SORTING IT OUT

GRAMPS

Born James C. Arnold, no amount of sleuthing has disclosed what the C. stands for; perhaps it is like the S in Harry S Truman, no more than a literary flourish, differing only in that it is permitted its own full stop. I would like to say the C is for Connelly, but it isn't possible, for that comes from Gramma's richer side of the family. It exists as a simple initial on a few documents, including his birth certificate, which are in my possession, and similarly on a few other family papers that I have seen but do not possess. And there they mystery stops but does not end, as is the case in many other things involving the past, especially my own. To me this increases the sense of adventure and challenge, at least up to a point. Beyond that point lies frustration and perhaps if pursued too long and too far madness.

All of his life he was an educator. This is how he thought of himself and it is evident from the papers he left behind. These are mainly letters and postal cards addressed to his family. I have only one letter from him, but it is a revealing one. It says a lot about him. And later there is an aside to me in a letter to my father, when he talks about teeth. Our mutual teeth. Our family teeth, as it were. I was starting orthodontia. His teeth at my present age were better than mine at that age, which is 63.

Only recently have I learned a few more things about him and our family. He was the son of Henry, who had a host of brothers and a sister or two. Gramps was educated at Ohio Northern University, which sounds like a teachers' college and must be one. He married Sara Leigh Connelly in 1900. A round number for a round year and a round wife. She was known as Leigh, pronounced Lee. (But on at least one occasion, in a youthful letter to a friend, she signed herself Saraleigh—spelled exactly that way.

Gramps was at that time superintendent of schools in Chrisman, Illinois. Later he performed the same function at some town called Robinson. I think both were in Illinois, though I can't be sure. Small bergs, they don't show up on any maps of today.

In 1906, with two young children to provide for, he became principal of the Metropolitan Business College in Chicago. He held this job for the next twenty years. About this time he got interested in real estate. It is a surprising shift, so late in life, and there must be an interesting story behind it, but there is nobody alive to tell it and, as with other family matters, it has slipped into the mists, gone forever. Thus I have given up hope of knowing the true nature of so many things, and do not want to hazard a guess. For now I will happily settle for anything less than complete ignorance, without resorting to the crutch of fiction, the practice of which I both enjoy and dread. It does not belong here.

What I know now is more than might be expected. There are a fair number of letters and printed documents to draw from, and I have read all available hungrily. From these a picture begins to emerge of a family. We must start with the paternal side of my father's family, though the maternal is equally rich and (at least to me) evocative. The Arnolds came to America before the revolution that split us off from England and we were settled in what soon was to be named Culpepper County, Virginia. (It was near to important things, such as the Atlantic Ocean and harbors.) The men were mostly farmers, a few of them blacksmiths or small shop keepers. Farming was natural; it is what men did with the land. They cleared it, then planted it. There was not much choice of other occupations. Land came cheap in quarter sections and could be bought for a few hundred dollars. As soon as a man had some coin in his pocket he would splurge on acreage. It generally sold for less than $2 an acre. Sometimes you could homestead it for free, but more often you bought it from a bank after a period of servitude to someone you learned to hate in order to earn the cash. It was the thought of land ownership that sustained you during this tour of indenture servitude. Then you cleared what was yours and brought it under cultivation with the help of a horse or ox, either removing the stumps or continuing to plough around them, depending on your temperament or inclination.

To work the land you needed sons, so you found yourself a wife to bear them, and when she plum wore out, you found yourself a replacement. And sometimes she gave you daughters, shamefacedly, and you lost a full year out of the cycle of production and had to try again for a son. (Oh, for ameiosis then, though it might lead to murder.) She bore your weight as she bore everything else, with a grimace and a groan that was barely audible. I mean, you had really to listen to hear it. In the Arnold and Connelly families broods of twelve or thirteen were routine. So was natural attrition, or early death. All those tiny graves recorded Jesse or Charles L. or Rebecca (a favorite of ours) or Ruth. Born 1813, Died 1815, it might read, or Born 1855, Died, 1862, for a father gone away to war to discover on his return, if he lived through his battles and found his way home again. All windfall apples returned to the soil, fallow and fecund and waiting; the moment's loss, the future's gain—wasn't it so, Gramps?

Pictures reveal them to be a grim lot; well, there wasn't a whole lot to be jolly about, not even on a long Sunday afternoon, when everybody within hailing distance had assembled for an epic meal, spilling out onto the front porch for the photo opportunity and gathering round at an uncomfortable and previously unexperienced proximity in front of the camera and being told to "Hold it." Was it the long exposure that rendered them all so stoic-looking and formidable? Maybe the long moment simply underscored the tedium of the day. Everybody is bored on Sundays, isn't he? Not just children?

Only, weekdays are worse. What did the man say? Life is a diet of shit, but the good news is, you have to eat it only a teaspoon at a time? Some such thing. My ancestors would blush at my free use of the common obscenity, while at the same time acknowledging the poetic truth contained in the statement.

"It happens," my great uncle might admit.

"What happens?" I urge.

"Aw, you know. What you said." And a pink blossoming.

But mostly grim. And pious, too. It was a combination that occurred frequently, for if this life held nothing but hard work and annual childbearing for the women, how could the next be any worse? Only if it were Hell Itself, a literal prospect often alluded to, for these were literal Bible readers. The next life in Heaven must be one endless Sunday afternoon, the women newly returned from cleaning up the kitchen after the meal and full of gossip, the children freshly scrubbed and starched and rendered clean, the husbands and unmarried brothers (some of those admittedly a little odd and weird) seated on the overstuffed divan or plump armchair, belt loosened, sleepy-eyed, and probably belching from routine overeating.

None of them drank, at least not in public, nor fornicated even in private, but all of them smoked the crop, even the women. Aunt Mattie had her little clay pipe, and when she filled it and tamped it tight, it was usually Little Becky who came running forward with the taper of a newly lit kitchen match, shouting, "Let me do it, Auntie. Please, please." And the gnarled old lady would lean forward expectantly to be torched, toking hard a couple of times and, then beaming, expel a cloud as purely white as if it had come from opium, which it somewhat resembled in use and effect. And all present would smile widely, leastwise the women and gathered children.

Meanwhile the men lit cigars, pronounced "see-gar." First they circumcised it, then performed brief fellatio on it. Next they lit it with a kitchen match seized from above the stove and snapped to attention with a quick scratch of the thumbnail or the scrape along a booted sole. It was not a child's task, mind you, not like torching Auntie's pipe.

Somnolent and silent mostly, the menfolks grumbled deep in throats and smoked cigars and thought their dark thoughts, which were not to be communicated. Who would dare to speculate on the nature of their accumulated thoughts? Not I, though they were probably bland enough and wholly self-centered. The amassed cigars fogged the air and left it stinking. Freud had just set forth on the planet and was not widely read. His remarks about cigars sometimes not being phallic symbols but only cigars had not passed into conventional wisdom. Nor had the war that could only loosely be called civil been fought yet, leaving the country sorely divided still.

