McHenry County Blog

With the new WordPress program I am using, I get notified when people link to a story.

Thursday I got a “pingback” about from

“Motivate Grammar.”

The author, Gabe Doyle, “a fourth-year graduate student in Linguistics at the University of California, San Diego,” who is “a computational psycholinguist, which means that I use computers to model how people think about language,” was talking about the current use of “hopefully.”

In my article,

Indian Jones Coming to a Toy Store Near You,

I use it in the tradition way. It’s probably not because my mother, Eleanor Skinner, was an English teacher (and took her girl’s basketball team to a second place finish in Maryland’s state tournament in her first year of teaching in the mid-1930’s).

I think it’s because I took German and think of “hoffentlich’s” definition whenever I use the word “hopefully.” (Not that I could spell the German word after my last German class 48 years ago without looking it up.)

What’s it mean?

“It is to be hoped,” the traditional meaning of “hopefully.”

If I still drove or walked my son to South Elementary School, I would have seen the activity in my neighborhood before 2.

As it was, I noticed cars on Meridian Street in front of our home.  As I drove down the driveway, I noticed more toward the lake, so I decided to see what was up.

At the corner, I noticed a Crystal Lake Service League House Walk directional sign.

My mother wanted to buy it, but my conservative father did not. The price at the time was $40,000. They could have afforded it, I figure. We kids were out of college.

And, it still had the side lot then.

With the last lot on the lake–a tear down–having just sold for what I’ve heard was $450,000, we probably couldn’t afford to pay for the taxes.

Think this license plate refers to the intention of its owners to stay married?

It says,

Today is the anniversary of my parents’ wedding on July 31, 1938.

There’s the happy couple.

When I clicked on the wedding certificate, I noticed it said they were married in Wilmington, Delaware.

When Vernon Kays retired from being County Clerk, Dad ran for the office against Vernon’s Chief Deputy Rosemary Azzaro. Rosemary won, even winning at least one Crystal Lake Coventry precinct in which she knocked on doors. Dad didn’t do any door-to-door campaigning.

Two years later he was back on the county board.

In the 1980’s, the county board was bold enough to announce potential sites for ten or so county airports. What a way to engender opposition.

Tom Smrt, the owner of Fox Valley Systems in Cary took offense. He raised English Shires sought of Marengo on Route 20 next to the Tollway. He created the McHenry County Chronicle, which was mailed to at least all who voted Republican regularly. Every month. Smrt’s attacks on the county board led to Dad’s allies winning all four seats that were up that year.

In the fall of 1987, his wife Eleanor was killed in a truck-car accident at Route 14 and Dean Street Road. It took over ten years after that for a traffic signal to be installed.

Dad and Mom had been scheduled to go up to Mayo the next April. Dad didn’t go.

The night the summer drought was broken by a severe thunderstorm Dad had a county board meeting.

On Country Club Road almost to Crystal Springs Road, he ran into a tree branch. He hit his chest on the steering wheel. That might not have been so bad, but when he plowed into the big tree branch there was a young man trying to move it from the highway. Dad’s bumper crushed the Good Samaritan’s leg between his bumper and that of the young man.

About a year later he developed lung cancer where his chest was bruised. He had smoked cigarettes, then, a pipe, but had stopped maybe eight years before the cancer showed up.

It would have been caught early had Dad kept the appointment at Mayo, but, after Mother’s death he skipped it.

He ended up being treated at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C. He and I lived with my sister Jan in a zip code in search of a town between Annapolis and Washington. The zip code was called Severn.

In December, Dr. Stevens would not release him when he had to leave in order to get back to McHenry County to vote for Ann Hughes for county board chairman. He didn’t think her opponent would be independent enough.

He signed himself out.

You see the photo of my wheeling him in for the crucial vote. Somehow he managed to retain his position as vice chairman, even though a deal had been cut to elect another man.

After Dad died in the summer of 1989, I executed his estate.

