HAPPY FATHER'S DAY. DAD

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My Dad was born December 31, 1909.  My Grandpa use to kiddingly say Dad made it in time for Grandpa to take him off his taxes that year. My Dad was the second oldest in a large family. He was named after his uncle George.  Dad had to drop out of school and work on a farm when he was about 13 or 14 to help support the family.  Even though his Dad, worked on the railroad, there wasn't enough money, so my Dad had to go to work, too. Dad lived at the farm 5 days a week and would come home on weekends.  Also working at the farm was Wallace Farnsworth and he and my Dad became good friends.  When they were dating age my Dad introduced Wallace to his sister Anna.  To make a long story short, even though his parents were against it, Wallace married my Aunt Anna.  Eventually Wallace's parents came around.  Aunt Anna and Uncle Wally were married for over 60 days before he passed on, she passed away a few years later.

During his teen years, my Dad was in an automobile accident where he broke every bone in his body.  His parents were called saying he was going to die, but he proved the doctors wrong.  Because of the accident my Dad had one leg shorter than the other.  So when World War II broke out he went to enlist but was refused because of his leg.  Dad searched until he found a factory making war equipment that needed a tool and dye maker-which was Mc Donald Douglass in California.  They made airplanes for the military-so Dad, Mom and my oldest brother George, moved to California.

They were in California where my second brother, Robert was born.  Dad also became a Real Estate Salesman in California after the war-so he was working two jobs.  Eventually he decided to move home to where I live today and they had me.  Dad was still working at in the factory plus he got a Real Estate Salesman License here.  The third picture down is my favorite of my Dad, we are out to dinner celebrating that he got his Real Estate Broker's license.  He worked at the factory and Real Estate until one day he got his hand caught in the machine at work which cut off the top of one of his fingers.  While home recovering he sold Real Estate.  He did need that finger at the factory, put could drive a car and show Real Estate without using that finger.  That's when my parents had a meeting and decided that Dad was going to quit the factory and just work on Real Estate.  My Mom was really nervous that it might not work.  So when Dad went back to the factory he gave them two weeks notice to which his boss told him he would ever make it in Real Estate.  Were they wrong.

Dad went into business 24 hours a day including Sunday.  He always felt he did his best business on Sunday because Monday thru Friday people worked, on Saturday they did home chores and Sunday was their free time to look at houses.  He was the only Real Estate Broker open on Sunday and it worked.  When someone wanted to sell a house that needed work, Dad would buy it, do all the work on it and resell it.  During the worse winter storms, Dad would go out and leave his card at all the trailers in the mobile home parks-he always got customers from there.  They wanted to move from a trailer to a house.  When his business took off, he started taking second morgages so people could buy their first home.  When he had salesmen and then salesladies he would make them each have an open house on Sunday and he would drive people that maybe weren't interested in the open house to show them other houses. His business was in our home so Mom was his secretary and typed up all the purchase offers until she to became the first saleslady in New York State. Then I became the secretary.

My Dad always said that each person has a perfect job or slot that God had set for them.  All you had to do is find it and his was Real Estate.  My brother, Bob became a teacher, but he too, also went in the Real Estate business and so did his daughter.  So we have had three generations in the Real Estate business.

Somehow Dad also had time to attend our school performances, graduations, parent nights, etc.  Before we could drive, he took us and our friends to activities.  Also, every Sunday morning we went to church and then out to breakfast as our time together.  He was home most every night to my Mom's six o'clock supper on the table.  Dad loved to go fishing, but only if one of us kids would go with him.  He taught my brother's how to shoot and hunt.

I always remember my Dad wearing a suit.  You could tell when he went from casual to business because he would put his suit on and that ment he was off selling.

My parents retired and moved to Florida.  They bought a house down there and they got a motorhome which they would travel in.  When their heath started to fail, I went to take care of them.  Mom passed first and my Dad went down from there.  He died three years after Mom on July 11th 1998.

I was Daddies little girl.  There was a song out once called Daddy's Little Girl and Dad use to sing it to me.  I use to get upset especially when I was in my 40's and he would still sing that song to me.  I wish he were here to sing it to me today.  I miss Dad and Mom so much.

The top picture is of my Dad in 1932.  The second is of Dad and Mom in the Adirondack Mountains back in the 1950's.  Third is when he got his Broker's License. The next is of Dad and I when I moved to Florida.  The last is of my Dad in his older years.  Funny thing is Dad isn't in a lot of family pictures-because he usually was the one that took the pictures.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY, DAD,
Marilyn