By now an exodus of dissident farmers had headed for the central states, namely Kentucky and Ohio. Another generation would see them forge into Iowa and Western Illinois. Land was plentiful, the domain of Indian savages, bears, wolves, and "panthers"—panthers? Oh, come on now. Well, it is what they called them, these bobcats or mountain lions. Cougars.

The words are those of Isaac Newton Arnold. (I kid you not; this is what he was ycelpt.) It is from a privately printed chapbook dated 1927, which came into my hands as the result of an inheritance as eldest son. Primogeniture again. Though I cannot testify to the literal accuracy of Uncle Isaac, this being the stuff of fable, I can attest that I give it to you word for word, as it came down to me. And how grateful am I that it did:

"All our ancestors were agriculturists. I want to tell the way Ohio was when over thirty families migrated from Fayette County and vicinity to Richmond, Washington County, Iowa, in the 40s and 50s. I was surprised at the upkeep [?] of Indiana and Ohio which were first settled from one hundred to a hundred and forty years ago. These states were generally large forests of hard wood timber at the time they left for Illinois and Iowa, the black prairie land. Not over one-third of these old fields in that clay, light timber soil, were cropped so much. It was very poor, except on their creek bottom land. they had never used any clover or fertilizer for the upkeep of the land at that time. Today and for many years they have been practicing diversified farming. You see equal acreage of clover, fall wheat, corn, some rye, not very much oats, timber and creek land, blue grass pasture. [Uncle Isaac Newton was a farmer himself, big surprise, and I delete a little here some listings of agricultural data not of general interest.] Just the same, I admire good old Ohio where our ancestors first cleared the forest, drove out the wild animals, civilized the hostile Indians." And so do I, Unc.

The next item is entitled, "Indian Tragedy in Kentucky where Augusta is now, about the year 1800." It is choice:

"Fieldin Fegans, grandmother's brother, Absalom Creig, her brother-in-law, Joshia Wood, brother-in-law to Creig, and Cornelius Washborn, the story goes, went on a hunting trip fifteen miles from the settlement, made their camp near a spring, and one day while they were out hunting, the Indians came onto the camp and lay in ambush until they returned. The two uncles, Creig and Fegans, came and started their fire. Fieldin went to the spring. He heard the guns fire and knew what was up and started for the settlement, with two Indians after him. In the race they came to a tree blown over. The Indians were close after him. One ran to the top, the other to the root to head him off. He jumped the log and a panther jumped out in front of him, scaring him more than the Indians. He said a white man could outrun an Indian uphill, but an Indian was his equal downhill. He outran them and got to the settlement. They made up a company, started for their camp. When they arrived, Uncle Absalom Creig had been scalped, his body thrown across the camp fire and burned into. The Indians had taken their horses, guns and all their equipment. Washborn and Woods got warning and made their escape. Uncle Absalom had a fine shot pouch. The power horn was finished with German silver. They moved across the Ohio River and made their homes just South of where Georgetown now is. A few years after the tragedy, two Indians came to Uncle Fieldin's cabin and one had the shot pouch of Uncle Absalom Creig. He [Uncle Fieldin, I presume] followed them and killed the one and the other fled. He buried the Indian on the West bank of White Oak about one mile below Georgetown, threw the rifle of the Indian into the deep water and kept all a secret until 1832, when the river washed out the skeleton."

Yeah? It makes a good story, and story is what we are after.

Uncle Isaac continues, after informing us that most of what follows can be found in the records of Clermont and Brown Counties and was published sometime by Hobart [whoever he is, or was]:

"The story is that Captain Fegans and his sons were drilled by Simon Kenton, in all the Indian traits of war. We are not through with Uncle Fieldin's Indian story. [Thank God.] He and an old Indian chief were back of a tree, trying to get the first shot. They fired their guns, both missed. They came at each other with their dirk knives. Uncle Fieldin had a scar from his ear to his chin he carried to his grave. He is buried in the Richmond Cemetery a little North of Grandfather and Grandmother Arnold. I see his grave so often and think of him and the old Indian chief. Preach to his soul and body. He did not have much mercy for the Indians. His grandson and name sake, Fieldin Sharp, at this time in his 83rd year, told me he remembered his grandfather and the scar on his cheek. I must give him the credit for giving me the names of his uncles and aunts on his grandfather Fegans' side, which are in another list.

"To all the generations of these pioneers I hand you down the story as it was handed down to me by Grandmother and my Father."

And accordingly I pass it on, in my own wooden fashion, with side trips, asides, and short diversions. But more of the narrative now, for it is both interesting and instructive, and will perhaps explain where we all came from and the direction [if any] in which we are as a family headed:

* * *

Uncle Isaac Newton continues his pursuit of historical truth. In his usual careful manner he uncovers more that would be lost without his diligence: This item is entitled, "Recollections of Grandmother Arnold of How Time Changes Customs." It is a good example of oral history preserved by somebody who recognizes its lasting value. It also contains quite a bit of the moralistic and didactic, without which a narrative from the past would be incomplete:

"Sixty years ago the grandparents would entertain the children by telling them stories of their pioneer experiences. Today the experience is reversed. The children entertain the grandparents.

"After Grandfather's death, Grandmother made her home with Uncle and Aunt (Charles Hasty) until death. When we visited them in the evenings Grandmother would tell Cousin Alvin and me about the pioneer times in Kentucky and Ohio. When they could not get their wheat or corn ground (high water), they would bake the breast of wild turkey dry and slice for bread. They had to pen all the young stock in long buildings to keep the bears, panthers and wolves from killing them. In the night time these wild animals would howl and scream close by their cabin. It would raise the hair on your head. They tell us a panther makes a noise like a person in distress.

"Then there were the Indian stories I have stated. I remember I would be afraid to go to bed after the evening stories. She would tell us about staying alone in their cabin when Grandfather in harvest time would take his hand sickle and go across the Ohio River to help the folks. He would tie his clothes and sickles on the back of his head with his suspenders and swim the river in the morning and evening. Say, kids, the Ohio River is no creek. Bathing suits were never dreamed of in those times."

Hey, "kids." [Can you dig it?] Great-Grampa Arnold swimming across the river with his clothes piled atop his head? Picture it for yourself, as I do. Greeted on the other side by she who would one day be Gramma, our essential ancestor, who upon seeing this strange, nekkid young man emitted a whoop not unlike that of the evening panther? And later he would learn that she made nearly the same sound in coitus, though modestly choked back and muffled, so that the children adjacent or sleeping nearby, probably in the same room, would not awaken in the night and think the dreaded panther was loose in the house. [No, Mother is not being murdered. Go back to sleep, my dear.]

