Reminiscences of and for the Family

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Another reason we were home evenings was "Grampy." He was Mama's step-grandfather, Carl F. Pheiffer, and he arrived from California the middle of my 8th-grade year. He arrived with several trunks and the headstone all made out for when he would die! That was the beginning of his eccentricities. He had been a mean and hateful husband, and I won't even go into the nasty things he did to aggravate our household. I found out later he had made arrangements with my folks that he would pay them a specified amount of money and they would provide him with a home for the rest o0f his life. So the giant room that opened from a door at the foot of the stairs became his domain. Daddy immediately installed a wide metal protector over the floor in front of the stove. Grampy became more and more forgetful as time passed, and many a time Daddy would find a burned-out piece of wood on the metal protector. We were were prisoners in our own home-- hence the games and the picnics at home.

One wonderful time, we persuaded the May family to come from Salt Creek and stay with "G.W." (we kids nicknamed him "Grampy-Wampy"), but they stayed only two days and sent urgent messages that we had to come home, they couldn't take it. We had long and agonizing conversations abotu him, and I remember Aunt Dodi saying mournfully, "I just know he won't die until we all learn to love him!" And we all went cold, because we knew that could never be! When he finally did depart this world, Daddy ripped off that part of the house-- the smell that permeated that room was just too much! On his 90th birthday, Mama decided there should be a big party and we would have a cake with ninety candles. Learned our lesson on that one-- the candles all went into one huge inferno and almost took the cake with it!

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