Sunday will be Father’s Day. I think it’s marvelous that millions of us buy T-shirts with the words “World’s Greatest Dad.”
I was a Daddy’s girl and spent a lot of time outside with him on the farm. One of the things I remember was his waiting while Mom washed my face and combed my hair so I was “presentable” to accompany him to town on an errand.
They say girls marry men like their father. I had a good role-model to measure my boyfriends against. After I’d made my choice, there have been times I’d bite my tongue to keep from saying to my husband, “My dad wouldn’t have done that.”
Ken and I lived on a farm just a few miles from my parents’ place. Mom had a flock of chickens and I stopped by to get eggs at least once a week. Dad interrupted the chores he was doing outside to come into the house and visit with Mom and me. I was no longer under his roof, but he still found time for me.
Dad also was a good grandfather. As a farmer, he spent more time with our three children than a lot of men could. One of the things I remember his saying about our son, “When Kurt asks a question, he listens to my answer instead of continuing to chatter.”
After my parents moved to town, Dad took a job as janitor at the school. I saw him when I stopped by the complex. Although he wasn’t the boss, he took time to sit down with me on a hall bench and ‘pass the time of day’.
Dad was only sixty-three when he died of a heart attack in 1976. I still miss him.
What are your thoughts of your father?
I too, have wonderful thoughts about my father. I know that mother didn’t think he was a good husband, but he was a good father. He was ahead of his time in encouraging & even enabling Janice & I to go to college, at a time when boys were encouraged more often than girls. Dad took an additional night job in the Beloit Foundry to have enough money when Janice & I were both at the UW. Dad & mother attended all of our athletic events & kept a sharp eye on the boys we dated. Dad was big on teaching us how to work, & made sure we always had jobs in the summer. He set a good example of a hard worker & one who knew how to make money. He was always kind to animals.