I've written about my father and my grandmother (and my dog), people who have passed on. My niece pointed out it's unfortunate that I write about people after they are dead, because they don't get to read it. I need to look at, with permission of course, writing about the living as time goes on.
Until that point, someone who had read what I wrote about dad and granny said they would also like to read about my grandfather, Clare. That they knew my grandfather, makes me remember my grandfather.
I was 13 when my grandfather passed away, so my memories are old, fragmented, and tempered with recollections of family members that occurred long after his passing.
Clare Humphrey was born in northern Ontario in 1912. I think his mother came here from Ireland and I know that his childhood was hard. Today, children are gifts to shower with love and opportunity, then, children were more of an inevitability that provided free labour. He didn't talk about his childhood, but I remember numerous discussions of my mom and grandmother about his foot trouble being a result of getting one new pair of workboots a year. They were purchased without fitting and worn regardless.
I remember him telling me about cleaning mink pelts for money during the depression, I want to say it was a half penny a pelt, but that sounds like a high figure for the time.
I know he and my grandmother lived in a tent for the first six months they were married to save up rent. I know they were able to rent part of a farmhouse after that. Eventually they got their own farm.
I know he worked the land by horse long before tractors were available and knew hardship I've never experienced. From my grandparents I know gravy on bread, which is what you eat when you're still hungry after meat and potatoes are finished.
I remember the smell of the Brill cream in his hair and his Old Spice and Aqua Velva aftershave (Christmas gift box dependent). He didn't have much hair. In an unkind wind it was a coxcomb.
He went to church every Sunday.
His hands, his feet, and his leg were deformed by rheumatoid arthritis, but he walked every day to keep his weight and his infirmity at bay.
He always maintained that the best farmlands in Ontario were buried under concrete in Toronto. He was right, they are.
He liked the occasional beer and I have it on good authority he liked dancing when he was young and attending house parties with my grandmother.
He could listen to the news on the radio while reading the newspaper and watching the news on TV. This apparently, is hereditary, just replace "radio" with "internet".
He really loved my grandmother. And the rest of us. I know he delighted in his grandchildren in a way he wasn't able to with his own children. Age and financial security, even through old age pension are wonderful mellowers.
He and my grandmother were always with us. We lived 12 feet away and we certainly enjoyed him. He was game for everything from carpentry to build Barbi plastic horse barns and real bunny hutches to bathing 4-H show chickens. For a man who forgot more about agriculture and animal husbandry than the majority of my generation knows, there was enough whimsy left to fully appreciate the sight of a rooster lifting its wings to let the hot air of a hairdryer blow in his armpits.
As the chunky one of three sisters, the other two having elegant limbs, fingers, and toes, my grandfather used to hold my chubby, freckly hands and tell me how nice and soft and ladylike they were. It's a good grandfather who can either see feelings of inadequacy and work with them, or to be old fashioned enough that soft plump was still the standard of prettiness. Thanks for that Grandpa.
He thought all the dogs he spoiled rotten were were no-good wastrels. The dogs worshiped him in kind.
I know he believed he lived as long or longer than he ought and when he did pass that winter day, it was sad for us, but not unwelcome for him. He was eternally practical and pragmatic, like my father.
He was salt of the earth and I could not wish to be from better stock.
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