My Father's Rejection of His Father

In a way, this rejection was justified. My grandfather was an itinerant farmer.failing on a farm after farm. They were always poor.

We have few records, but according to a letter we have written by his wife in her old age, he was more interested in trading land than farming it.

When they heard the Santa Fe Railroad had jobs in Ft. Madison, Iowa, they moved there, and Grandfather had a job, for the first time in his life.

He was a Safety Inspector. When a train came into the yard, it had to be inspected before it could move on.

He had a long-handled hammer and would go down each side of the train, tapping each wheel to see if it was cracked. He also checked for hot boxes, The journal bearings of the time could seize up, get hot and catch on fire. His job was to detect they were getting hot before they caught on fire.

He also had to check if the hoses connecting the trains together, that contained compressed air were connected. These formed a safety brake system If air pressure was lost the brakes on the entire train would be energized, bringing the entire train to a halt

Working on the Railroad was dangerous. the Railroad had its own hospital and kept it busy.

Grandfather was well-suited for the job because he did not drink (because of his RLDS religion) and was dependable.

All this ended with the Railroad strike of 1922, The Railroads were not paying much, but they decided to pay even less. The Unions representing the Workers went on strike.

This was a hard time, with Union members sitting on one side of the Church, and scabs on the other side. In some places, trains carrying scabs were stopped and machine-gunned. I was born in the middle of this, in 1936. I was a Depression baby.

My father was in high school, living with his sister, and her husband, at the time, He stayed with them to finish school. The rest of the family moved to a farm in Illinois. While they were there, Grandfather suffered a stroke that paralyzed the left side of his body.

They returned to Ft. Madison, and Grandmother went to work for the Railroad, working as a cook. This was very hard work, and she eventually she also had heart trouble and retired to a Rest Home provided by her church.

Grandfather still had his team of horses and he could do odd jobs with them. such as hauling garbage to the dump. Ar one point he brought his horses over to our house to plow our victory garden. No one thanked him for his work.

He was Working Class (or blue collar) and my parents considered themselves Middle Class (or Professional people). Everyone was class-conscious.

This ended with WWII, with the Railroads (and every other business) making a lot of money. My father had a Photography Studio. and also made lots of money.

Grandfather died, and my father finally realized how much he owed him.