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View Full Version : A belated Memorial Day tribute to my family heritage and forefathers



mark page
06-03-2007, 12:10 PM
This is something that I always wanted to do, and don't know why I am posting it here and not somewhere's else like a local yocal newspaper, except that my heritage is based upon a lot of background that fits this forum. This is kind of a two-fold memo, one as a tribute to my heritage and another as a kind of guess my age one. No fair to moderators or any others privy to my background listed information.
Now that I'm the patriarch of the family, based on my paternal side, which is sole basis of this posting, this is my readers digest consolidated version of my paternal family.
My father was adopted into a good family at a very young age. I know nothing of his biological family except his sisters and one aunt. This is based upon his adoptive family which I will forever call my own.
My grandfather was a machinist who passed away when I was thirteen. I remember stories of how he turned piston rings on his Atlas metal lathe for steam engines. We actually kept this lathe till the mid 70's. Must have been 20 feet long and took several wrecker winches to get it into my fathers shop. When he passed away we threw so many items into a gulley and covered them up with dirt that I would be a multi-millionaire by now from the collector standpoints alone. I remember listening to an edison round cylinder phonograph. A handcrank telephone that was fully functional. And YES INDEED, if someone tells you to hold on to these wires whilst they crank the handle, it will light you up and if you're lucky it won't weld your toenails together!!!! Telephone party lines and your own distinctive ring style.
My grandfather happened to be a pack-rat and never threw nothing away, not even a bit of string. I don't use the terminology pack-rat as bad, but as a good thing as from the hard times that they went through to where nothing was available to them. He owned a small farm after retiring from the machinist world, although he kept all his equipment, which come in handy on the farm. I first starting plowing fields when I was nine years old. Same as my father. Seems like nine was the age of intitiation. EEK's I wouldn't trust my kids at this age above the use of the TV remote control. Although I was driving automobiles since age of seven. No automatic transmissions involved. My first auto driven was a Whippit, don't ask me what year as I do not know and will never know. When the fuel tank was less than half full you had to back up a hill as it was a gravity fed fuel tank and from where the feed tube was you would run out of fuel before topping the hill. A packard was a daily driver that I was fully in love with but was sold at an estate auction. Another car in the collection was a Graham Page auto, which was always held dear by my grandfather as his name was Graham Page. A Star auto was also in the collection, and I don't know much about this one.
About the farming implements. I have many upon many hours of sitting on a Farmall Reglar, F-20's, BF Avery, etc. All had hand brakes and no hydraulics at all. An A & B John Deere tractors all with hand clutches. If I remember right several F-14 farmall's and maybe an F-12. Some of these were on steel wheels. Please for some of you old-timers don't hold me to the model numbers as I'm thinking back to an early age. I was once quizzed by an old-timer as to the traction the steel wheel lugged tractors gave. My response was good, but one drop of rain in the field and it would sink plumb to the drawbar. He commenced to tell me that I indeed ran a few of these things. If needing out of the mud before things dried out fully, a hedge log was tied between both wheels and very carefully put into gear and man-handled out of the mess, with carefull consideration to not being decapitated during the process. No electric starters on any farm implements, all hand crank started. Some like the John Deere's had compression releases to keep from breaking arms when cranking. Also belt driven implements such as buzz saws to cut the wood stove wood for winter heating. Chainsaws were for cutting logs, and making logwood manageable for the buzz saw.
When my Grandfather passed, of course my father inherited all items he wanted to keep. He was a machinist, metal worker, blacksmith, engine repairman, etc. And he followed excactly in my grandfathers footsteps. Not much more to say about my father except that maybe he was more of a perfectionist than my grandfather. This trait, which can be a curse, is of course passed down to me just from family learning. My father believed if a job is worth doing it's worth doing right. This started the curse of over-engineering. IE, if something needed to hold 500 lbs it was designed to hold 3000 lbs and would last 500 years. This is a curse that is somehow ingrained into my head and I have to live with-lol. If you cannot have or build the best, wait till you can.... type of thing. My grandfather and father were well artists in their field, and well I have about the artistic ability of a fly caught in a spiders web, lol. Well now both my parents and grandparents are long gone, and sympathetically I cannot retrieve all the knowlege that is long gone with them, I somehow feel like I have sinned. But I do have a heritage that was experienced that many people have not ever experienced in my age group and never will, and I appreciate that for what it's worth to me is unlimited in wealth. Now that I am misty eyed, I can go on forever, but will quit. The biggest let down of my life is when I was thirty something that I had a bone spur removed from my neck that was shutting down the right side of my body, the doctor stated that I was thirty something and had the body of a sixty year old. I did not need to here that information. A form of arthritis that was what I blame was the cause of demise of my mother. My father happened to demise from many things which of the worst was diabetes. I run the risk of a ticking time bomb from the family medical history but if things ended tomorrow I have no regrets and feel fortunate to have lived life to its fullest. Now let the old-timers of this group guess my age if you can--lol.
Thanks for putting up with the long story,
Mark

Jim Becker
06-03-2007, 12:51 PM
Thanks for sharing a wonderful story of your family, Mark.

Nancy Laird
06-03-2007, 12:51 PM
Mark, a lovely tribute to your grandfather and father. I'm going out on a limb and guess your age at about 80, give or take 5 years. I'm basing this on hearing the same kinds of stories from my father, who is 87. My grandfather was a tractor repairman who used to work on those old Farmalls!! Brought back some memories.

Nancy

mark page
06-03-2007, 12:57 PM
I figured that my age would be entirely guessed wrong. I was going to wait to hear other guesses but can't. My age will be 47 years young this coming August. I am proud to have lived the heritage that I have for my agegroup, and do really miss my father and grandfather.
Thanks,
Mark

Nancy Laird
06-03-2007, 1:19 PM
Oops!! Sorry, Mark, on the age thing. Your family must have had all the right stuff to keep all that old iron up and running up into the 60s and 70s.

On the tractors that "but one drop of rain in the field and it would sink plumb to the drawbar": as I said, my grandfather repaired tractors, and many was the time he would have to drive out to a farm, park his car, trudge across a field to the tractor and muck around in the mud to repair it. My grandmother always made him strip on the back porch when he got home!!

Nancy

mark page
06-03-2007, 1:25 PM
Hi Nancy,
I know the feeling. Some of my posts always in some ways refer to my heritage from the farm years. Just common sense in a practical way type posts.
Thanks,
Mark

mark page
06-03-2007, 1:30 PM
Now that the age thing is out in the open. My wife is an Environmental Services Mgr for one of the local casino's. Think I will go down and visit her and play a few hands of blackjack to pass the time away till she gets off. I sometimes love the way security watches me like a hawk lol. There is no insider trade secrets to behold or I would have used them already. She can't utlilize anything there except the resteraunts, etc. LOL