Category: History and Dementia

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My People

Holding a picture of an ancestor near a family tree.

Dad has always had an interest in the family tree. Fortunately, a not so distant relative in Holland did extensive research and shared it with the entire family. We love knowing that just two generations ago, our paternal family immigrated to the northeastern United States. Stories of their business endeavors are consistent with the entrepreneurial spirit of the family. A great-great grandfather was a merchant who sailed his ship through the English channel trading and selling goods. With records going back to the 1600s, there is even a roster from the Queen’s court that includes our unusual family name. There has always been an idea that the family is primarily from the Netherlands.

We recently tested Dad’s DNA. And yes, 28 percent of his ancestors are from Germanic Europe and 31 percent are from England and Northwestern Europe. This includes Belgium and the Netherlands as well as the opposite side of the English Channel all the way to Wales, The Isle of Man, and south to Guernsey and Jersey Islands.

We knew less about Dad’s maternal family. Interestingly, we learned a greater 36 percent of our ancestors are from Ireland, specifically the regions of Kerry and Cork. And, if we look back far enough, variations of the family name date to medieval times and the Knights of the Templar. These ancestors immigrated to Canada before arriving in the northeastern United States.

My grandfather met my grandmother on a rainy day. She was walking or waiting for a bus, and he offered her a ride. Meanwhile, one of grandfather’s friends (or a cousin) had been hounding him about introducing him to a certain lady. When it finally happened a short time later, it turns out it was the same gal he had given a ride, my grandmother.

Although Dad’s parents passed away in the 1980s, he doesn’t remember that they are gone. Nearly every day for more than a year now, he asks me, “Where are my people?” He then shares some concern about their wellbeing or relays a story about a time when they were together. He sometimes asks if he can visit the family home. Today he told me in his own way, “My mother and my father always made everything nice for me there and worked half the night to do it.” I know this because I am blessed to be part of the same family. Over the years I witnessed how my grandparents and my Dad lived, and role modeled a loving close-knit family with an exemplary work ethic to provide and care for loved ones.

For quite a while now, Dad doesn’t remember most of his people. His younger brother, my younger sister and my mother have also passed on, just to name a few. When Dad asks about his people, I show him pictures of children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. We practice their names and count how many family members are in the generations of the future. I remind Dad, that each and every one of our people are a little bit of his mother and father, and a lot of him.

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An Alphabet Morning

Dad walked out of his bedroom this morning with an old brown leather address book in his hand and began to read it to me from the beginning. Yes, the letter A. With each name I asked him about the person listed. Several were woman that were described as “just a friend”. Which is understandable as Dad was married, divorced, widowed and dated during different times in his life. There was a man that went by the name “stick” because he was tall, and according to Dad, the nickname “stuck to stick”. A man that ran a tractor business, the local realtor, friends made through the radio club, tractor club, and his automobile restoration and antiques hobbies. We chuckled when we read names like “5 Star ED”.  

When Dad found the name of a close friend or family member, he read the address and birthdates, most of which have changed. A couple included short directions like “left 6 blocks then right” or “exit then stay for 2 miles”. Local phone numbers were written without the area code. Dad read the name of his sister, her birthdate and said, “in case you need it.” He remembered I had recently looked up her address. “Okay, now be really careful to keep this one”, Dad said, then laughed. It was his next-door neighbor and friend of 40 plus years.

When he made it to the letter L, Dad said, “We can do this til the cows come home. It goes all the way to the back still with numbers.” When he reached the letter N, Dad said, “It would be nice if I talked to some people once in a while.” Dad has outlived the majority of his friends. Knowing this he would occasionally say, “There’s not much use in this number.” Sometimes he would read a number as …3057 or 8. About one long-lost friend, Dad said, “We know where they are because of all the traffic noise.”  He remembered a few young friends like Gus and his brother. Gus was the little brother to a childhood friend of Dad’s that followed the bigger boys around. Dad said, “He cried a lot.” There were also quite a few names Dad could not recall. When he got to the letter T, Dad hopped up and went to get his teeth, which I had not yet noticed were missing.

