Today is my Dad's birthday. He'd be celebrating his 90th birthday today with us, but a couple of years ago he decided to spend his birthdays with my mother in Heaven. Dad was born in Boston in 1917, the youngest of six children born to a beautiful young Irish immigrant girl and a handsome first generation Irish American man. He was brought up in Watertown, MA and lived there until he was 68 years old, when he came up to NH to be closer to my mother who was in a local nursing home.
His stories about his childhood always fascinated me. He grew up during the Depression and his entire life was changed because of that dreadful decade. Dad spoke of spending all day Saturday cleaning strangers' cellars, earning a munificent 50 cents for his trouble, and then having to give the entire amount to his mother to help out the family. He spoke of the fields and pastures in Watertown (!!!) and of the wooden horse-drawn plows that would go up and down Mt. Auburn St. during snowstorms. The family lived in an early 19th century house that had originally belonged to the Stearns family of R.H. Stearns & Company. R.H. Stearns was a department store on the same scale as Jordan Marsh and Filenes. The house was gorgeous and had a circular staircase that spiraled from the ground floor to the third floor, like the inside of a nautilus shell. His dad had made the old mansion into two very large apartments and rented the bottom of the house to the Hoffmann family--mom, dad, bunch of kids and Grandpa Hoffmann. Dad said he came out one day and found Grandpa Hoffman planting flowers in such a way that they spelled out "H H H H". Dad asked the obvious question, to which Grampa Hoffman replied, "Holland-Hoffmann Hell House". I can well imagine it was!! :-)
The Hollands have always been known for their love of animals, their good natured personalities, and their sometimes off-beat sense of humor. You had to be tough to be a Holland. When my Dad was about 7 or 8, he desperately wanted a pony for Christmas. He begged, pleaded, and prayed to Santa Claus and the Virgin Mary. Well, he got up Christmas morning, ran downstairs to see if the pony was there. There was no pony, but his Uncle Buff stood by the tree. "Leo", he said, "you got up too late! As you see, the pony was here, but he ran away back to the farm!" And there, under the tree, was a steaming pile of horse buns. My father spent the rest of Christmas Day running all over Watertown looking for his pony. Uncle Buff was a genuine "character" who will get a blog entry all his own quite soon. If he'd pulled this stunt nowadays, Dr. Phil would lock him up!
Daddy had terrible eczema as a kid and he and his mother used to take the trolley to Mass General outpatient department every Saturday for treatments. Even after he grew, the palms of his hands, the soles of his feet, and all his nails were thick and coarse for the remainder of his life. He told me that in grammar school they had to line up two by two and hold hands before entering the school. Daddy said no one would hold his hand except for a young Chinese boy who didn't care. He told me about the hand-holding business shortly before he died and it suddenly became clear to me why he never had an unkind word to say to me, who was a fat and homely child and a fat and homely adult. I was fair game for everyone's remarks, but I always felt safe and loved with the old man.
Dad spent 2 + years in the submarine service in the Pacific during WWII. Let me tell you, he really learned how to pack a sea bag! Because of him, I can get more stuff into a suitcase and have it come out unwrinkled better than anyone else I know. He had severe osteoporosis (they never found the cause) that flattened his vertebrae, rotted out one hip, and caused him immeasureable pain over his life. He started out at 5 feet, 9 inches--he died at 5 feet, 4 inches. He never complained--got roaring drunk--but never complained. He's a tough act to follow.
My mother was told she would never have any more children after my brother was born in 1940. However, a small miracle occurred, and I was born in 1947. My father was the first one to see me after I was born (mothers were unconscious during birth back then). The day I was brought home from the hospital, my mother tucked me into my bassinette. A short while later she came back to check on me and I wasn't where she left me. She anxiously began to search the house when she heard Bing Crosby's voice crooning from the parlor radio. She looked in, and there was my father, dancing with his baby daughter in his arms. I'll love that man until the day I die.
Happy birthday, Daddy! I miss you more than words can tell. Don't forget to keep a light in the window for me.