To do that I had to get his birth certificate.

To my surprise, I found that his middle name of “LeRoy” read “Leroy” on the birth certificate. Apparently he decided to capitalize the “R” at some point in his life. So, I’m not really a “junior” because my birth certificate reads “LeRoy.” I guess being a regular “Leroy” wasn’t fancy enough for him.

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Earlier articles in this ten-part series can be found in the links below:

Biography of Calvin L Skinner – Part 1 – Second Son, School Years

Biography of Calvin L. Skinner – Part 2 – College, Marriage, First Jobs

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 3 – First House, Elected President of the Easton, Maryland, Town Council

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 4 – Storm Sewer Grates, Miles River Yacht Club, Slot Machines, Chesapeake Bay Bridge

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 5 – Switching Parties, Moving to Salt Lake City, Middletown and Crystal Lake

Biography of Cal L Skinner – Part 6 – The Early Crystal Lake Days, Dipping Feet Slowly into Political Arena

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 7 – Running for County Auditor, Precinct Committeeman, Calling the Meeting that Led to McHenry County College

Biography of Cal Skinner – Part 8 – The Star Reporter, Daughter Ellen Bored in High School, Prohibited from Attending MCC Classes

Biography of Cal L Skinner – Part 9 – Responsible Republicans’ Slate, County Board Reapportionment

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 10 – Unsuccessful County Clerk Try, County Airport Fight, Wife’s Death

Prior to the 1972 elections, the United States Supreme Court ruled that legislative bodies like the McHenry County Board and city councils had to be apportioned on a one-man, one-vote basis.

The county board divided the county into three districts, Dad’s consisting of Algonquin and Grafton Townships.

Dad didn’t like the way the districts had been apportioned and challenged it acting as his owner lawyer in Federal Court.

Because the district lines Dad came up resulted in more closely matched populations and were at least as compact as the county’s the judge told McHenry County State’s Attorney to discuss a settlement with Dad.

State’s Attorney Bill Cowlin did not do so before the next scheduled court date.

When both showed up before the judge, Dad told the judge that Cowlin hadn’t gotten in touch with him.

The Federal judge then ordered him to do so before returning for the next hearing.

Dad didn’t get exactly what he asked for, but the county board members came up with a much more acceptable map. Algonquin and Grafton Townships were put in District 1, one-third of the county’s population.

Dad and his allies put together a slate, which they called “Responsible Republicans.” They made the ballot order so they could tell people to vote from “Bick to Burns.” (John Bick, an older conservative and 10-acre tree farmer from Barrington Hills; Brad Burns, my to-be brother-in-law, from Crystal Lake’s Coventry.)

The regular Republicans won all eight seats up in 1972, but my father got more votes than any other county board member running in Districts Two and Three.

The next time Dad ran, he and his ally Lou Anne Majewski won. Lou Anne got more votes, helping validate my theory that women have an automatic advantage when they run for office.

McHenry County Courthouse, build with non-referndum Public Building Commission bonds.

I remember on serious disagreement we had. When an addition was being built on the new courthouse, he voted to let the Public Building Commission issue bonds without a referendum.

I reminded him that he had campaigned against similar action when the new courthouse had been constructed.

More tomorrow. You can read earlier articles by looking at early days of McHenry County Blog or linking below:

Biography of Calvin L Skinner – Part 1 – Second Son, School Years

Biography of Calvin L. Skinner – Part 2 – College, Marriage, First Jobs

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 3 – First House, Elected President of the Easton, Maryland, Town Council

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 4 – Storm Sewer Grates, Miles River Yacht Club, Slot Machines, Chesapeake Bay Bridge

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 5 – Switching Parties, Moving to Salt Lake City, Middletown and Crystal Lake

Biography of Cal L Skinner – Part 6 – The Early Crystal Lake Days, Dipping Feet Slowly into Political Arena

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 7 – Running for County Auditor, Precinct Committeeman, Calling the Meeting that Led to McHenry County College

Biography of Cal Skinner – Part 8 – The Star Reporter, Daughter Ellen Bored in High School, Prohibited from Attending MCC Classes

Biography of Cal L Skinner – Part 9 – Responsible Republicans’ Slate, County Board Reapportionment

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 10 – Unsuccessful County Clerk Try, County Airport Fight, Wife’s Death

This is the fourth in a serialization of my father’s biography. Previous parts can be found below on McHenry County Blog.