As he continued to read, Dad mentioned “On this page there is an arrow going all the way to the next page.” While there was only one Barney, Bud, Doug, Dale, Gus, Macel, Meleese, Robin and Roger, there were half a dozen Bobs, several Joans, a few Johns, a couple Bettys and Maries, and the copious amount of Eds, Barbaras and Charles that run in our family. In some sections several generations of a family are listed. Dad thought the entry for his father at the family home was instead for himself. The entries traveled across the country through Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, New York, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, Utah and more. In the middle of the letter V Dad realized his untouched breakfast was cold and we stopped to warm it up.

The last entry in Dad’s book is my younger sister and her family. Like many names in his brown leather book, we lost her a few years ago to a complicated illness. Her birthday is in a few days. After Dad read all their names and birthdates, he asked, “Guess what?”  and without waiting for an answer said, “My book is empty from here on – two blank pages. That’s all there is of that.”

This alphabet morning, we found some of Dad’s life in his address book. Time was forgotten and people were remembered.

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Childhood Memories

Dad tells great stories about his childhood. I heard most of them early in life and know the difference between the stories then and the stories that have evolved with dementia. He grew up on 60 acres of land in upstate New York where the woods and creek were his playground. Swimming in a water hole in the creek and lounging with a book under the apple tree are just a few of the images I can capture in my imagination as he describes them. He built several forts throughout the property. Some near the ground, and some in trees that most likely doubled as deer blinds.

One of my favorite stories is hearing about Dad, his young friends and his brother hanging out in their clubhouse near the millrace. As the story goes, brother caught a minnow in a can, and we decided to keep it in our fort. When we came back the next day, the water in the can was frozen and so was the fish. As the morning air warmed, the icy can melted and the fish started swimming around again. That happened for a few days in row. That fish would freeze overnight, then thaw and swim the next day. Dad has shared this story many times over the years. Even today he has never told me what eventually happened to the fish.

Dad loves to tell me about a time when he watched an interaction between his dog and the farm cat. Trixie chased the cat everywhere all the time. One day the pup went racing toward the cat, only this day the cat held its ground. Trixie put on the brakes so hard she flipped up and over the cat. This memory makes Dad laugh every time he tells the story.

Although our family moved to the southwest, I visited Dad’s childhood home several times. When I was eight-years of age my grandmother and I picked blackberries just outside the back kitchen door. She placed them in a small bowl with a little milk and a sprinkle of sugar. Best of all, Dad hooked up a flat trailer to the tractor and took us to the swimming hole at the creek. The road was narrow and lined with trees with a grassy ridge running along the center. It was referred to as the lane. Dad backed the trailer into the water, and my sister and I jumped off it, and spread out our towels on it while we played.  That day I lived one of his stories.

During a visit in the winter when I was 16 years of age, we enjoyed a great family gathering and snowmobiling. A few days later, Dad and I took a quiet walk in the woods. It was a wonderland with sun glistening on the snow clinging to leafless trees. The only footprints were the ones we made together. On this visit I sketched the old barn covered with deep white drifts.

The old barn was torn down some years later, but there are still remnants of old tree forts. The property was sold and the home remodeled. The new owner sent Dad fresh maple syrup from the trees every year for a long time. Dad and I stopped for a visit once and toured the remodel. It was beautiful with an entire wall of windows looking toward the woods. As we were getting ready to leave, we paused for a moment to look at the woods one more time. We noticed a particularly tall old tree that I imagine recorded memories in its rings as Dad grew up and played with his friends and pets and worked the small farm with his family. I learned of aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins visiting the woods too. I am grateful that the tree also journaled the next generation while I played there as a toddler and my daddy, like the tree, watched over me. The old tall tree is now home to a pair of Osprey which seems apropos. Most of Dad’s new stories are for the birds.    

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Go West Young Man

Tonto Natural Bridge, Arizona

Dad moved our family west in 1964. We settled under the shadows of the Superstition Mountains in Apache Junction, Arizona when I was just four years of age. Western novels and movies have been a lifelong source of enjoyment for Dad until a few months ago. He has read every Zane Grey novel and owns a complete collection. Then added Louis L’Amore to his library. Last year he made the effort to read the complete collection of Louis L’Amour in sequence. It was the last time. Although, he stands and admires the books sometimes touches them. I remember Dad taking us to the Round Up Drive-In movie theater to see John Wayne in Red River and when Blazing Saddles was released. Over the past few months, books have become difficult to read and western movies with the “shoot em up” as Dad describes it, seem to bother him. Bookmarks are a challenge to keep in place and while he was on page 122 one day, the next day he would be on page 90.

