Remembering My Dad

Today is my Dad’s birthday. He was born 114 years ago. He was the second of twin sons born that day. His brother was accidentally killed when he was only 20 years old. My Dad lived to be 82. He never talked about his twin brother, and I always thought it was because it was too painful for him. What I learned about my uncle, I learned from my mother. In early years the two of them looked a lot alike in a picture we have; but where Uncle Alfred’s hair was straight, Dad’s hair was curly. In pictures of them as they grew older, to me they looked quite a bit different. Though if I could have seen them together, I would probably have seen resemblances between them. Resemblances and identical are not the same, but we all see things differently. For instance, when I was a young woman, I was in the small town where my sister lived. I went in a store where she had been shortly before. The clerk said to me, “You back already? You just left? My sister was a few years older than I, slightly taller, and at that time at least 20-25 pounds heavier than I was. Her hair was darker and styled differently. I admit that we resembled each other, but I’m not quite sure how the clerk could have seen the same person.


The twin brothers apparently were unlike in personality also. Dad was always talking, laughing, joking, picking and teasing [ometimes maybe too much so]. Uncle Alfred was quiet and serious, maybe even somber. In one or two of his pictures, he seems even a bit morose. One of his cousins that I met after I began researching family history told me how much Dad teased the girl cousins when the families visited when they were young. She said his twin was very quiet. Dad always told us that “Pa” was mostly Scots-Irish and “Ma” was German. However, as I found out, his mother was only half-German on her mother’s side; not sure about her dad nationality. So, they were, as I’ve heard it said, “mostly Scots-Irish.” It seems Dad got the ‘jolly Irish’ part and Uncle Alfred to the ‘dour Scots.’

In a school group picture we have when they are about 10/11 years old, they are not standing together. Dad is on the back left corner, and Uncle Alfred is on the back right corner, with their youngest brother in front of him.

Dad was full of mischief apparently, and my other grandmother was said to have referred to him  as "that curly-black-headed little deveil" when he was about 12 or so and incurred her wrath for some reason when they all lived near by each other.

It has occurred to me that the two boys being so different in personality, they might not have got along as well as one might think twins would. What I’ve learned is that someone who likes to pick and tease can’t abide seeing someone going quietly about, minding their own business. They have to shake things up a bit and get something going. With his picking, teasing ways, Dad might have done his share to make Uncle Alfred’s life uncomfortable. And I strongly suspect, Uncle Alfred didn’t know how to handle his more rowdy twin.

None the less, my Dad was a good man and a very good father. I’m glad he was mine.