One of Dad’s inspirations for running for office involved an unresponsive city government.

I can hear the sounds of gravel to this day hitting the water below my feet as my Dad held my hands after I managed to slip into the open storm sewer.

Dad went to city hall and asked for a grate on the sewer. (You might say my and my father’s political careers started that day…in the gutter. That what I said about my own when I announced for the U.S. Senate in 1981 at my then in-laws’ Herb and Millicent Geist’s David Adler mansion at at 955 Lake Avenue in Lake Forest.)

Dad didn’t get what he requested.

So, when the post of president of the town council became vacant, he had a real reason for running.

Needless to say, storm sewers soon through Easton soon had grates.

Jan Skinner with parents Cal and Eleanor Skinner in 1965, the year they went to Europe.

First daughter Janet was born in 1944.

I remember the family joined the Miles River Yacht Club. We had a small outboard in what seemed to be a very big berth to someone about six. I remember the day we came to the yacht club and it had sunk.

More scary were the fireworks that blew onto our blanket when the wind blew in from the east during the 4th of July celebration.

Dad then bought a leaky, old fishing boat. We had just seen the “African Queen,” so it probably was in 1951 or 52. The boat ran aground in Kent Narrows and the men got off to push it off the sandbar. I was put in charge of the pump at age ten, while my eight-year old sister Janet sat with me inside the small cabin.

The yacht club is where I got introduced to slot machines. They were nickel slots and I have to admit I did not understand the sign above them:

I knew there were no mines nearby.

My father and his assistant Jack Rue, who became a congressional assistant to either Rogers C.B. Morton or his successor, took off the boat’s copper sheathing and spend hours putting wooden match sticks into the holes where the nails had been.

One day a snow goose showed up in the back room where the washing machine was kept. Dad had shot it. I remember Mother’s pouring boiling water over to loosen the feathers, which she plucked. I don’t think she was too happy about having that task.

Sometime in the late 1940’s Dad bought a used offset press and started a printing business in the side room where we played. I guess he thought the family needed more money than Tri-State Packers paid him.

Dad was in the caravan of Eastern Shore public officials who were the first to drive across the new Chesapeake Bay Bridge in 1952.

So much for the ferry rides across the Bay. They were a real treat to us kids.

That was the same year that second daughter Ellen entered the world. Jan and I were asked if we wanted a little brother or sister. My guess is that Mom asked the question after she was pregnant.

More tomorrow

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Links to all the stories are below:

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 10 – Unsuccessful County Clerk Try, County Airport Fight, Wife’s Death

Previous parts of this biography can be found below on McHenry County Blog.

The night I was born, June 11, 1942, my father and his Methodist minister friend Charles (Charlie) Jarvis, who baptized all three kids and, having moved to Illinois to the first pastor the Oak Park Methodist Church, officiated at Dad’s funeral, sat on the porch of the Easton Memorial Hospital drinking beer.

His wife Eleanor was inside doing the heavy work.

It was the night of the first blackout. (During World War II communities prepared for air attacks by using shades to block light coming from their homes.)

Since I was conceived before Pearl Harbor, my father was not drafted. He also was working in what was considered an essential industry. Those two factors, rather than his mis-set broken arm probably keep him out of harm’s way.

A local owner of property, Mrs. Hubbard died and her homes went up for auction to settle her estate. Dad was bidding on her home, which was at 212 S. Aurora Street. As I remember the story, he had $2,000.