* * *

The final part of Isaac's tale is modestly entitled, "Family and Biographical History of Brown, Clermont and Fayette Counties, Ohio, do not vary much in the Dates." Okay; agreed. We shall proceed:

"In the 1790s Daniel Fegans' family, John Arnold's family and John Kirpatrick migrated from Virginia down the Ohio River in flat boats, the only way to travel in those times. They made their homes for eight or ten years on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River, not far from Simon Kenton Station, Limestone, Louisville and Augusta.

"The family story is that these ancestors' parents knew Kenton before they left Virginia and he warned them on their way down the river to look out for the Indian decoys, such as kettles on poles for camping along the river bank. In those days the Indians were on the war path and brought sorrow to many pioneer homes.

"Capt. Fegans was given a grant of 3000 acres of land for service in the Revolutionary War, 2000 on the Kentucky side of the river and 1,000 on the Ohio side in Brown County., He made his clearing near where Georgetown now stands and died there in 1815. In those days they buried on the home place. They tell us they have the record in Ohio of 2000 Revolutionary soldiers' graves. Our state claims three graves. One is buried in our town, Washington. His name was Timothy Brown. The State and County erected a fine monument to his honor.

"The Biographic History says Fieldin Fegans and four sons came up from Brown Country into Fayette County in 1809, also John Arnold and John Kirpatrick. Our Grandfather in 1812 came with his family. Today these families just named are the very early pioneers in Fayette County, Ohio. There are today two dozen of these generations. I personally know did not stop going West until they got to the Pacific Coast."

Dad and Mom and Dicky and I were four of those, but not until 1942.

And finally this, from the same source—Uncle Isaac:

"John Arnold was born in Wales and came to Culpepper County, Virginia, and lived in Red Stone District. We have no record of when he left Wales, but from record of the generations he came to this country in the 1740s or 50s. The old county records have John, William and James Arnold as landholders in Culpepper County.

"Great Grandfather, John Arnold, was married to Elizabeth Ross, who was born in Culpepper County, Virginia, and died in Fayette County, Ohio. As before stated in regard to the record of their birth and death, the head stones were worn smooth by time and weather. They raised a family of eight children to man and womanhood."

And there were those unrecorded who died as babes. Of course their gravestones or markers are worn smooth of dates by inclemency, or else are missing for other untoward reasons. Thus flow the sons and daughters, Arnolds all, with names that are odd-sounding to us today but were common at the time—Levi, Hanna, Elijah, Jesse, Willis, Rebecca, Benjamin, plus the usual generational repetitions of John, James, William, Sara, and Elizabeth.

* * *

So much for background. I suppose every family is subject to a course something like this one; a history both weird and oddly fitting and in many ways predicting what is to come but not in the exact ways that it will happen. Only close, sometimes amazingly so.

My subject is Gramps (though I never dared to call him this) and the ways he influenced my father and me, and the end to which he came and to which his son did not come, and his eldest grandson wishes mightily he may not come to, either. But what will be will be. And life is instructive, if it is nothing else. What did the old guy say, the historian? "The only way to avoid the past is to get to know it ahead of time and take bold steps to keep it from jumping on your back and riding you like a pony?" Words to that effect, anyway.

My first remaining letter from Gramps reads as follows, though I am sure there were others before it and references to me in letters to my father, as there were in the future. Each time I am mentioned, a little thrill goes through me, for it proves I existed. Gramps was important in my life and continues to be, even though he's been dead these fifty years, almost. He died the month I graduated from college and I, so full of myself and my importance at that time, hardly remember his passing. It took many years for me to acknowledge his importance in my life and that of members of my family.

But let him speak for himself. It is early summer and I am nine. And while the letter is full of pious moralizing on duty and responsibility, it is also full of a quality I never noticed before. It is love.

* * *

Saturday, June 17, 1939

Dear Bob,

Grandma is taking a nap and I have just had a shower after finishing my part of the weekly cleaning. I have been thinking of you, Bob, a great deal lately. You were the little boy who was the "head of the house" while mamma and daddy went to Texas. Then I thought of how you could not come to help me plant my garden out in the middle of a big peony field when they were all in bloom. No sir! Daddy was leaving for New York and you must see him off. And how you do like flowers! But leaving Daddy to go away for so long without Bobby being there to say goodbye was too much to be endured. Now don't think Grandpa was disappointed. He thought, "That's just what my boy would have done when he was about eight years old. And his daddy would have been pleased to know that his little boy wanted to be home to bid him goodbye. Some day you'll know all about this and what it all means. I suspect you do now.

Well, Bob, the garden was planted in the peony field, all covered with great big blossoms, and Grandpa enjoyed it very, very much, although he got pretty tired before he got thru. But he thought all the time how Bobby would enjoy all this and why he was not there, but staying home to see Daddy off for New York. Daddy was very much pleased, no doubt, and I know Grandpa thought you were very much like his boy in doing what you did. It is too bad Daddy can't be home to celebrate Father's Day with his two boys and their dear Mamma. But he'll be thinking a great deal about Bobby and Dick and "Mimi" tomorrow at Atlantic City. (Have you looked on the map to find New York and Atlantic City?) Don't you suppose Daddy will have chicken for dinner tomorrow? That would be nice for Daddy. But don't think Daddy is having so much fun. He has been working very hard in the hot stuffy old city. And why? You know, Bob, it takes money to buy all the things you and I need and want, and Daddy has to work hard to earn this money. That is why he goes to New York to buy furs to sell again for more money than he pays for them. What he and all the clerks sell them for, more than Daddy pays for them, is called profit. It is this profit that pays Daddy's salary and the salaries of all the clerks. So Daddy has to be very careful what kind of furs he buys and what he pays for them. Otherwise he and Marshall Field and Co. would not make any money. then Daddy would not have any salary to buy food and clothes and pay rent.

This is why Daddy has to go down to the store so early and stay all day;p why he has to go to New York and St. Louis to buy furs.

Now tomorrow is Father's Day. I know you have a wonderful father. To be a wonderful father, Bob, you will have to be a wonderful boy. You certainly are starting out that way. You like Sunday school, you like public school, you are making good grades in school. You have a wonderful mother and you love her. You have a wonderful little brother and you are good to him. You have a splendid home, Bob, and you have everything you need. So tomorrow I hope you will think of Daddy way off in New York and what he is doing for us all because it will be Father's Day. Daddy's Day. I am Daddy's father and I will be thinking of him, too, for I love him, I suspect, almost as much as you do.

Now I am writing this letter to you, Bob, because Daddy is away and you and I are both thinking about him. But you and I know we have thoughts enough to be thinking some for Mamma, too. You could not be much of a boy, unless you loved your Mamma, could you?

Grandma is still sleeping. May be she is dreaming about Daddy!

