HAPPY EASTER

He is risen...indeed

I think it was in my last post that I mentioned my first time at Sunday School, but I forget to mention that I actually sang the words that Pop taught me while the rest of the people were singing the correct words!

Kyle told me he likes humorous stories in my blog, but I try to mix things up a bit--that way I can entertain, or bore, you in various ways.

 Granddad Stobie had been married once before he married the Grandma Stobie that was my Grandma's mother. I don't know what happened to his first wife, but Grandma French had a half-sister in Canada named Edith. They corresponded with each other until one of them died & I don't know which one was first. Mother also wrote to Edith's daughter, Mary Stewart--no, not the author--for many years.

I don't know much about Pop's side of the family as he left home when he was a teenager. I do know his parents were Samuel and Emma, both from Ohio, and Samuel's occupation was listed in the census in the mid 1800's as farmer. Pop grew up in Poneto,  a small town in Indiana and after leaving around 1900, never went back until 1957; by then both of his parents were dead, but he did have an uncle and aunt still alive, Uncle Bill & Aunt Alta.

The picture shows Pop in his early 70's, Uncle Bill was in his 80's, Mother was in her late 30's, I was 18 and Vic was a couple of months. This was when we lived in Illinois and Pop & Grandma had come back to visit us and we all went down to visit Pop's hometown. Don't know why I don't have a picture showing Grandma & Aunt Alta as well.

Pop was an extremely strong man. In fact, I believe that Pop, my Dad and Mark were (are) as strong as anyone else I've ever known. Now the reason for telling that is we had all heard over and over and over again about the rock that all of Pop's friends had tried to lift when he was a boy. Finally he was the only one he knew that could lift it, so he picked it up and carried about a block before setting it back down. When we got to Poneto, he was sure to show us his rock. As I recall it was kinda cube shaped, probably 14-16" sides and very dense black granite. He was so dejected when Grandma saw it, and asked a rather disparaging question about it being no bigger than it was. Now, you must remember that's been several years ago, so I could be way off on the size of it. About the time he was showing off his rock, he spotted 2 men he had gone to school with. The three of them stood there for quite awhile with tears streaming down their cheeks. The other two attested to the fact that Pop was the only one they knew who could lift the rock & it was still in the place he had left it.

Pop's brothers were named Verne & Earl. One of them became the superintendent of schools for either N. or S. Dakota. I don't know what happened to the other one--I was told he didn't amount to much, but what does that mean? haven't a clue.

During coffee fellowship after Church this morning as my pastor & I were eating strawberries, he told me that when he was a kid, his grandpa had a big strawberry patch. I told him about Pop making sure his strawberry customers always got the best berries and Gary said it's hard to find integrity like that any more. So then I told him the kind of integrity Pop had. He and a couple of partners owned a sawmill in Montana when Anna May, Mother & Jim were little. One of the big lumber giants came in and virtually "squeezed"  a lot of the little guys out. Pop's partners both declared bankruptcy, but he refused to. He believed that his creditors had given him credit in good faith & he would pay them back. I don't know how long it took him, but he paid back every dime. Gary remarked that your really don't see that kind of integrity any more. My response to him was that I'm mostly honest and I come by that honestly.

Another old family story is that Revolutionary War General Hugh Mercer was a relative of the French family (Pop's family). During the Revolutionary War, Gen. Mercer performed a very courageous act by pulling some of the American troops out of harm's way and doctoring them under a tree. To the best of my knowledge the Mercer tree is still standing and we saw it when Bruce was going to seminary in Princeton, New Jersey. Anyway, the Congressional Medal of Honor had not been established as there was no Congress so Gen. Mercer was awarded 1 sq. mile of Manhattan Island for $1. per year, in perpetuity. Now as the story goes, it is the square mile upon which stands Rockefeller Center. A couple of Rockefeller's lawyers allegedly went to Pop's grandma's house when the lease was due to be signed. All of the men were away and at that time most women, including his Grandma, were unable to read. The lawyers had her sign on the line giving up her interest instead of renewing the lease. As of 20 years ago this was supposedly still in the courts, but I've never seen any evidence of it.

An interesting side note, though, is that Anna May had a friend named Leroy Mercer, who was also descended from Gen. Mercer's family and he and Anna May commiserated occasionally on how their fortune had been stolen from them. That's a picture of me in front of the sign at Rockefeller Center when we went to Manhattan while visiting Bruce & Janet in Princeton. (That picture should have been the 2nd one, but I don't know how to edit them around once I've posted them.) 

That's it for today-unless, of course, I think of something else that I want to say.