The bid went higher.

Mr. Frank Shook, his boss at Tri-State Packers, offered to loan him $500 and, with that money, he bid $2,500 and bought his first house. (It had weathered wooden shingles then. I remember tossing what Mrs. Hubbard had stored in the attic out the window, which seemed very high up to someone in grade school. I got a lot of great old stamps, because she saved every letter.)

Shortly thereafter Mr. Shook retired and Dad became the Tri-State Packers’ Executive Secretary.

That must have been about the time Dad was spending a lot of time on Capitol Hill. As one of the closer trade associations.

The National Canners Association often called on him to appear before congressional committees during World War II. Dad always got cannery operators to testify, knowing that congressmen would rather hear from someone in the trenches than a hired gun.

The high-powered attorney the national association retained gave him some advice I have repeated many times:

“Cal, there are two kinds of lawyers. Those who tell you why you can’t do what you want to do and those who tell you how to do what you want to do.”

Dad and I preferred the latter.

Besides working at the trade association, Dad managed a cannery at least one summer.

He also worked his father’s farm when his father became incapacitated. You see him behind the mule.

As an up-and-comer in Easton, Dad was elected president of the Easton Rotary Club, which met in the Tidewater Inn. From the award for club excellence I found, it appears that must have been in 1944-45. (Plaques just don’t take the place of those hand-lettered awards, do they? Click to enlarge.)

His friend Walter Barnes, who ran a men’s store across from the courthouse, was Mayor of Easton. When a vacancy occurred as head of the legislative branch, the town council, Dad ran unopposed and won. (I remember walking with my mother when she voted at the fire house on the side street near the Avalon Theatre.)

More tomorrow.

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Links to all of the stories can be found below:

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 10 – Unsuccessful County Clerk Try, County Airport Fight, Wife’s Death

The first part of my father’s multi-part biography ran yesterday. Today, Father’s Day, we’ll

Dad graduated debt free from college in three and a half years.

Somehow I have gotten the impression that he was something of a lady’s man. I don’t know how he had time.

He had to take off one semester to work the farm while he father was sick, which I didn’t know until I read my sister Jan Patel’s memories.

Dad’s goal in life was to become a county ag agent.

One of his part-time jobs was candling eggs at a market in Washington, D.C. The Southeast District of Columbia market still exists and I believe it is now an upscale shopping area.

(Later, during the Richard Ogilvie administration, the McHenry County Republican Party sent out a list of jobs that were open. Dad had been elected Algonquin Township Precinct Committeeman in 1966, when I ran for McHenry County Treasurer, and served until 1988. He had been head of the local Nixon citizens committee in 1960. He lost a GOP primary race for County Auditor in 1964 to Harley Mackeben, McHenry County Board Chairman and Grafton Township Supervisor.

(In any event, “egg candler” was one of the jobs and Dad guessed rightly that no one else would have relevant experience. Don’t know where the job was located, but he didn’t get it. Of course, he didn’t really want it.)

Mom was teaching in Elkridge, Maryland. It’s on the Western Shore. Her first year, she coached her girls basketball team to second place in the state tournament.

My mother and father were married on July 31, 1938, in Wilmington, Delaware. The fancy marriage certificate says it was by a Methodist Episcopal minister named Wingate Daniel Short.

Mother lived in Barclay at the time; Dad in Sudlersville, both in Maryland. Helen Roe Stevens and Addie Louise Skinner were the witnesses.

After college, my father taught agriculture in Cordova, Talbot County, Maryland, but discovered it didn’t pay well enough to support a wife.

Then, he took a job with the Federal Land Bank in Baltimore. The two lived in an upstairs apartment in a row house.

As an appraiser, he worked with farmers who held loans with the Land Bank when the Pennsylvania Tollway right-of-way was being purchased, among others.

In 1941,he took a job as assistant to the Tri-State (Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey) Packers Association in Easton, Maryland, with the prospect of becoming its Executive Secretary when the man who hired him retired. I think his name was Frank Shook. They lived in half a house until I was born in 1942.

