Although he's not here to celebrate, today is my father's birthday -- December 14, 1897. The reason this is interesting to me, I think, is that although they were pretty sure they had the month right, the actual date was just a guess. Close enough they said, according to him. The thing is, the Minnesota snows prevented travel in those days. The roads from farm to town were impassable until the spring thaw and so they had to wait till then to go into town to register his birth.
He was one of ten children: Fred, Frank. William, John, James, Bob, Mary, Walt, Julia, and Fabian, all of whom survived their birth and lived long lives. They were all nice uncles and aunts, but I always thought my grandmother was too crabby. After the hard life she lived though, maybe she earned that right.
We, on the other hand, had better never think about being crabby because we have definitely not earned that right.
Class dismissed.
I actually whispered a greeting to Grandpa this morning (and to Grandma two weeks ago).
I have never heard the story of the birth date being in question before.
Was he at all involved in the first world war? He would have been able to serve before its end in 1917.
1918, Stephen. November 11 to be exact.
Stephen -- No, he wasn't. He had a rheumatic heart that kept him out of the war. He taught school in small towns across the top of the state for five years. He and my mother both. And then they married and moved to the city. My mother said that when the young men (called boys back then) were off to the war, the whole town would turn out to wave good-bye. For the rest of her life, when she heard the whoo whoooooo of the train at night, she would talk about that mournful sound and how it always reminded her of the boys who went off to war and never returned.