With Regret

My father grew up red-haired, freckled, and blue-eyed on a South Dakota potato farm. Until he was twelve, his family plowed the land with horses and used kerosene lanterns for light.

When work ran out on my grandfather's farm, he sent my father and his brothers out to pick potatoes on other farms for one dollar per hundred pounds. They also harnessed the team to a grader and built all of the county roads in the region.

The only connection to civilization besides the dirt road running past their driveway was a single set of train tracks running through the tall grass at the edge of the farm.

He went to school in a one-room schoolhouse with his brothers and sisters. There were about forty children, including my father and his four siblings. Two years after his graduation, my father joined the army. The army stationed him in faraway Germany for the four years of his service.

Upon returning to the States, he took advantage of the G.I. Bill to attend university in Michigan. He always said the college administration expected he and his fellow former soldiers to fail miserably as university students but that they had reckoned without army discipline. He graduated seventh in his class with a Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine while working four part-time jobs. He went on to work for several institutions doing cutting-edge research that still benefits cancer patients and people with severe infections.

Beginning with the time of my birth, my parents moved us around the United States and overseas to pursue career opportunities for my father. It was very hard on my mother and often difficult for his three daughters as we were thrust into new schools constantly. I went to eight schools, three of them high schools, from grades K-12. My next youngest sister attended nine.

Because we were always moving, our immediate family unit was the only stability in terms of relationships. My father became the only example of a male role model in my life.

Since his death five years ago, his life has continued to gather importance to me rather than diminish in influence. I could speak about the many things he did wrong while raising us, as most children can, but I find myself focusing more and more on the things he did right.

He had a dry sense of humor.

My first two memories of him are from the period in which I still slept in a crib. In the first memory, he was caring for his sick little girl at night. I distinctly remember him saying, "Natalie, you can't throw up anymore tonight. We are out of sheets." In the second, he had taken me blackberry picking and would poke one into my mouth and allow one to hit the bottom of the metal bucket with a 'plonk' saying, "One for Natalie, one for the bucket, one for Natalie, one for the bucket."

He taught us to love reading.

After work, he would settle us down in a chair while waiting for dinner and read Dr. Seuss' "Fox in Socks" or some other delightfully ridiculous story. Later, when we could read for ourselves, he shyly brought books he thought we would enjoy and handed them to us. In addition to Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books, James Herriot's hilarious stories of being a young vet in the Yorkshire Dales were favorites I was able to pass on to my daughters. He was also an avid fan of cowboy romances, so Louis L'Amour and Zane Grey graced the family bookshelves.

He took us to the public library every week. The three of us would load up with ten books or more to read over the weekend. He allowed us to choose anything. In high school, I went through a year of romance reading before realizing how boring it was to read the same formulaic story again and again. In 11th grade, I vowed never to read another trashy romance until I had read every piece of fiction with merit ever written. I managed to keep that promise to myself until the recent Covid shutdown.

When I reached high school, he would be willing to discuss books we had both read. Why he cared about my opinion, I still don't understand, but it strikes me that he also had no one else to talk to about certain things. I wish I had been more perceptive as a young person because there are conversations I would like to have now.

He taught us how to work.

Because of my father's upbringing, he needed to own a certain amount of land to feel comfortable.

The first job he gave my sister and me at ages seven and six years, was to move firewood across the yard in our Radio Flyer wagon. He pledged fifty cents per load. Judging by the look on his face, he regretted the amount he promised us when he had to fork over four whole dollars.

As we grew older, the duration and complexity of the chores increased, although he was always doing them along with us.

In the last house we lived in before I left home for college, he decided to buy a pony to put in the barn. He had always loved horses and had carried two Western-style saddles he had bought in Germany from a Texan in the army everywhere we moved. I still have them.

The problem with this animal purchase was that the property had no fence. To remedy this, he found a colleague at work who needed land cleared and brought the three of us to cut down all of the cedar trees on the property. These we limbed up and cut into eight-foot lengths. We carried them home in his pickup truck and began digging fence post holes three feet deep. The subterranean ends of the posts, we treated with creosote. Then we erected the fence posts and learned how to tamp the soil around them. Then we cut the fence rails and held them while he hammered them home. It took the four of us a whole summer working evenings and weekends to fence in about two acres while Patches the pinto pony grazed on a lead line around us.

He also shared his work with us.

My first introduction to the world of science was through my father.

I can't imagine this happening now, but my first time observing a surgery was when he allowed eight-year-old me to watch as he spayed our cat. I still remember him pointing out the various organs as he worked; our cat opened up and splayed out on a pad on the kitchen island.

He also took us to work on Saturdays and allowed us to look at glass slides through his microscope. If busy, he would pawn us off on one of the woman chemists who allowed us to play with the Petrie dishes and take one home.

None of us went into science fields, and all into art and language fields, but having a sense of what work is, and how to accomplish it faithfully is a valuable nugget of information that he was able to impart on our trips.

He was kind and generous, willing to give advice and stand back until asked for help.

These are qualities that aren't readily visible to small children. As I matured into an adult, I began to realize the extent of his generosity. Whenever he had something important to say, he would take us apart to say it. He never attempted to shame or humiliate anyone. He offered to help pick up the pieces if one of us was in dire straights, but he never forced himself into situations if we believed we could solve the problems on our own.

When I gave birth to my oldest daughter, he asked me what I would like for a gift. I told him it would be a college fund. He took me at my word and gradually started adding to one. He did this for each of his grandchildren from then on.

He also gave generously to institutions his grandchildren attended without fanfare. I would see his name on the donor lists each year and silently thank him.

He was an avid sportsman and taught his craft to generations of children at his rod and gun club. His sense of responsibility was high, and his standards for passing competency tests were high above the state requirements.

He shared his faith silently.

His was a faith of example. He lived it simply. He put us in the way of others who shared by teaching.

My lasting regret concerning our relationship is that we didn't have enough conversations.

When my maternal grandmother went into hospice in Michigan, we drove out from the East Coast together to say goodbye to her. After crossing the border between Ohio and Michigan, we took a wrong turn near Lansing. We drove through small towns and beautiful lush fields on back roads, hoping that the navigation system would put us right eventually. Suddenly my father sat upright in the passenger seat.

"I used to make calls to that dairy farm. The farmer would never pay his bill."

A little further, "That farmer had a beautiful herd of cows."

And further, "Down that road is the racecourse. I used to do drug testing on the horses before the races."

He regaled me with stories of his college life for about an hour, ones I would never have heard without that wrong turn.

Now I feel sad that many parts of what made him who he was, are lost forever. How did he make decisions when there were two equal choices? Did he drift with the tide of his life, or did he take action to force events to a head? What did he think about the paths his daughters chose? What would he tell me to say or not say to my daughters?

I miss him.

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Thank you for taking the time to read my words. I've written several other pieces about my father and my maternal grandmother. They are attached below. The photographer of the cover photo of my father and I is unknown to me. He was a family friend in Washington, D.C. where it was taken.

Memories are only as good as you make them, so do a good job.