My September, 1941, conception occurred before Pearl Harbor and for some reason that kept Dad from being drafted. Dad also worked for what the government considered an essential industry–food production. That may have contributed to his deferment later in World War II.

I found a Red Cross Volunteer arm patch, which I assume was Dad’s.

I know he told me that he did serve as a lookout along the shore to see if German submarines were within site.

I’m not sure where, but the coastal areas were worried that a submarine would land spies or saboteurs, I guess.

Our home county of Talbot has more miles of waterfront than any other in the country. (And, the British did bombard St. Michaels during the War of 1812. And, the Nazis patrolled the Eastern Seaboard looking for Allied ships.)

Tomorrow – More of Cal Skinner, Sr.’s biography.

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Links to all the articles can be found below:

Biography of Calvin L Skinner – Part 1 – Second Son, School Years

Biography of Calvin L. Skinner – Part 2 – College, Marriage, First Jobs

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 3 – First House, Elected President of the Easton, Maryland, Town Council

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 4 – Storm Sewer Grates, Miles River Yacht Club, Slot Machines, Chesapeake Bay Bridge

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 5 – Switching Parties, Moving to Salt Lake City, Middletown and Crystal Lake

Biography of Cal L Skinner – Part 6 – The Early Crystal Lake Days, Dipping Feet Slowly into Political Arena

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 7 – Running for County Auditor, Precinct Committeeman, Calling the Meeting that Led to McHenry County College

Biography of Cal Skinner – Part 8 – The Star Reporter, Daughter Ellen Bored in High School, Prohibited from Attending MCC Classes

Biography of Cal L Skinner – Part 9 – Responsible Republicans’ Slate, County Board Reapportionment

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 10 – Unsuccessful County Clerk Try, County Airport Fight, Wife’s Death

Father’s Day is tomorrow and it seems appropriate to jot down some thoughts about my Dad.

The story got out of hand, so I’ll cut it up and run some each day until I reach the end.

Calvin LeRoy Skinner was born in Wilmington, Delaware June 8, 1916, the second son of Addie Watling and Roy Skinner.

His mother was running a corner store. She already had son George when she became pregnant with Dad.

I was interviewing her in her 95th year and she suddenly asked,

“Are you in favor of abortion?”

“I don’t know, Grandmom,” I replied, not knowing where she was going.

“Well, you better not, because you wouldn’t be here if I had followed my girlfriends’ advice.”

Her girl friends suggested if she had a second child she would have to close the store.

The family also lived in Chester, Pennsylvania, and on various rental farms in Maryland, two I know of were in Queen Anne’s County.

Dad’s father was a handyman-builder and farmer. He built their home in Chester. At one point his mother worked in a fireworks factory in Chestertown, Maryland, that blew up. She led survivors to safety, crawling under a wire fence.

The family lived on rental farms, one of which was next to his future wife Eleanor Stevens near Barclay, Maryland.

Another was on a road where he and his father saw a black man lynched. They were walking home as the mob was stringing the poor man up. (I wrote Maryland officials interested in lynching, but none are listed in Queen Anne’s County after 1891. I figure this probably occurred in the 1920’s, but Maryland statistics show no lynchings in that decade.)

The last farm was near Route 50 east of Crumpton and Dad farmed it during World War II when his father became unable to do so.

As a high schooler, Dad excelled in agriculture, becoming President of the Maryland 4-H All-Stars. (He must have had a politically astute Ag teacher to win the convention held in Fredericksburg, Maryland.)

As a kid he broke his arm falling out of a tree. His father set it. The result was a slightly bent arm the rest of his life, left, I think.

After graduating from Sudlersville High School, the same year as his future wife Eleanor, in the summer before attending the University of Maryland, he may have received the first student loan.

The local banker asked him,

“Calvin, how are you going to pay for college?”

