scream for ice cream!”—and we’d all have pie a la mode, and it was delicious.

We weren’t close, my grandfather and I. But I’m sorry he’s gone.

Comments

[exuberantself.livejournal.com]

I think that there's this cultural archetype for "grandfather" that's developed in the way that children perceive their family, but I'm too tired to think clearly about it right now.

Either way, he sounds a bit like my grandfather, and that makes him a great man in my mind. Was your other grandfather not involved in the war?

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Do you know, I don't actually know? My other grandfather died when I was eight, and I know less about him.

However, I expect he was in the States. He was a chemist, and thus probably working at some sort of war-important factory; and also my uncle was born in '43 and my father in '44.

Actually, I do have a story involving that grandpa and the military. His father had fled Czechoslovakia when it was still part of Austria-Hungray, back when the Austrians were drafting men into their army for twenty-year stints.

He wouldn't let my grandfather join the Boy Scouts because they were too militaristic.

[exuberantself.livejournal.com]

Okay, first: twenty year stints? Really? I might have laughed a little at the Boy Scouts thing.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Twenty year stints is the family story. I haven't actually researched it or anything; the could have gotten blown out of proportion in the retelling.

But it's the kind of thing Austria-Hungary might do, so I wouldn't lay odds on that.

[exuberantself.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can see how not doing that might have been a totally reasonable option then.

[anait.livejournal.com]

This was lovely to read. Thanks for sharing.

Both of my grandfathers were sometimes-difficult-men who were affected by WWII as well.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

It seems so odd to me that the World War II generation is dying off. I mean, obviously that's what generations do, but...they're the World War II generation! They were going to live forever!

But they're going, and I have this sudden feeling of my family history slipping through my fingers like sand. I'm thinking of making it a summer project - not hardcore genealogy, which is just names and dates and boring, but gathering up the family stories that are left and writing them up somewhere.

[anait.livejournal.com]

That's a really worthwhile project!

My sister (the one who isn't in fandom) is very into genealogy, and she's found some amazing stuff for our family -- she loves the research and she's very good at it. She found a book written by a cousin of my father about the village that his family was originally from in Poland. The village was Jewish, destroyed in WWII, and we had no idea that this cousin or her book existed.

And my sister recently found a relative on my mother's side that married Napolean Bonaparte's brother. Weird, isn't it? I guess the world is smaller than you think.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

That's an awesome relative. All I have is someone on my father's side who was a famous Indian fighter in Pennsylvania, which is a wince-worthy thing to have your ancestor be famous for.

[anait.livejournal.com]

Hindsight can be an unfortunate thing. He was probably a brave guy, just a product of his time.

I have all sorts of weird relatives too-- I just didn't mention those. :)

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Word about hindsight. I try not to apply it to historical figures - getting angry at them for trying to be what their peers considered a good person is pointless.

But I still wish my famous relative was someone I could brag about at dinner parties.