Today the 29th of April my Dad would have been 75 years old. I have been thinking about writing a memorial for him since early February, on the anniversary of his death. Dad died fourteen years ago on the 4th of February, when my sons where little Kindergarteners. At the time of his death I have no doubt but that he was the center of mine and the boys lives, and that’s not to take away from husband, it’s just that Dad was that kind of man.So anyhow, Dad was born in 1933 to an un-wed teenage mother with epilepsy. I’m not sure about the whole story of my father‘s birth, but I know he was brought up as a foster child by my Grandmother Corey. His birth mother didn’t give him up on him. When she married, Doris and her new husband had my than 4 year old father come to visit, with the thought of him living with them. Dad wasn’t having any of it. When they found him, he was sitting in the middle of Route 30, and told them he was going home. So home he went, to Maple Hill, and remained a foster child.When Dad was eight he was walking home from school one afternoon when he met Gram running away from the house. She was screaming “he shot himself, you‘ve got to get help”, and she ran right on past him. Dad went onto the house, to find out what he getting help for. Up stairs in his Foster Parent’s room; he found that his foster father had killed himself with a shot gun. This event dragged Dad into court, as the State of Vermont didn’t think that my widowed Gram Corey could or should keep a [by the time it got court] 10 year old boy. I’m sure that Gram had support from many of her family member and neighbors on the Hill in keeping Dad. What he remembered though, was the Judge asking him what he would do if taken away from Gram Corey. He told the Judge he would run away, get into trouble, and would be in court to see him often. The Judge told Gram Corey to take him home, and told Dad he never wanted to see again. The Judge never did.Dad worked for and loved dearly a couple who farmed a short distance from Gram’s Maple Hill home. Their names where Lydia and LeVarrie. Lydia feed him that great heavy filling old farm food, and I believe taught him to respect women. LeVarrie turned him into the man he became. He learned to work hard long hours, he learned to hunt and fish, and to give to and take care of others before yourself from this this couple. He spoke of them frequently through out his life.Dad only made it through the eighth grade, and yet he was one of the smartest people I’ve ever known. He watched the news and read the paper every day. He and I often read the paper together in the mornings. Right up until the day he passed away, he never failed to discuss the news, and he taught me to express and form my own opinions this way [by the way he respected my opinion which often differed from his own]. If a problem came along Dad never failed to find a way to solve it. At work, where he invented several items for the local plant he worked for to increase safety [they gave stock as a thank you, for saving them money]. He had an uncanny memory for directions and people’s names. He did pollution reports the State required of the company he worked for, filling out the forms and running the water tests twice a week. During the Korean War Dad wound up; after training, teaching future officers artillery at West Point .Even now after my Dad has been gone for 14 years there are very few days that go by that I don’t think about him. I often meet people, who I don’t know, but know me through my Father, and still want to tell me how much they miss him. As a matter of fact when I introduce myself in my home town to locals, I often introduce myself as Ernie’s daughter. My sons bring him up a lot more than you would think considering their ages when he died. They talk about things he taught them to do, and places he took them, as little five and six year olds. He was a man who reached out and touched lives, and changed them. For me he is the person I hold myself up to, and judge my self worth against.I am a lucky person, for the Dad that I got to have, even if for not nearly long enough.