Dad told him he was going to work his way through.

“Here’s a check book. If you ever need money, write a check.”

Dad got his first car, a Model T with a rumble seat, I believe, when he walked by a man on a road who couldn’t get his vehicle restarted.

“You want it?” he asked.

My father answered in the affirmative.

“It’s yours,” the owner said and walked away.

Tomorrow, Cal Skinner, Sr.’s story continues with Part 2

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Links to all the stories are below:

Biography of Calvin L Skinner – Part 1 – Second Son, School Years

Biography of Calvin L. Skinner – Part 2 – College, Marriage, First Jobs

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 3 – First House, Elected President of the Easton, Maryland, Town Council

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 4 – Storm Sewer Grates, Miles River Yacht Club, Slot Machines, Chesapeake Bay Bridge

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 5 – Switching Parties, Moving to Salt Lake City, Middletown and Crystal Lake

Biography of Cal L Skinner – Part 6 – The Early Crystal Lake Days, Dipping Feet Slowly into Political Arena

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 7 – Running for County Auditor, Precinct Committeeman, Calling the Meeting that Led to McHenry County College

Biography of Cal Skinner – Part 8 – The Star Reporter, Daughter Ellen Bored in High School, Prohibited from Attending MCC Classes

Biography of Cal L Skinner – Part 9 – Responsible Republicans’ Slate, County Board Reapportionment

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 10 – Unsuccessful County Clerk Try, County Airport Fight, Wife’s Death

I got a request for a biography of my father and worked on it well into two nights.

It isn’t finished yet, but my younger sister Jan, a special ed teacher near Baltimore, has come up with some memories that I want to share on our father’s birthday, which is today, June 8th. Dad was born in 1916 and died in 1989. Jan wrote this Sunday.Thanks for the opportunity of reflecting on what a great Dad we had.

Jan

I was in church this morning and the minister was talking about how unusual it is in the Bible to talk about God as our Father.

So, I was remembering Dad and how having a dependable father made it easy for me to trust in God the Father. (Baby Jan and her father to the left.)

I remember in 8th grade Dad lost his job because the company, National Chinchilla Breeders of America, a trade association, was having some financial troubles and decided to lop off the highest paid person, the executive secretary, Dad.

I have often recently marveled that I never felt like this was a tragedy or that my life would change because of this. I just assumed he would get more work and that life would go on, which it did.

But I am pretty sure that today kids in the 8th grade are suffering anxiety if their fathers lose their jobs.

I realize it isn’t the same economy as it was in 1957, but I am so grateful that Mom and Dad didn’t put that adult worry on us kids. Thanks, Dad.

My brother-in-law Denny Desmond did my father’s taxes. He has often marveled that Dad didn’t make that much money, but managed to send us three kids through college without burdening us with college loans, keep a boat, etc. etc. on a modest income with one family earner.

Dad was frugal.

I remember him buying milk at the gas station to save money.

I remember him always eating hot dogs and baked beans at Howard Johnson’s on trips.

I think he did like them, but I also think that his main motivation was to save money.

The rest of us had clams or something else. I am frugal myself, probably because of his example.

When Mike (Peters) was in seminary I made a corduroy jacket for my eldest girl (Newborn Elizabeth above in her grandfather’s arms) out of an old red robe. It felt good to “make do.”

I am still using his 1960’s something riding lawn mower.

He would be too.

He went through college as an agricultural major in 3 1/2 years at the University of Maryland and that included a semester off to go work his father’s farm when his dad got sick.

He survived on skim milk (which was going to be thrown away), oatmeal, baked beans (again) and I don’t know what else.

He worked several jobs.

He got a “loan” of sorts from the bank in Sudlersville, MD. One of the directors had noticed that he had potential (and no money) and told Dad that he needed to go to college.

He gave him checks and said to write them when he needed money–that he could pay it back later. Thanks to that person who saw the specialness of Dad and helped him to get ahead.