Goodbye, Bob, Be good, Grand-Dad

Patronizing? Sure. Condescending? You bet. Full of pious moralizing and what we call today imprinting? Without a doubt. Yet caring and fully of grandfatherly affection. He cared enough to write to me, a little kid, and explain to me my mounting responsibilities in Life as eldest son. Please note how calculatingly and pointedly he called me by name. Eleven times. It is a clever truck to gain my confidence and compliance. I see it now, as I did not then. Or did not dare. But it diminishes nothing. I leave it up to you to judge the impact this mush have had on me—the sense of responsibility and the sheer impossibility of living up to all that is being heaped on my narrow shoulders in the name of approaching manhood.

I feel it still today, when there is nobody left to measure my effort and grade me on it. Or is this always the task of the generation that follows, and it is now my son judging me? Of course.

The past continues to make itself manifest and real in a modest pile of letters I've since inherited. It was not so much primogeniture again as the fact that my brother (nor anybody else) wanted them. [Accumulated letters from my father to my mother were ceremonially destroyed by my brother on our mother's death. He insisted on protecting the privacy of whatever affection or lack thereof the letters contained. While I understand his reasons for doing this and cannot fault them, I must mention in passing that there is little of the historian in him, and his interest in the past is solely in seeing to it that the past is either burned or buried.]

I wish the cache of letters was richer, thicker, but I am grateful for what I have, and for what the past has given me in order to be preserved and maintained. Most of the letters from Gramps are a valiant and pitiable cry for help from an aging man who feels his freedom being taken away from him and his future being determined by others. He feels his health deteriorating and is terrified by it. His plea is for help. And he is right in his surmise that neither his daughter or his son can provide it. He is alone, frightened, at times paranoid, at other times completely rational and manipulative. He is not the man I remember, but then I must acknowledge the imperfection of memory, especially mine, and in this sense the letters are important as standing as a necessary corrective to memory. For it is the truth I seek, however awful. Seeing the truth for what it is is the only way, alas, we can benefit from the past. Otherwise it is not only past but without redeeming value.

Letters from the past are mostly Gramps's. There is but one from my Uncle Wayne, who married my father's sister, Ruth, and a handful from her, plus a couple of pathetic examples from my totally invalided Gramma, who responded to formal occasions with these thank you notes of a word or two. She lived out the last ten years of her life in anguish and pain. I'm told she wept almost ceaselessly. Nobody would lie about a thing like that. And there is reference—again from Gramps, mostly—of his efforts to comfort and console her. It was an impossible job. Nonetheless he was constant in his efforts to do so, and I must say he never shirked the duty or complained about it.

This too is love. It has taken me a long time to recognize it.

* * *

As I said, I was nine. We were living at 717 Wedgewood Drive, in Highland Park, Illinois. I was an ugly little kid, with protruding ears (outgrown), unruly dark blond hair, skinny arms and legs, and little round gold-rimmed glasses that were called Granny glasses, decades later. They were what kids wore then. I had badly crossed eyes, and the lenses straightened them somewhat; I kept them on for years, but when girls began tot interest me greatly I took them off out of simple vanity and wanting to look handsome. Instead, one eye looked North, while the other was pointed East. This isn't the way to be better looking, but I tried. For years I tried.

I must have had some endearing points, but for the life of me I can't think of any. Looks matter much. We lived in a beige stucco house with a roof so peaked that it belonged in the Tyrol. What it was doing in Highland Park, Illinois, remains a mystery. Two years later we moved away. It was our first house and previously we had lived in ever-larger apartments in Chicago. So it had importance to us, but was soon superseded by superior houses—quite a string of them, as a matter of fact. I guess my mother found each inadequate after a few years.

In this bedroom suburb of Chicago each morning my father rose earlier than most, shaved dryly (electrically), breakfasted on Kellogs, and let my mother drive him to the commuter train which delivered him an hour later to the Loop and Marshall Field and Company. The tracks it rode on were the same ones than ran behind our house, and rather than casting a blight on us the served to signify an affluence of an odd, passing kind. It was the Silver Chief's route. When the sleek, silvery train roared through our backyard, we and our neighbors strived to greet it, standing in our neatly manicured backyards, with apple tree and peony beds, waving for all we were worth. The engineer (or the fireman, if it was headed in the other direction) invariably raised a gloved hand in response. He always gave a little toot of recognition. (Or else it and the chiming bell were for the road-crossing ahead. More likely.)

Dad was assistant buyer for furs at Marshall Field and Company, dealing in prestigious luxury items at a time when the nation was locked in the jaws of the Great Depression. As Gramps indicates in his letter, it was a position of which we were all inordinately aware and proud. It was a prestigious job that paid in considerable coin. This Gramps tried to explain to me in his own quaint, pedagogical manner. I got the message.

When Daddy went away Bobby became Little Daddy. Such role playing was common for little boys and girls. We were being programmed to take our respective places in society. As eldest son, the burden was mine. I bore it on my skinny little shoulders like a brave toy soldier, all mine. And while I complained about it from Day One, my brother was envious, all his life. He envied me the burden and the locus of attention that came with it. I've sometimes thought I would gladly give it to him, for what it was worth, but have recently decided not only wouldn't I but I couldn't if I wanted to. It is mine and I am it its, and that is the way it is. Primogeniture, for better or worse, as they say about marriage. In a way you are married to it, we first-born.

The lot at 717 ran back, back. Finally its grassy weeds met the low fence marking the railroad's property. Beneath it at one fence post I had tunneled a crawlspace to a world of standing water, garter snakes, flowering weeds, and flotsam from the train and its passengers. One of my manly tasks was to cut the huge lawn, especially the part out in back. In retrospect, it was big as a football field, though I am sure it was not, or half that size. It is only the perspective of nine years that would make it so. The mower was hand-powered, of course. There not any other kind known to our family, then and now. It is what we've always called getting a workout.

I have a mental image of going at it, spindly legs achurning, the wet grass sent fairly flying, until what packed around the wheels and axle and rotary-blade sockets brought the skidding mini-thrasher to a halt. Then I fumblingly disengaged the twined blades of cow fodder failingly fuming, the sweat slithering into eyes behind their gold-rimmed spectacles and lubricating them so that they slid off my ears and nose. Something much like that. And this over and over again.

Meanwhile my father was off in hot New York City, enduring nightclubs and company-paid meals in expensive restaurants and an airconditioned hotel (the Seventh Avenue Statler) and nightly parties for buyers from all over the country, all this just so I could grow up with a strong moral character. Here I learned to hate cutting grass, though for years it was the only way I could earn any money, which was expected of me. When I was sixteen and working summers elsewhere, I hired my brother at good pay to do it for me, for it was still as eldest my responsibility. When my father learned what I had done, rather than be angry, as I had expected, he was proud at how enterprising I had been. All this is implicit in the 1939 letter from Gramps, I believe.

