My Daddy

As you have probably noticed, if you are at least 40 or older, time has a way of getting away from you.

It is always good to reflect on the past; not to dwell there, but to remember people who help mold you into the person you are today.

Thornton Wilder once said that the greatest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.  Today is my late father's 96th birthday and I am always filled with gratitude when I remember him!

It really doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remembered he was.  And I remember him very well.

My Dad served his country in World War II. He was in a German prison camp for over two years before he escaped.  The war greatly affected the rest of his life.  Looking back now I think he was too soft-hearted to see and experience the things he did during the war.

He and my Mom married when he returned from the army in 1945. They celebrated 57 years together before he passed away.

My sister, Linda, came along in 1947 and thus began the long-time career of my Dad being a wonderful, caring father and grandfather.

I came along 15 months later (poor Mom).  I don't have many pictures of me as a little baby.  Do you think my Mother was a little busy then?  This picture is of my Daddy holding me and my sister standing next to me.  I know it was Sunday because my Dad has on a tie and the young boy in the picture(Kenneth Dean Hughes) was a boy who went to our church.  We lived about two blocks from church and he would come down and want to help get me and Linda to Sunday school on time!

I laugh now because I see most of our pictures were made as we were getting ready to go to church!

Our parents always took us to church....not sent us....they took us!

I was so blessed and didn't even realize it!

And Daddy was always with us when Mother made our pictures with what Santa brought!  I love these pictures and can remember this little table set, my doll and the metal set of toy dishes! (But can't remember what I did last week....oh well!)

I remember this Christmas especially.  My sister and I were always dressed alike.  These dresses were hunter green corduroy.  My doll's name was Suzy and she was a "walker" doll.  You could hold her hand and her legs would move as you walked.

Here's another picture of Daddy with us and our Christmas dolls! He is holding our dog Penny.

Daddy loved dogs and we always had one.  I guess that why my sister and I both LOVE dogs and so do my children!

I remember this day.  It was Sunday afternoon after church and we went to the park.  We had a friend who played with us after church and she went with us.  She took the picture.

This is one of the few pictures made of me alone with my Daddy.  When you have two girls so close in age it is hard to find one of you by yourself with your parent.  Or least it was in those days!  Is it strange to you that I can always remember my clothes and what color they were? Mother made almost everything we wore.  This little dress was brown on the bottom with a little pink print in it.  The top was cream-colored with material from the bottom of the dress made to form the "V".  My mother was a very talented seamstress.  (I can't sew on a button and neither can my sister. Go figure!)  My little purse was pink and had French poodles on the front.

I skip up to our teen years.....oh my!  This is one of those "yes we will all go and have our family picture made for the church pictorial directory" pictures!

I think I was a senior in high school('66) and my sister was a freshman at the U of A.

My sister looks beautiful and I look like I've got buck teeth.  How do you like that "flip" hair-do??

Many years later, 1973 to be exact, my Daddy became a Grandfather for the first time.  Pap-pa

was a loving grandfather and he thought his first grandbaby, Kelly, was the greatest thing he ever had!

And then, in 1976, Pap-pa welcomed his first grandson, Chris.  After being surrounded by all the women in his life for so long, he finally got a son!!  A GRAND son!  He loved Chris so much!

Pap-pa loved to spend as much time as possible with his only grandchildren.

He relished every visit with them!

My children always grew up knowing their Pap-pa ( and Mam-ma) thought they were the finest grandchildren ever!

So, even though my Daddy has been gone for almost 10 years now, I still think of him and miss him greatly.  I especially think of how, if he were alive today, he would be so totally in love with this great-grandgirls, Harper and Hollis!  Pap-pa knew about raising little girls!

I am so very thankful that the Lord put in me in a home with a wonderful,loving Father.  This makes it easier for me to realize how much my HEAVENLY Father loves me if my earthly Father loved me so much!

I wanted to post one last picture....a very old picture of my sister and me.....just to show Kelly that she comes from a long line of mothers who dress their daughters alike! And look at that LARGE bow in my hair!!!  LOL