He started to date my mother again (they were in high school together) after she had graduated from college.

Pop Pop Stevens told him that Eleanor was home and that he should stop by.

Time passed.

When he asked Mother if she would marry him, she said that she would have to think about it. I guess he asked sooner than she had expected.

Anyway, he never brought it up again.

So one day, a week or so later, she said, “Do you remember that question you asked me a while ago?”

He responded that he did not remember it.

“Well,” she said, “the answer is yes.”

He said, “I’d hoped you would have forgotten.”

I don’t know what happened after that.

Mom should have punched him one, but I always tell the grandkids that the scene faded out into a kiss.

(The wedding certificate is above right and a wedding day photo is to the left.)

He never called my Grandmother Stevens anything.

If you are getting married, don’t do this.

Somehow it was never settled what to call her, and so he always waited for eye contact and then talked. I guess Mrs. Stevens was too formal and “Mom” was reserved for his mother.

Anyway, I made sure I got it straight what I was going to call Mike’s parents before the wedding. (Jan and Mike Peters cutting their wedding cake.)

I called them Mom and Dad and never felt that my loyalty to my birth parents was in any danger by sharing the name. I felt close to my in-laws and they to me.

Maybe he called her Mom Mom after the grandkids came. I’m not sure.

I only applied for one job after college.

I just knew that Fort Logan Mental Health Center was going to hire me as a special ed teacher. I felt I was in the will of God.

He said that perhaps I should apply somewhere else, to hedge my bets (reasonable request for a parent who did not want to continue to support me after college).

But I didn’t and I did get hired. He drove out to Denver, Colorado with me to help me get set up in an apartment after I graduated from Michigan State. (Jan with Eleanor and Cal Skinner above.)

I left my contacts in the motel somewhere in Kansas. More were ordered and he didn’t make a big deal out of it.

I was grateful.

Dad told me once that he was useful on the County Board because he knew how to ask questions.

When he was on the County Board, I remember that the board had people come to present their proposals.

One was about a landfill, I think.

Well, you can have people come before a board, but if the people on the board haven’t done their homework, they won’t know what to ask.

Dad did his homework. He worked hard.

One summer after Mike had moved to Hawaii for the Navy (we were to come in August), I took 11 hours at Northern Illinois towards my Masters in Special Ed.

Mom and Dad watched my girls.

I was really working hard and Dad told me that I was probably doing too much. I really valued that compliment because I knew I was working hard if Dad thought so.

(Below you see Cal and Eleanor Skinner with their granddaughters. Elizabeth and Sarah, Jan’s daughters have the long hair. Ellen’s three are Lissa, bottom right with the pigtails, Heather, bottom left in pigtails, Kelly being held by her grandmother’s right arm. Cal’s daughter Alexandra is being held by her left arm.)

After Mom died Dad went to her grave in Church Hill to “talk” with her.

He was going to drive back to Crystal Lake alone and his eyes were not the best.

I told him that if he had just talked with Mom he knew she would not be in favor of this.

He responded,

“I talk things over with her, but I don’t always agree with her.”

He had a great sense of humor.

When Mom’s casket went to Dover instead of Baltimore, we talked about how Mom liked to travel. He never lost the twinkle in his eye.

I got to know him more after Mom died than before.

As with many families, the mother was the hub.

But after my husband Mike died and after Mom died, Dad and I discussed things more as peers.

We talked about when to take off the wedding rings.

We talked about moving on in relationships.

It was a precious time.

We discussed what should be on the family tombstone bench (in Church Hill, Maryland) that Mike and I and Mom and Dad would share.

He was fine with Mike’s request,

“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel.”

The other side said,

“Sit Awhile Rest and Reflect.”

As we near Father’s Day and Dad’s birthday, June 8, it has been good to reflect up a father who lead by example and was always there for us.

Thanks to Jan’s husband Sudhir Patel for sending most of the photos while Jan was in school.