I had other Herculean chores to perform, but none stand out; none are memorable. There was men's work, and women's, each specific according to gender. My mother was always after me to wash the bathroom floor—a task clearly in her department, though a case could be made for her because females sit down to pee and do not trickle on the floor or elsewhere, while boys and men do, inevitably. Hence it would be my duty to clean up after myself and the others. My father did not back her up in this assertion, thankfully, and so she was not successful in making of me what I considered to be a maid, though this does not mean she gave up trying. It simply means she was never consistently successful.

Women simply don't understand how it is. They do not have to aim and are not faced with the problem of The Twin Jets, for instance. When the two fonts appear at once, which one of them do you trust? Which do you believe? You choose one, and if you are wrong, you pee all over the floor, until you can choke it off. Women don't know about this. They think you are careless and sloppy. And you can't very well explain. So your mother believes in her unforgiving heart that you deserve to scrub the bathroom floor, weekly or more often, for without you it would remain pristine and unsullied for eternity. So I was coerced into taking up pail and mop, and applying them to said floor. Then I understood what bothered her so. The stuff stank. It was terrible, awful to be around. And I suppose I caused it, or me and my little brother. And my Dad. Now I suppose a girl's pee is perfume?

Cutting the grass was unmistakably male. It was masculine, perhaps testicular. Hence thirty years later my father arrived at my grown-up house, one summer twilight, to discover my wife pushing our handmower around the postage-stamp-sized parking strip, while I hung over my typewriter, searching once again for the right word. Some things never change. My father called me away from my work and, silently, pointed out for my benefit what my wife was doing. I was flooded with nine-year-old shame. I screamed at her to stop, at once. And she has never, never, since been allowed to cut the grass—though my father is fifteen years dead.

When I told my own son this tale in due course he heard me out bemused, smiling from his distance with dim apathy and mild interest. His own wife cuts their sizable lawn with a power mower each week, while he remains at his computer in his loft, writing programs, occasionally smiling encouragement to her from out of the lofty window.

I now must jump ahead. From 1939, when we were not yet at war, we rush to late 1945, when the Second Great War has just ended and the nation is returning to Normalcy. The Arnold family was both part of its times and stood at a remote distance of them. This gives us all an odd perspective.

Gramps is in relative good shape still, and his letters are full of the detailed weather reports that his letters would be incomplete without and sadly lacking. Cheery as he is, the letters barely hint at the rapid personal disintegration that is to follow. Gramma has had a major stroke that has left her bedridden in a nursing home; smaller strokes were to follow. Gramps is living with my Aunt Ruth and her husband, my Uncle Wayne. It is not clear from the letters (all I have to go by) whether it is Gramps's house still or my aunt and uncle's. There has been some big mix-up (read Loss) in finances, and my grandparents have sold their house in Beverly Hills. Perhaps it was sold to pay her medical bills, which were extensive. Or he had some losses from real estate investments. Or both. Anyway my aunt and uncle moved into the Beverly house, then sold it. They were now paying her nursing home bills, perhaps from the proceeds of the sale. It is not clear. They are providing room and board to Gramps; this much is evident. I remember that he was incapable of taking care of himself, so dependent was he on Gramma's cooking, etc. She spoiled him, in the old-fashioned way of wives with husbands. I know just how it was, being one myself. I doubt whether he could cook an egg, let alone sew on a missing button. At least I can perform these rudimentary feats.

So Gramps is living with his daughter and her husband, a man who he has hated from the start. Both Gramps and my father have always believed that no living man was good enough for Ruth. The arrangement was thus untenable. It was soon to prove impossible.

The first letter is normal and full of the usual data. It reads:

Sunday night

December 16, 1945

Dear Folks,

Just a few lines and I'll finish later. We are having genuine winter weather. Clear, bright but cold sunshine every day since it quit snowing. Below zero this morning and will be about as cold tonight as last night. The nights are pictures [?]. The moon is 3/4 or more full and the light on the snow is beautiful. Frost in the air to add to the picture. I went to church this morning and sat through the sermon. This reminds me—Mr. McGee, of Bethany Union, Beverly Hills, has resigned the pastorship and a new minister has been chosen. His name is Snodgrass, from Kansas. He came on condition—that they provide a parsonage or manse. That's how I found out—they need the money. I don't know what has become of Mr. McGee.

Did I write you that when I mentioned the gift Ollie had bestowed upon her, she/mother had no recollection of it. I did not say much about it to her. We did not go in to see her today. I was there Friday and Saturday. She has not got back into her room yet. I think she is very well satisfied where she is. Ruth has said she would like to have mother stay in there for Mrs. Mueller (one of the two inmates), was always so cheerful. Mother has told me several times in the past several weeks about this woman swearing so horribly. One day last week Mrs. Bigly told me Mother and Mrs. Mueller were writing notes to each other, and were getting along so well together and Mother was so much more quiet than she had been that she thought of asking Mrs. Mueller if she would like to go into Mother's room to stay when Mother moved back. Yesterday Mrs. Mueller told me that at one time she was trying to adjust a brace and having some difficulty she swore a little. She said Mother told her to quiet [stet] her swearing and go to praying. Mrs. Mueller is the most masculine looking woman I ever saw. At first I thought she was a man until I saw it was a woman in the other bed. She is certainly a contrast to Mother. I don't know what she thinks of mother crying so much. I don't think anything could cause her to cry. The woman in the other bed has been at Bigly for 4 years.

Mother complained of her feet being cold yesterday. I think they have a fine heating plant at Bigly. I got a blanket and covered her feet. She did not want the blanket over her.

I bought for her a nice Infant's blanket—large sized—to go over her lap when she sits up—a Xmas gift. This will do as a foot warmer, too. I wrote you that mother's blood pressure is 120. Not bad? Mine was 170 a week or so ago. Is that high? Russel [stet: a consistent misspelling, which may indicate some thing in the nature of resentment. He is Wayne's brother] has been discharged from the navy and is home. He will be here tomorrow. Wayne's cold is about well, or is well. I don't know whether Wayne expects to work tomorrow or not. There will be long week ends this week and next—from Sat. or Friday to the next Wednesday. The latter is Wayne's. Same with you? Be fine for you to rest up before you go to N.Y. Monday night. I saw Mother this P.M. Ruth had to stay home to prepared for company—Russel and his wife. Russ looks just as he did when he entered the service. Not a change of any kind.

I was preparing my supper when Wayne brought him in. After eating I went in to chat a few minutes when Wayne turned up the radio until I had to yell to talk to him. When I left he turned it down again. I felt like biffing him one.

I don't know how long he will be here. I imagine all four will spend Xmas In Polo[? A town, probably. I have no idea where.]

