Today is my grandfather's birthday. I might not know this information except that my mother told me that April 19 was also my due date, but I, true to form, arrived five days late. I don't know the dates of my paternal grandparents' births, nor the date they died, how old they were, etc. However, I do know both the dates of my maternal grandmother's birth and death. As the sixth child of seven I was quite young when my grandparents died, with the exception of, again, my grandmother. Such information could be relatively easily attained, but since my mother died just this past November it would be more difficult than simply making a phone call.
My grandfather's name was Stuart, but we always knew him as Grandpa Stub. He died at 65 years of complications from gall bladder surgery. His death was unexpected, and even in the mid 1960's, untimely. I was only four years old when he left this earth, to join his daughter in "heaven." She died at the tender age of seven, leaving my mother an only child.
My memories of him are vague, if not more stories told about him than actual memories. I remember visiting him and my grandmother in Ironwood, Michigan, where I was born, but didn't return to until I was 16 years old. I remember once sleeping in a crib, which for a four year old was a great indignation, but my grandparents had a rather small home with an upstairs that was more like an attic, with deeply pitched ceilings. I remember him giving me Vicks cough drops, and I still associate the smell of them with him. I remember another time him visiting us in our home in central Wisconsin. It was "little brother/sister day" at the kindergarten my older sister attended. We lived only a few doors from the elementary school and when we came home from school my grandparents were there. My sister and I got a spanking that day for trying to steal away in his car, and I suspect he might have driven off with us hidden in the back if not for our giggling.
According to my mother, my older sister was a live wire and would sit on his lap and talk incessantly, play with his glasses and generally drive him to distraction. I was the direct opposite apparently back then, content to just rest in his arms. I don't remember those times, or any others for that matter, but the differences in our personalities were often noted by my mom when she would speak of her father.
Grandpa Stub loved to fish and kept a rod and reel in his car at all times. My grandmother told us that frequently on Sunday drives or road trips he would stop his car near a stream or river and nearly always would catch a fish.
My grandparents owned a grocery store in Ironwood, Michigan, the building still stands today and you can read the words at the top of it--Reid's Hall. It has fallen into disrepair over the last dozen or so years, as has many of the old buildings in that part of the country.
When he was young, Grandpa Stub was in the Navy during World War I and crossed the ocean seven times during his years of service. I have the pin that was given to the wives or mothers of service men at the time, only recently having found it after I thought it was gone for good.
When my mother died this past November, I thought to myself, now Grandpa's family is complete again. One day I look forward to getting acquainted with him again, on whatever plain of existence we find ourselves in the next life.
Happy Birthday, Grandpa. I love and miss you.
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