How can I ever lose the memory:
A Model T Ford,
Tires tied with wire and rags,
Arriving loud, but slow,
Rattling as it came,
Steaming as it stopped
At our family farm,
The ancient Ford
John R drove whenever he must go
So far as not to carry self
On short and stocky legs.
The sturdy legs that drove the peddles;
The stubby fingers played
Our family's old pump *****,
While he led in his cracked voice,
And merry German tongue,
"Du, Du, liegst mir im Hertzen,"
While we tried to sing,
"Du, du liegst mir im Herzen
du, du liegst mir im Sinn.
Du, du machst mir viel Schmerzen,
weißt nicht wie gut ich dir bin.
Ja, ja, ja, ja, weißt nicht wie gut ich dir bin."
My mother smiled as she sang,
Moistened eyes the only clue
That she recalled her mother's voice
Inside the song.
A one-room shack
Beside a cattle tank
Out on the prairie
Near our ranch,
Was all he knew of home,
And we, his neighbors,
Loved the little man
Who'd bachelor-ed it
Out on the Western plains.
Not that he had much...
Borrowed electricity
From the power lines feeding
The watering pump;
Cooked and heated with
An old coal stove
My father kept supplied
with hand dug lignite
From a nearby mine;
Treasured German conversation
With the dwindling few
Who knew his mother tongue
(I still can hear him praying
Though I never knew a word).
Spoiled and modern,
I did not know til I was older
How he walked four winter miles into town
To buy a bag of groceries:
Flour, salt, baking soda,
A few canned goods
Sometimes an orange or two,
To stay alive until the path would
Let the old Ford through.
His brother Max, was long since gone.
Alone, John lived in ragged clothes,
A relic of the past,
Widowed, and his children gone,
Holding his ground,
His tar-papered shack,
Making it to church
Or to our place a few miles up the way,
A gentle man, humble in his ways.
At 90 (I cannot forget),
He rode my bicycle;
My brother and I
Stood prop until his short legs
Could pump the pedals.
He circled round us,
An ancient man who shook
And wobbled like a little boy,
Silent in the joy of two wheels running,
And then he fell aside,
Going down like a tree sliced clean,
Falling slowly over on his side.
We ran to him, afraid, just boys
Not reckoning the harm he might have earned.
But, no, we helped him up,
And he brushed off and laughed
His German laugh, and his eyes
Twinkled.
What a man he was!
And is, now in my mind,
Ninety, plus,
To take himself up on a bicycle;
To fall, unbroken,
And to rise,
A smile on his lips,
And twinkling in his eyes.
John R., may you rest in peace. I fully expect to meet you again one day in Himmel. (Born 1882, Zehrten, Germany - Died 1974, Lambert, Montana, USA) His wife, Anna Hell, was born in Zehrten, Germany on 5 May 1884. Anna married John R, and they had 3 children. She passed away on 8 Oct 1947 in Lambert, Richland, Montana, USA. Their children are Gerhart, Edgar, and Clara, all deceased. RIP
July 2016 - Just spoke with one of John R's grandsons, Wesley ****, now living in Washington state. Wonderful to see this poem made it out to a loved one of John R's.