Poor Mother was so restless today. She was back in her room and "Stella" was in the other bed. Mrs. Bigly said she thought she would put Stella Mueller in with her for Mother and Stella seemed to get along so well together. Stella is talkative, lively, and good company for Mother. I don't think she has ever cried in her life. She was at Bigly where [read: "when"] Mother came. Mother is so childish, just the opposite to Stella. Stella is a grandmother, too.

Mother wanted some cards sent to some of her friends, more than I have sent already, so I got some more cards to send.

It is awfully cold tonight again, and almost a full moon. Snow is promised for tomorrow. I guess we are in for a hard winter.

I have a letter started to your Uncle Rufe, which I must finish and then get at Mother['s] cards.

I know you folks will have a merry Christmas without my wishing you one. You always do have a big time. I'll write some before Xmas but you may not get it until after. My love to all of you, Dad.

I got notice I had mailed a letter to you without postage on it—Chicago P.O. I sent the stamps. You will get it with this one may be.

The following from my Aunt Ruth, recovered in the same box, illustrative of what is to come.

523 So. Illinois Avenue

Villa Park, Illinois

January 3, 1946

Dear Folks,

Probably Eddie will have left for Chicago by the time this reaches Seattle, but I'll address it to all of you anyway. We are looking forward to seeing him sometime around the 7th—and hope he'll have time to stop over both ways. Wish Cecile [my mother] could be with him, this time, as she was a year ago; we really are looking forward to the time when the whole family can come and pay us a long visit.

The Christmas box from Seattle for Daddy, Wayne, and me came on the same day as my new fur coat—on the Friday after Christmas. Everything was most welcome and very much appreciated. My slip is lovely and fits perfectly and I was delighted with the perfume. I shall wear the Town variety when I go in to Chicago and the Country one when I go to social occasions here in Villa Park! Wayne likes his lighter very much and I'm sure Daddy has written to you his appreciation of the books. He is reading the Ernie Pyle one now and is apparently enjoying it very much. Eddie wrote that Bob and Dick are renewing the subscription to Life as our collective Christmas gift, and that was good news, too. It is a fine magazine and we all enjoy it immensely. Thanks a lot for everything, everybody!

My coat is lovely and is warm! It fits well and everyone thinks it looks well on me. The first day I wore it, I went in to see Mr. Metheral [the manager of the Fur Salon at Fields and my father's former boss], just to have an expert look at it and tell me if it needed any slight adjustment or alteration that I might not be aware of. He said he thought it was just right and didn't need anything. Incidentally, I was invited to lunch at Field's tea room and to the theatre [stet] (Blackstone) the day after the coat came—so you see it arrived just in time! I've been especially notching mouton coats since mine came and I haven't seen any yet that I like so well as mine. [My father's discount ordinarily was 15%, but on a fur coat it would be around 40%, perhaps more.]

I hope our packages for you arrived safe and sound and that you all had a wonderful Christmas.

Wayne's brother, Russell, received his discharge from the Navy on December 15 and he and his wife came out here on the 17th and spent a couple of days with us. Then the following Sunday we all went to Polo and spent Christmas with Russell's and Wayne's mother and step-father. Wayne and I came back Christmas night because Wayne had to work the next day, but Russell and Ruth Ann stayed in Polo.

I did appreciate the nice letter from Dick, received some time ago, and hope he will write another one before long. I think you write very well with ink, Dicky. We enjoyed Bob's letter to Grandpa and Grandma, too, telling about his Scout hike, etc. Sorry Bob had the flu, but we're glad it didn't last any longer than it did. I wonder what the skit was that Bob had to do alone at the Scout Christmas party. I'll bet he did it well, even though he was coming down with the flu at the same time. [I generally got "the flu" at the same time I was required to perform in ;public, and while this didn't stop me, it made me feel rotten and nervous. Still do.]

I can just imagine how pretty your Christmas tree looked in front of the big window in the living room.

I wonder if the newspaper strike in Seattle has been settle yet. It must be strange to have no newspapers for so long.

We have been having real winter weather here—lots of snow and ice. I don't mind the snow at all, but I don't like the ice. Walking has been very difficult, with dangerously slippery streets and sidewalks, for some time now and it looks as if it will continue that way for a while. I've been trying to persuade Daddy to say in because I'm so afraid of his falling on the ice.

Mr. Truman is now broadcasting his [on radio, of course] report on the State of the Nation, so I guess I'll sign off and see what he has to say.

Much love to you all—and write, any or all of you, when you can—and thanks again for the nice Christmas gifts. Ruth

Back to Gramps, and the start of what can only be called in cold retrospect his rapid, major decline.]

528 South Illinois Ave.

Villa Park, Ill.

P.M. September 17, 1946,

[Addressed to Mr. Edmund C. Arnold, Seattle, Wash. c/o Frederick and Nelson, Fur Dept. That's all.]

Sunday night—9/15

Dear Edmund,

This is Sunday night and I can't refrain from writing to my boy, altho [stet] I sent him one letter this week already. It breaks my loneliness and helps pass my time in this lonely house, silent house. Wayne must make Ruth play bridge, for I used to hear Ruth say she does not like it, night after night she and Wayne play by the hour, often with the radio going. They keep out of sight, so making no sounds it seems they are away.

I went to Elgin today. Saw Mrs. Washer and the upper floor nurse and asked them how Mother is doing. "Just fine," they both said. A very nice way for critical trouble to end. Other had the [bed] pan while I was there—I put the [hook?] over her hand before the nurse came in, and took it off when the nurse went to empty the pan.

I read the article by [Malcolm] Cowley in this week's "Life," "U.S. Books Abroad" to her. This week's copy of Life is a remarkably fine one. You should take the time to read some in it. No doubt Cecile will read some of the fine articles. I hope Bobby's finds some of them interesting. A glance at the index of contents ought to interest him a lot. Some are "right up his alley."

Don't miss this week's copy.

We are having lots of good things to eat now from the garden. I picked the grapes and let Ruth sell them after I found a buyer. No sugar. We had two bushels of grapes. I set out the grapes when we first came here, when I put out the strawberry rhubarb which I brought from Beverly. We have strawberries, raspberries, and asparagus besides.

How is the Bellevue store showing up? This may reduce sales at your main store. Aren't the women wearing fur hats this winter? How is your fur designer since he got back from the war? [This was John O'Grady, who used to send me military souvenirs, including his Fourth Division shoulder patch. Aside from this act of generosity to his boss's son, I don't remember him at all.

