Were my father alive today, he would have achieved his ninety-seventh year.
Born at home in 1920, his birthplace was a tiny town of less than 3,000 in which his father was Postmaster General and his mother played the organ for the silent movies. The 19th Amendment was passed in the year of his birth, the Great Depression followed nine years later— but the stories my father told us were impressions of family life, not of the hardship and ferment swirling around him.
He told tales of terrorizing the family housekeeper. These included locking her out of the house, and worse yet, hiding from the adults beneath beds when his younger brother succeeded in burning down the family barn.
Switchboard operators; party lines; a horse-drawn wagon that delivered blocks of ice for refrigeration: It all sounded quite quaint. Family discipline, however, was of the “children are to be seen and not heard” variety. This technique my father brought to his own family, with a couple of modifications.
One major influence was his education in a religious seminary through his sophomore year of college. A second was the rigors of medical school, which he paid for by working in tobacco fields. What ruined any interest in travel, but also cemented his affinity for rules, was a tour of duty with the US Army in Japan.
My mother, an operating room nurse, moved in tandem with my father, the surgeon, who directed the proceedings of our household with a structure and strictness that could best be understood by spending a lot of time in a hospital. Chore lists in indecipherable handwriting greeted us each Saturday morning. We kids were lined up and questioned when someone fouled up. If the guilty party did not confess, all four of us suffered the consequences.
Personal accountability, self-control, precise language, manners and respect ruled the roost.
Were my father alive today, he would surely have something to say. (c)
