Showing posts with label Dad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dad. Show all posts

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Happy Father's Day

A few years ago, I found a poem entitled, “Fathers and Daughters” by an unknown poet. It seems a fitting tribute to the bond shared between a father and his daughter. In part the poem reads, “In his eyes, she will always be his little princess, the light of his life. In her eyes he will always be the brave knight who slayed the monsters in her closet, her hero, her protector.” No little boy grows up praying to become the father of daughters. It’s not really the kind of life ambition that has a high priority. Yet somehow, once that bundle of pink is placed into his arms, the boy turned man, grows into the role. The pinnacle moment for that role is when he walks his daughter down that long bridal aisle, handing his precious baby over to another. My father has made that walk three times – in 1972, 1974 and 1999. I don’t know what Dad said to my sisters as he guided them to the strains of The Wedding March, but with me, his eldest daughter, he was making little jokes and comments. People mistook this for radiance on my part, but it was just a case of my dad totally cracking me up – as usual.

 
I count myself lucky to have my father as my dad. A father is the yardstick by which all other men are measured. In my Dad’s case, he has set the bar very high. Happy Father’s Day, Dad. With love, Your Eldest Daughter


© 15 June 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 


Tuesday, June 10, 2008

An Anniversary

On June 9, 1952, my mother and father were married in Woodville, Mississippi. Neither family nor friends were present for the ceremony. Sadly, there were also no pictures to document this important event. My father, whose unit had been activated in August 1951, was stationed at a nearby army base in Louisiana. Because they didn’t know when or if Dad’s unit would ship out for Korea, the young couple decided it was a good time to marry. So my mother, with the knowledge and approval of both of their families, traveled to Louisiana to meet my father. The two slipped over into Mississippi, a state with friendlier age of consent laws, and eloped. The picture below was taken a month later when they were part of another couple’s wedding. It is the closest thing we have to a wedding picture.

 
There is my mother with that winning smile and my father handsome in his army uniform. Both so very young and so unaware how soon they would be parted. Two months later my dad was aboard a ship leaving for Korea, and my mother was on her way back to Fremont to live with her sister. A lucky break for dad occurred when he was one of three men aboard the ship chosen for reassignment to a base in Japan. He remained stationed there as a supply sergeant until the end of the war. 

In August 1953, Dad came home. His ship, which docked in San Francisco, was the first ship to arrive in the United States at the close of the war. He flew back to Ohio where his wife and four-month-old daughter (me) eagerly awaited his return. Four children, seven grandchildren, and two great grandchildren later, they celebrate their fifty-sixth anniversary.

Congratulations, Mom and Dad!

© 10 June 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 


Thursday, October 4, 2007

Happy Birthday

For many reasons, October 4 is a date of note in my family. The most important reason being that it is my dad's birthday. Dad is half of a dynamic duo that gave my three siblings and me the best of all childhoods. Dad and I didn't meet until I was four months old. He was serving as a supply sergeant in Japan when I was born. But he was there when all three of my younger siblings came screamin' into this world. 

He was the one who had to tell mom that the doctors didn't think they would be taking my baby brother home, probably the hardest thing he ever had to tell her. My mother, discharged from the hospital, had to leave her precious newborn behind and it fell to my father to go to the hospital every morning to see my brother and find out how he was doing. Dad did this every day until my brother finally came home.

As a kid, my dad would sometimes take me with him when he went golfing. It wasn't that I liked golf (heavens no), or the great outdoors, or even the fact that most of the time I could weasel an orange soda pop out of dad at the end of nine holes. No, what I liked about walking alongside him hole after hole was that I had my dad ALL TO MYSELF. Sometimes we walked silently and just enjoyed the day, and sometimes, poor dad was subjected to 50 million questions — I don't know how he ever concentrated on his game! 

Besides being a golf fanatic, Dad is also an avid sports fan, and a big Ohio State supporter. He was horrified to learn that his one and only granddaughter was a Michigan enthusiast. He said of her devotion to Michigan, that it was like “being at war with Russia, and she was on the side of the Russians!” Yep, he's a real Buckeye fan and 20 some years later, my daughter still supports the Maize and Blue. Russians indeed! 

My Dad called the 2000 election way before the issue of “hanging chads” was resolved. At my nephew's wedding in November of that year, my dad asked me if I had heard the news that Bush had been declared the winner in the presidential election. He said it with such earnestness that I didn't doubt him for a second. My mistake — I spent the rest of the evening talking about Bush being President Elect with everyone I entered into the most casual of conversations. It wasn't until the end of the night, that I realized my dad had pranked me. To this day, his defense is that he was just early in his forecast of what eventually happened. So what if his eldest daughter looked like an idiot. 

The truth of the matter is that in my family, we joke a lot, and consequently we laugh a lot, tell stories a lot, and are noisy a lot. A newcomer has to have a strong constitution to face one of our big family gatherings. But in spite of all that or maybe because of it, we also love a lot. That's what my father and my mother taught us. As my Dad always says, “It's the little things.” So here's to you, daddy — HAPPY 76TH BIRTHDAY! 

Until Next Time … Note this post first published online, October 4, 2007, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

©4 Oct 2007, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 


Terry

Terry

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