The following evidently to me, Gramps having heard that I was experiencing orthodontia:]

My upper cuspids (canines) came in too late to get in line and had to take front seats. Father took me to a dentist a little soon and in the effort to get hold of the tooth to extract it the dentist hurt me so terribly, he put off extracting the other one. I never could endure the thought of having that lonely outstanding tooth extracted until I was a big hulk of a boy. I was so ashamed of my appearance when I laughed. I always put my hand over my mouth. Finally one day I acquired enough nerve to resolve to have it out. I went up the road a few rods to the home of a country doctor, who lived on a 20-acre farm—"Doc Cowan"—He got me out on the front porch and after anchoring his forceps on the canine we wrestled around over that porch—I seated on a straight back kitchen chair, and Doc ambling about on all sides of me, he succeeded in yanking it out, holding it up in front as proof of the job was done. I expected to see hair on the tip of its root it was so long.

The lower canines came in on time of the incisors and made them turn sideways, the alignment being anything but perfect. The canines should not have been extracted above or below, but an incisor should have been sacrificed in all four places. The canines give the proper contour to the upper jaw, but they did not know any better 70 years ago. Orthodentistry was not in our school books then, Bob.

A dentist married a first cousin of mine—Cora Grubbs, of Albina [Ohio], and we got our dental work done at reduced rates. After I had taught country school a year or two, I had an attack of "fevers." My teeth began to decay and I gave that dentist a lot of work. When he got through drilling and filling I averaged a filling for each tooth—or almost that. I had 30 teeth and about 20 fillings. I spent several Saturdays in Dr. Stadder's chair. I was 21 years old when I had the fever and I guess I have some of the doctors [stet]

filings still in my mouth. No bridges, no false teeth, and only one crown. See if you can beat it, Bob. [Couldn't.] You will have to wait awhile. But in the meantime take good care of your teeth—nature won't give you any more replacements. When your present set is gone you will have to gum it or buy false teeth. And Dick can profit by our examples.

Has Grandma Clark returned from the Rockies? She got pretty close to where Ruth was one autumn—Bozeman. She and a young bacteriologist student name Mary Sarine [?] drove by auto and visited Yellowstone park and the Teton mountains, going thru several Indian reservations. They took home another "bacti" student—Edith Swingle—whose father taught bacteriology in the Bozeman college, who sent his daughter to Chicago U. to graduate. Mary Sarine came from Michigan to study "bacti" and after graduating had a position in the research department at the Rush Medical College. She is now raising a family next door to us in Villa Park.

Missoula is not far from Bozeman. Get out your atlas, Bob and Dick.

I am enclosing a sketch [a newspaper feature, with a screened photo of a plain, cheerful girl] of Jane Connelly, daughter of Joe Connelly, Joe being a first cousin of Edmund Arnold, copied from the high school paper of their home town by her Aunt Jennie Connelly, of Westfield, and sent to me. Joe graduated from Illinois U. just after he returned from the 1st World War. Jane is one Connelly that shows promise. I imagine she "takes after her father."

[Taken from the Petersburg High School Paper. About Jane Connelly. (Senior)

Jane came to Petersburg High School from Pekin [?] High at the beginning of her Junior year, their loss has been our gain without a doubt. Jane is very active in the local Girl Scout Troop. She was in the Gay Nineties Review which was presented in many places through out the community. She is also associate editor of the Sphinx. Jane's trade mark is her constant smile, no matter what the weather is she is always smiling. She makes all near her happy and cheerful. She is always ready to cooperate and help others when ever the opportunity knocks. Jane plans to go to college with her high scholastic standing and with her winning personality she is bound to reach the top in every walk of life she enters. She has what it takes. Our Janie]

The plant lice (aphids) ruined my asters this year. They worked under the ground—a small green variety and I did not discover them until too late—thought it was the dry weather that was stunting their development. I had had experience with the very small white lice which work deep in the soil on the small root of the asters. I might have used some "Black Leaf 40" on them had I discovered them sooner. I can't raise turnips on account of these little devils and they are going after my kohlrabi and Chinese cabbage. You know they are propagated by ants (excuse me, Dorothy). [Dorothy was my maiden aunt on my mother's side.] Were there no ants there would be no lice, no aphids, They are called the ant's cows. Did you ever see the ants milk their cows? I have watched them do it. The ant carries an aphid to a leaf and it is only a short time until the leaf is covered with young ones, they multiply so fast. See if you can find some, Bob. I must close and get in bed. Love to all—good night.

Dad and Grandpa

[Okay. Me speaking again. Gramps is still okay. Sure, there is a little oddness to his words, but hasn't there always been? It is half his charm. The old pedagogic bent is alive and ticking. His days as principal of what was essentially a business college are behind him. You can take the man out of the classroom, etc. And what is a grandfather to do if not preach and instruct his grandchildren? I mean, there have to be some perks to old age, or else it is unmitigated pain, neglect, and misery.

But now the tone changes; it does so by degrees. Gone is the playfulness and the wit. Well, he was getting on, and he was no longer young. I've always had trouble finding out when (and where) anybody in my family was born. James C. Arnold is no exception. I know his wife, Sara Leigh Connelly, was born in 1878, in January. From textual evidence I've found later in these letters I think he was about ten years older than she. This would make him born in or around 1868.

Some terrible things are starting to happen. His health, for instance. It is not your normal accumulation of complaints associated with aging. Instead it is a litany of rather severe and surprising manifestations of ill health, surprising because they arrived and found him unprepared. He reports them almost as though they were happening to someone else.

I have since noticed that this is singular among the Arnold men. When we get sick we also get surprised, and we will recount to whomever is handy the extensive details of what we have perceived about our bodily processes with complete oblivion to how the account is being received by its (let us say) random audience.

When my own father was stricken in the late 1980s, he did much the same thing with me. I was more than interested; I was weirdly fascinated. The day before the night he died, he described to me in the trauma room of Swedish Hospital, to which he had just been admitted and where he was undergoing the tests that continued until nearly midnight—or three hours before he died—his mysterious and fascinating symptoms. He might as well be describing the industry of a colony of ants. Or aphids.

If he did not lie flat on his back, his blood pressure would drop to nearly zero and he would pass out. Though distressing, I don't think (I must believe this) he was not undergoing any great pain, only consternation and—-that inadequate word again—-continual surprise.

Well, here is the forerunner to Gramps's demise, and perhaps my own. Remember, you heard it here first, Folks:]

Villa Park, Illinois

Monday, 9-16 [1946]

Dear Son:

I wrote you a letter last night intending to mail it this morning but I am so dizzy I have not gone to the mail box. I had a spell about a month ago, and saw my doctor, and my blood pressure was only 145. My head aches as it did then. The sawbones said it was from my stomach. I think I ate too much supper last night, when I returned from Elgin. I thought I was using quite a lot of moderation, too. But it was late and I have been accustomed to eating only shredded wheat and milk for supper. This time it was some beef (very unusual) a very small piece, potatoes, and succotash (Lima beans & corn) and vegetable salad. I'll be o.k. soon.

I received your letter written Thursday—a nice letter and I'll try to answer it now. Ruth got it from the postman and as she left a few minutes ago she asked if she could read it to Mother. I told her I should do it tomorrow.

