Images My Dad Left Behind

a page in THE FOXFILES:

Reba's Eclectic Collection of
Musings, Images and Annotated Webliographies

Introduction

I was 7 months old in September 1958, when my Mom (his second wife) left him because his drinking had gotten out of control. Not long thereafter he left the property he had transformed from a swamp into a farm (just south of the dunes of Lake Michigan in Lake County, Indiana), and wandered aimlessly for a couple of years. In December 1960, when I was almost 3 years old, he died in Des Moines, Iowa. His sister Cleta told me she was the one who met him after that last train ride "home." She confirmed my Mom's bizzare tale of a violent death by simply saying: "Whatever he did wrong in his life, he paid for in his death."

WWII Pocket Journal

My parents met at the Brooklyn Navy Yards at the commissioning of the battle ship my Father would serve on as Fireman First Class, the Bonne Homme Richard. While on board he kept a pocket journal. My brother David now owns this slim notebook.

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My parents worked out a system whereby my Mother would know where my Father was located. This code was encrypted in the form of greeting he used at the start of his many letters written to her while he was on board. These are my Father's notes on the code.

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If his journal was lost, it was to be sent to the Sarah Marcus, my Mother.

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My Father filled many pages of his journal with quotations, poems and interesting ideas he encountered in his on-board reading. This scan shows the full text of the poem We Know of God by Elliot Hoppenstedt.

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Quotes including Gravy for the Navy and some word's from Hilton's Lost Horizon.

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And a few more ...

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June 5, 1945: 200 miles from Japan. Death was definitely a preoccupation at this stage in the war.

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August 19, 1945: One page looks to be the handwriting of a very exhausted man, the other shows his bold elation! END OF WAR

Veterans Permanent Free Permit

When my Father returned to Indiana, it was to completely changed circumstances. His eldest son, "Red" had died in a drowning accident while my Dad was still in training. I have always wondered if this terrific loss did not set in motion the emotions and events which led to his leaving his first wife, Evelyn. Not long after he got home, he was joined by my New York City raised Mother who would share his rural lifestyle for the next 13 years. In any case, his status as an honorably discharged veteran earned him this lifetime permit to hunt and fish and trap. The stories my family tells of his 16 hunting dogs and his ability to move silently in the woods made him seem legendary to me as a small child.

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The obverse has a rare example of my Father's signature.

Business Card

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With notes concerning his maternal grandfather on the obverse.

Farmer's Pocket Ledger

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This may, in fact, have been my Father's final pocket diary since he quotes here from the 1958 Nobel Prize winning Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternack. The chosen quotation shows an almost prophetic quality in articulating tremendous dissatisfaction with life.

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In addition to his work on the farm, my Father was a locomotive engineer for United States Steel and that may explain the ability to have so much more in expenditures than in income. The entry which reads "Eggs 52.90" is unmistakeably in my Mother's handwriting.

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Charleston is the nearest city to the very small town of Ashmore where they were born and where I visited my great-grand father's grave. So many things happened on that trip! In time, I will get around to writing more about it. For now, I simply want to say that toward the end of the trip I went for a couple of days to north-western Indiana and visited with Jim, Pauline, Juanita and Garland: my half-siblings. It was Memorial Day Weekend and everyone came to Pauline's for a picnic. I was astounded when Pauline went into the house and came back out with a gym bag full of things that had been my Dad's, and gave it to me. I will write more about the contents of that bag ... but for the moment: there was this library card, from "The Public Library, Des Moines, Iowa."

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Note: This is a slightly enhanced scan of the lower right portion of the card showing its date of issue: "October 28 1960" (still a bit difficult to make out the "0"). That was less than 2 months before his death.

OK, That is as much as I have gotten done so far. Come back as watch as my telling of the story of my Dad grows. Next up -- some family photos including James (his Dad), Sarah (my Mom), and my Dad in his handsome Navy duds!
Special thanks to my brother David Max Tanner for allowing me to scan and exhibit some of the the wonderful visual memories that he is the caretaker of.