It was August 7, 1946. Why don't I remember the reason I ran all the way, six long blocks, to St. Cecilia's Rectory to get Father (Eves) to come baptize Grampa and the reason I then ran back all the way home? Was the phone busy at the rectory? I'm sure I must have called first. Father did come. Grampa received the sacraments - but I don't really remember that in any detail either.
I remember having asked Grampa if he would like to be baptized a Catholic. He had been "christened" at some point and belonged to the Church of Christ. I don't remember that he ever attended any services in my lifetime.
Grampa had undergone surgery for bladder cancer. This was in 1946, and today's advanced care was unknown. Besides, Grampa had been in pain for a long time, ignoring pleas to see a doctor, until there was constant bleeding and it was too late to do anything. The doctors simply closed him up and sent him home to die. He remained alive for about six weeks. Gramma hired a practical nurse. Virginia was her name. I can see her now, a very large woman in nurse's white dress, white stockings, white nurse's shoes and cap. Now why can I remember that? She gave Grampa his pain medications, bathed him and changed the dressings on his incision, which never healed. I remember the smell of decay in his room. It was powerful.
When I finally got up the nerve I asked Grampa about being baptized. It was evident that he had only a day or so left. He said that he would like to be baptized, and that Catholics had always been good to him. He was a sweet and simple man. This may not have been the great truth awakening, but he was sincere, cared about his soul, and that was good enough for me.
Three days later Grampa lapsed into a final coma. Just before he did, I was standing at his bedside. It was obvious that he was slipping away. Virginia and Gramma wanted me to be out of the room. Grampa looked up at the ceiling and said, "It sure is pretty up there." It was the last thing that he said, and I'm sure that he glimpsed Heaven. They woke me a little after midnight to tell me he had died. His pocket watch stopped at the moment of his death; and our Boston Bull Terrier, Nippie, howled outside his window. The date was August 10, 1946.
Why, after the joy I felt in his joining me in the Church, can't I remember a Rosary being said for him? Why can't I remember the Requiem Mass? I know that there was one. What I do remember is missing Mass on the Feast of the Assumption, August 15, because Gramma and I had to get to Union Station in Los Angeles to catch the train. We were accompanying Grampa's body to Missouri. He was to be buried next to his brother, Howard, in Newton Cemetery in Nevada, Missouri.
Union Station in 1946 was crammed with servicemen. They were either arriving home from overseas or boarding trains to take part in the European occupation. The latter first took trains to the East Coast, then embarked for Europe. Our train was chock full of young men in uniform. Whole cars were occupied. Gramma and I (actually, just Gramma, I was very shy in those days) struck up a conversation with a young soldier as we waited to go into the dining car. I don't remember his name, but he was 18, I think, and from Compton. Imagine! I can remember that! Gramma invited him to eat with us. I don't remember if he ate with us again, but we smiled at him in passing. I often wondered what became of him. He was going to go to college when he came home and was discharged.
The train ride as far as Kansas City, MO., took two or three days I think. Then we transferred to the Missouri Pacific Line to get to Nevada. Maybe the whole trip took three days? I thought I'd freeze. The air-conditioning was a bit much. Of course we traveled coach all the way, sitting up all night in our seats, which at least tilted back.
I remember that we stayed with Grampa's sister, Aung Bess, a widow, and her unmarried daughter, Virginia. I don't thnk it was in Nevada though. I remember staying with her daughter, Mildred and her family, including Uncle Frank Wiley and her son, Paul "Wiley" Wheelen.. Wiley was two years younger than I. They lived in Commerce, Oklahoma. Later Wiley only used his given name, Paul.
Grampa was a life member of the Elks Lodge. He always wore one of his several elks teeth on a chain attached to his vest. The Lodge in Nevada held a "viewing," since several of his old friends were still living. The Elks, in fact, tend his grave in perpetuity. I remember being a bit put off because the jostling during the train rides had dislodged a bit of pink stuffing in his mouth, meant to puff out his cheeks a little, I suppose. Now why did I have to remember that? I also do not remember the burial service itself. It's odd, the selective memory.
Gramma showed me where they had lived in town, the Catholic Church that stood on property her Pennsylvania Dutch, Lutheran, father had donated to the Church, Cottey College, and other landmarks. She made a point of calling "Uncle Henry" Johnson and arranging for us to visit him. (See "A Visit With Uncle Henry").
When we were with Mildred and her family in Commerce, Uncle Frank had gone hunting. We had squirrel for supper! It tasted like rabbit, I thought. Uncle Frank cracked open the skull for the brains. Gross! He proceded to tell me how good rattlesnake tasted. Wiley and I went fishing for perch the next day. He knew a pond down the road. He loaned me a straw hat and told me to get on the handlebars of his bike. When we got to the pond there was an obstacle, a barbed wire fence. Wiley pulled the barbs apart and climbed through, holding the space open for me. I got through, but not without ripping the leg of my slacks. We didn't dig for worms, nor did we have any fancy bait and gear. Plain old poles with string, hooks and dough balls caught us a pretty good mess of fish. I have pictures somewhere of the two of us on the bike and one of me holding a string of fish. We ate perch for dinner, and no, I didn't clean them!
The month being August, I found out about Missouri-Kansas-Oklahoma summer weather. It was hot and sticky. Showering didn't help a lot. As soon as I dried off I was damp again. At night we could hear thousands of cicadas. They sounded like crackling electrical lines. Now that I live in Texas, it is all SO familiar!
We visited "old stomping grounds," as Gramma put it, Joplin, MO., Fort Smith, Arkansas (where a male cousin of Gramma lived, whose name I don't remember). Gramma and her brother, Harve (Harvey), still owned some 20 acres of what was once the family's almost 1000 acre farm outside the town of Nevada. They had tenant farmers who sent them proceeds every year as rent, I guess. The people weren't home, but the house looked the worse for wear. Pigs and chickens were running free ouside the house. I think I was in college when Gramma and Uncle Harve sold the farm. The take from crops hardly paid the taxes. I don't remember the train ride home at all! School started soon after. As I turned 15 in September, it would be my sophomore year at the original St. Mary's Academy in Inglewood, at Crenshaw and Slauson in Los Angeles. That will be the subject of a future blog.
8/7/12
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