I am awfully glad you get a half day off. [This was about the time Marshall Field instituted the Saturday afternoon pass for its employees.] It is only customary any how. Now spend it out doors. Have a good time. It's coming to you.

Tell Bob to organize a sand lot feet [stet] ball team and play the J. & S. [junior and senior?] team. It takes more brawn than brains, may be, Bob.

Yes, I do get a blue feeling often, but I must quit overflowing on you. You need a free mind to attend to your work properly.

I think Ruth's attitude toward me is the result of Wayne's pressure to make life miserable for me. He realizes she can do more in this line than he can. A word or two semi-critical about Wayne is enough to throw Ruth into hysterics.

It has been a year now since he has been carrying all the milk and making Ruth carry all the groceries. He knows I want to do it. He evidently thinks it shows I am not needed about the place. Three or four days ago Ruth carried home in two baskets a lot of fruit jars from Elmo Smith's. I asked her why she did not let me do it. I did not know she was out of jars, and told her I would be glad to carry all such loads and the milk as I used to do. This threw her into one of the worst cases of hysterics she has had yet. She simply went crazy. I could not stop her and the more I tried to reason with her the worse she got. She ran to the bath room to find some poison to kill herself. It took her out of the bathroom and she started to go to Mary's. I grabbed her and forced her into her bedroom—all the time she was screaming and yelling at the top of her voice. I tossed her on the bed but she jumped up a half dozen times to try to get past me to the door. I told [her] I meant to stay and keep her in the room until she realized what she was doing. I told her at best I could how I had studied hysteria at the C[hicago]. U. Library and the only thing recommended was to leave the subject alone, go away from her. I told her she would have to acknowledge and realize how insane she was acting before she could correct herself—that I would make her stay in that bed room until she did if it took all afternoon and I could not go to Elgin. [Ostensibly to see his sick wife.] I kept talking to her all the time and at the end of half an hour she quieted down and came to me and put her arms around my neck and her head on my shoulder and she cried like a baby. It looked like she had thoroughly realized what she had done. She seemed like Ruth used to be and I was very happy. I felt I had solved the problem. She maintained this attitude that evening and the next day. She got me the best dinner next day I have had for a long time. She is gradually getting back again to her old way, but seems to try to be reasonable. I know Wayne won't stand for her changing her feeling for me if he can help it.

After the Seattle visit [a visit from my father, on his way to NYC?] Wayne had the Waterman Home trap ready to spring. It didn't work. He had Ruth (and you, too, maybe) thinking it was the thing. He would get rid of both of us and be in full possession of our goods. They would have to make only one or two trips there in a month, for it would require two days and a night to make the round trip. They could not expect their friends here to drive them over three times a week, or even once a week. Ruth goes 3 time each week and Mother thinks it is not often enough. This was too much for Mother to consent to do.

The whole thing is like a bet to Wayne. His gambling instinct tells him he has to win. He works harder at something like this than he would to make his living. [After the ear, when the government cut back its bureaucracy, Wayne was offered a demotion and transfer out of the Office of Price Administration. He didn't have to take it and didn't. Instead he retired early on pretty good pay, when he parlayed into much more money. He was less than fifty at the time. My father scorned this, but there was envy, too.] He must win out in some way. He repeatedly told me to leave and I don't do it. Getting in at Elgin spoiled his plans.

I am very sure Wayne can find nothing in my conduct toward him since Ruth came from her visit. While she was gone he left home before I was up and came home at bed time. He would not stay around. I am certain he did not speak a word to me while she was gone. He has not recognized me since she returned. It does not bother me one bit for him to act as he does. He must know it. But he knows I do care for Ruth's good opinion. There is where the rub has been. He must make her an enemy of mine no matter how it tortures her.

Well, there is nothing that either you or I can do about it.

I stay in my room and Ruth spends no time with me, when he is home, unless it is while we wash dishes.

I don't believe he could compel Ruth to sell. It is a joint tenancy affair. He might scare her into it by threatening to leave her. But he knows she would not want to go too far from Mother. I don't believe he has nerve enough to go to New York or any distant place.

Sometimes I wonder if he is really working at the OPA office.

I don't feel their [stet] is any danger of his leaving Villa Park very soon. I have not been very uneasy about it. I have no desire to change my habitat. I am content to stay here under present conditions. Your noble assurances, my dear boy, are fully appreciated and accepted with deepest humility. You must not worry any about me. I'm not worth it. I am sorry I must impose on you. Ruth will be curious to know bout your letter and so will Mother. I will try to get by this difficulty. My love to you and yours—Always—Dad

This is a wonderful letter. It is horrible, too. It says it all. Here is a lucid man, full of sentimentality and the conventional maudlin thinking about his family and how they ought to behave idyllically who, in a flash, switches over to a fairly strong paranoid scenario in which various members are out to get him, which actually proved to be the case. If you think a thing is true, it is. His description of what was happening to him is both candid and fraught with outrage. Well, his life was beginning to change markedly and he was no longer his own person, in charge of daily events. He was, in fact, a victim of them, however much he might resist. There is great sadness here. He has lost his wife to illness, that is, paralytic stroke; then his house and possessions, and finally his daughter, whom he believed was turned against him by her evil husband. All he had for hope was his son, who lived clear across the country in Seattle. A series of letters resulted, written to my father, Edmund begging him to intervene and save the life of this powerless and imprisoned man, his father.

I am not overstating the case. The letters are touching and often ludicrous. The self-pity is obvious but appropriate to the events. I have absolutely no doubt that he believed everything was happening as he said it was. His feelings of unworthiness are both real and contrived. Such abjectness I have trouble comprehending. He wanted to make something different happen—the course of his life. It moves me. My heart feels caught in a wringer.

The more I read, the more I feel myself becoming an advocate for Gramps. I feel he badly needs one. But I am just a kid. Besides, the letters are not to me. Only now do I get to read them. And now is way too late. He is alone in a alien and hostile world. It is closing in on him. It is stealing from him by degrees the one thing he values more than his freedom. His reason.

The next letter is from his sister, Ruth, however. A thank-you note. Short as it is, the subject of Gramps and what to do about him immediately comes up.

Villa Park, Ill.

June 19, 1947

Dear Eddie,

This will be just a note to enclose one which Mother wrote to you last Sunday to thank you for her bed jackets. They are really very lovely and she is very pleased with them. Daddy said he wrote you, "accepting" them, and the pajamas as Mother's Day and Father's Day gifts. I don't know why he did that. He must have forgotten, for one thing, that you bought the plant for the Mother's Day gift. Of course it is up to you, but what I said before still stands and if you'll let me know the amount I'll see that you are reimbursed.

Mother was some better on Sunday. I am going to Elgin this evening and hope to find her still better.

Must get dressed and go to work. Will write more next time. Love, Ruth