Going Into Service

May 1st was my father's birthday. I had an almost finished post honoring the day he never did. He thought celebrations for the most part were needless activities aimed at feeding egos, either personal or a group's. ...... Damn, that paints a curmudgeon-esk image of him. .................. Yeah, he could be one, that's for sure, but like most people he was not one dimensional. As a matter of fact his turbulent waters ran deeper than most still waters did. 

So, I had finished my initial draft of my tribute to him on what would have been his 117th birthday. I read through it and decided I had already waxed poetic on how grand a man he was. I had already shared some of his life's high points and some of his lows; at least the ones I learned about or witnessed. I relegated the post to draft status and got on with my day.

This morning, while I was perusing the comically large number of images I have felt the need to store on my computer, I came upon a favorite file marked "Family". I opened it and found this image of my dad as a younger version of the man I knew as a child. The caption I had embedded in the image file stated;

"Dad, 1928, working his way through college as a waiter at Wesleyan"

My first impression was the picture reminded me of "Downton Abbey", the British series I had just finished watching. And then I thought of the one character in that series that Dad and his situation reminded me of the most. It would have to be Tom Branson, who started as a chauffeur in Season 1, then married into the family he drove for and became one of the good ole boys of the Downton Abbey elite. 

In the early part of the twentieth century, there was essentially no publicly supported assistance programs to help families who fell on hard times. Any support usually fell on the shoulders of the extended families or the church they attended. 

My dad was born in 1905 to a family with well to do roots. They were not filthy rich , but could claim lineage back to the first farts of Pennsylvania and the land granted them by William Penn in the late 1600's. By the late 1890's, any family fortunes once in play had been either fiddled away or taken away through political ill will and jealousy of others more powerful than they were. The family had dropped several tiers in Pennsylvania society circles by the late 1800's, but were still respectably set with some land holdings and making their livings as top notch professionals in various fields.

My grandfather was busy establishing himself as a young doctor in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area around the turn of century. Less than eight years and two children later when my dad was seven, my grandfather died of either a blocked colon or appendicitis, depending on which source to believe. His obituary claimed appendicitis. My dad and my Aunt Helen claimed a blocked colon. Regardless, he died before his time and left a young widow with two children. Without any real skills to depend on, prospects in continuing the comfortable lifestyle they had been accustomed to changed dramatically.  They went from life in a large stand alone home in Sewickley, Pennsylvania to a very modest walk up row house in Camden, New Jersey. The extended family pulled together enough to provide housing and food, but anything more than that was basically up to the three of them to figure out. Dad began working as soon as he could lift a rake. 

Which brings me back to the picture. 

My father grew up on the perimeter of the snooty upper class of early 20th century Pennsylvania. He floated in and around that society unnoticed or ignored by his snobbish relatives. He claimed he never minded because his mom knew that their life would be much worse without that perfunctory connection. He grew up with access to many of the same benefits his high brow relatives had. 

Dad figured out quickly that becoming a servant of some type was a smart move. The deep pockets in the eastern United States at that time were trying hard to emulate their boorish royal peers across the pond in England.  "Going into service", as it was called, often offered higher pay than other hand labor jobs at the time.

His upper class connections got him in the door of Silver Bay School for Boys on Lake George in New York. The cost was prohibitive at $750 a year but with some financial help from relatives and his time waiting tables at the school, he made it through with excellent grades and more access to even higher education at Wesleyan College, where a scholarship paid his tuition, room, and board. He continued to wait tables at the college and was able to send money home.

I cannot imagine the sacrifices my grandmother made to see her son become a well respected officer in the Army Air Corp. But then I realize my grandmother did the same thing for her daughter, my Aunt Helen. Young women existing in the unforgiving social circles back then did not go to school beyond high school at the most. My grandmother and Aunt Helen figured out how to pay for her first year at Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. Scholarships paid the rest of her way.

Aunt Helen's and my father's success is not a rags to riches tale. It is though, a story of putting noses to the grindstones and finding positive results as long one remains patient, determined, and slogs ahead. Their times came and when opportunity knocked they made sure they were home.

Unintentionally, I once again extolled how amazing my father was. I did not intend to, but well, there it is. At least this time I included my Aunt Helen, another amazing relative I was blessed to have had in my life.

I'll stop here .........................

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Music for today's post........ Hmm.  Give me a moment or a few of them..................

It is time I stopped being angry at Cat Stevens. I removed him from my favorites list years ago when he agreed with the fatwa that was put out on Salman Rushdie in 1989. There are questions over whether he was treated fairly by the British Press at the time.  I have always loved his music. I will now begin to love it again............... "Father and Son", by Cat Stevens. When I first bought "Tea for the Tillerman" in the early 1970's, this song always reminded me of my father.