As we transition to trying audio books and watching more country music videos instead of westerns, I reflect on Dad’s love for Arizona and everything cowboy. On special occasions he wore the hat, jeans, boots and a Bolo tie. He even had a holster and a pistol. Dad hiked and explored all parts of the state climbing all over the Superstitions, and into Geronimo’s Cave. He took us camping at many lakes along the Apache Trail and throughout the White Mountains and taught my sister and I how to fish. Then we learned how to clean and cook the fish including eating a delicious crispy tail. He eventually purchased property near the Mogollon Rim for family getaways. On some adventures, Dad drove his 1947 Ford pick up truck on steep mountain roads. We were scared half to death as we looked down the steep sides of canyons while he bumped along nearly impassable roads.

Shortly after moving to Arizona, Dad turned a 1956 Ford into a desert buggy. We would spontaneously head out for adventures turning off a dirt road in the middle of what I thought was “nowhere” only to come across an abandoned homestead or “ghost town”, as Dad would call it. One childhood memory includes images of my mother and sister and I walking through an old cemetery in a long forgotten town and seeing three snakes within a matter of minutes; a rattlesnake, a king snake and a red and black coral snake. We weren’t frightened as Dad and Mom had taught us about all the desert creatures like Gila monsters, snakes and tarantulas.

To spark Dad’s love for Arizona and enjoy his adventurous spirit, we recently drove to the Tonto Natural Bridge. We reminisced about the friends and family we had shared the bridge with in decades past. We hiked short trails, watched wild Javelina and then went to lunch at a vintage cafe not far from the Zane Grey cabin museum. I thought we might visit the museum. When I asked Dad, he shrugged and said it had been moved from its original location. He then ordered a big slice of cherry pie which he did not share. I thought to myself, “Cowboys must really like cherry pie.”

Zane Grey Under the Tonto Rim

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Made in America

Infants foot stamped with text Made in USA

Dad is one of about 23 million “Silents” in the United States. This group of United States citizens now known as the “silent majority” carry a mix of values formed by the Great Depression and World War II. Fewer children were born during this time between 1928 and 1945. Dad’s father was self-motivated delivering milk and eggs with a horse and wagon. His mother ran the home and worked factory jobs. From the stories Dad shares, both his parents were a part of his life every day. The family lived on a small farm and sustained themselves with the bare necessities. Dad learned early in life that hard work, honesty, and saving his pennies were the key to success. He was rarely without a job of some kind beginning at a young age. He willingly worked the family farm and helped other farmers seasonally. Later working in local garages and some light construction with friends if that was all he could find. The family owned only American made automobiles and tractors. In fact, everything in Dad’s life at that time was made in America.

My “Silent” spoke up recently when he noticed some of the labels on his clothing. Dad requires some assistance selecting clothes so I lay them out on the bathroom counter for him. The plan is to drop dirty clothes on the rug for me to pick up later and to put on the clean clothes. Lately the two get mixed up and I check on him more frequently. One evening Dad took a particularly long time getting dressed so I tapped on the door asking if everything was okay. It wasn’t. Dad had his long sleeve dirty shirt tied around his waste and nothing else on. He was staring at his clean briefs holding them up with both hands. As I peeked in, he said, “my underwear are made in Vietnam!” I responded, ” Oh, well they will work better if you put them on.” He did. A little more time passed so I cracked the door again. “My tee shirt is made in Honduras!” “Gee Dad, aren’t you cold? Let’s get that tee shirt on.” He did. Then as he put on his flannel pajama bottoms, he said, “these are made in Bangladesh! Maybe I should join a nudist colony.” We laughed all the way to the laundry basket. Dad picked up a pair of pants from the laundry and checked the label. He looked at me and said, “Nicaragua. Next thing you know newborn babies will come with labels on them from the countries where they were born.”

Just before we turned out the lights at bedtime that night, Dad said, “I’m glad I am made in America. I said, “Me too Dad, me too.”