A Picture of My Father as a Young Man
9.26.06
by Eugene Woodbury
A PDF version is available for download here.
My high school classmates are always surprised when they meet my father for the first time. Their eyes fly open and the words tumble out before the brain can tell the mouth to shut up. Things like, “Oh, I’m sorry, but I thought your dad would be a lot younger–”
And Sister Peterson, who’s known Dad forever and should know better, got it into her head for about six months last year that I was Michael’s daughter. Michael doesn’t have any daughters. He’s my half-brother. He lives in Cincinnati with his wife Rebecca and their three boys. I’m their aunt. Aunt Nicole. Good grief. There’s something wrong with being an aunt when you’re only fifteen.
Actually, except for Sister Peterson, life was okay until last September. That’s when the big renovation project on the Galway Corners chapel started, and we had to go all the way up to Saratoga Springs to go to church. I mean, okay, people know us in Galway Corners. My father was a member of the Galway Corners ward before there was a Galway Corners ward, back when the Albany stake stretched all the way to the Canadian border (or so I’ve been told).
And, yeah, everybody in Saratoga Springs knows my dad, too. They know that Michael’s mom died from cancer. They know that Dad remarried. But that was a while ago, and some of them are kind of fuzzy when it comes to the rest of the details.
“Debby!” Bishop Shumway exclaimed, greeting me the first Sunday we attended the Saratoga Springs ward. “It’s so nice to see you! Will you be in town long?”
Debby’s my half-sister. She lives in Seattle with her husband Jim and their two girls. I’m their aunt, too.
“For quite some time,” Mom replied for me. Mom takes these things in stride. “There’s no sense in embarrassing people,” she tells me.
Embarrassing people? Who’s embarrassing them? Debby’s twelve years older than me. We don’t look anything like each other. Well, maybe a little. “It’s your father’s genes,” Mom says.
I think it’s weird. Why can’t people keep things straight? It’s bad enough that now it takes half-an-hour to drive to church. I used to be able to walk to church in two minutes. And it’s bad enough that Bishop Lundquist decided it’d be a great idea to call Mom as the seminary teacher and hold early morning seminary in our living room. Okay, real convenient. But what if it’s one of those mornings when you feel like sleeping in? Like there’s any chance of my getting away with that now.
The worst thing, though, was moving the genealogy computer into Dad’s study. Okay, Dad’s calling is ward genealogy consultant, which makes sense because he knows a ton of stuff about computers and genealogy. But ever since the house has been like Grand Central Station, and the only people in the ward who seem to be interested in genealogy are even older than my parents.
I stopped inviting my friends over. That’s what it came down to. Because sooner or later somebody was going to ask, “Who are these people?”
I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. A normal teenage girl can only put up with so much.
9.26.06 | 11:11 am |
A beautiful story. Thanks for sharing.
9.26.06 | 6:17 pm |
Wonderful story. My parents were older than most of my friends’ parents. In fact the only person I knew who had parents as old as mine was a boy whose parents had been a Catholic nun and priest.
I was an aunt when I was 4 years old. My younger brother has a niece who is a couple months older than he is. That sort of thing must be more common among Mormons. My family is not LDS, though.
So this struck several chords for me.
9.26.06 | 9:09 pm |
My husband comes from a family with previous marriages and previous children. It is remarkable how little the past was referred to (or is referred to today). Its a big gaping hole that my husband didn’t even realize existed.
I grew up hearing about my parents’ youth and early married years because history is important. How can you understand who you are if you don’t know where you came from?
10.02.06 | 11:41 am |
My Sarah at age 20 is the aunt of Casey, age 16. She could relate.
I love the voice in this story.
10.12.06 | 3:21 pm |
As his sister, I know whereof Eugene writes. I was ten when my oldest niece was born; most of my “cousins” are old enough to be my parents. The pay-off for growing up in a large family is the accompanying multi-generational mentality. I was born in 1971, so I should be Generation X. But my siblings are all baby boomers. And actually my parents were *slightly* older than your average baby boomer parent which makes me the product of Depression/WWII parents. End result: I ended up with a broader sense of time periods than my peers. But then I read a lot of history growing up (which can also be blamed on my family!).