When my grandfather died

 

My grandfather, John R. Parker, outside of his Hampton Avenue home;
he lived in the lower flat (door on left) and rented out the upstairs; photo taken early 1960s

I remember when my grandfather died. He had lung cancer from his many years of smoking cigarettes, and I remember visiting him at the Montreal General Hospital with my mother, that must have been in 1964. She brought him canned oysters which he liked and, I guess, must have requested. I don't remember what was said between them and I don't know how many times my mother visited him at the hospital, maybe only this one time, but I do remember him lying in his hospital bed, I was standing at the foot of the bed, and my mother was standing beside him. There was always feuding with my mother's family, when my grandfather's mother died in the late 1940s they hadn't talked for two years and by 1964 my grandfather hadn't spoken with his two brothers for many years, what was that all about? I suspect my mother hadn't talked very often with her father since her mother died in 1957; however, my mother had helped care for her mother in her final months. In 1956 my father died and my grandfather gave my mother $5.00 a month to help with expenses; my grandmother would say "Have you given Hilda her money?" But I have no memory at all of my grandmother, not a single memory, how is that possible? In 1963, when we moved from the Oxford Avenue flat to the big house on Montclair, my grandfather helped us move, it was not a pleasant experience, and by the end of the day they were arguing. I looked down the stairs from my new bedroom and I could see there was some sort of heated argument going on; was it about me? I thought so, children are willing to take the blame. When my father was going to a hospital in Boston where he died, my mother must have said something to my grandfather, she remembered him saying about my father,”He’s not going to have his toenails cut”; later, maybe years later, my mother said she didn’t realize how sick my father was was until they were met at the Boston train station by someone with a wheelchair. When my mother remarried seven years later, in 1963, to a man who had also been very ill, my grandfather said to her, “Why marry another sick man?” Years later, in the 1990s, driving out to where I lived in the country, my mother said she had "remorse of conscience" about her father. I didn't inquire what this was all about, she had never said anything like this before or after that one time and I didn't believe her.   

After my grandfather died in 1964, my mother and I visited his Hampton Avenue flat, at 2217 Hampton Avenue.  All of the rooms were small, they were tiny rooms. On the left, as you entered, in the living room, there was an easy chair facing the television beside which there was a faux fireplace and an electric heater in the fireplace, a small motor and two small light bulbs gave an illusion of flames and a burning fire when it was turned on. On a small table beside the easy chair was a copy of the Reader's Digest with articles checked off in pencil as he had read them. Down a hallway there was a bathroom on the left and I looked inside the medicine cabinet, there was a box of Preparation H, toothpaste, toothbrushes, and hand soap. The kitchen was at the end of the hall and an unheated porch off of the kitchen; on the right as you entered the kitchen there was a refrigerator and a black Hallicrafters short wave radio on the top of the fridge; this, I was told, had belonged to my father but it been had been given to my grandfather. I inherited the radio and enjoyed being alone listening to Radio Havana, Radio Moscow, Radio Prague, Radio Kiev, the BBC, the Voice of America, and many other short wave radio stations on this radio; I was happiest sitting in my dark room listening to the radio, the only light was from the radio tubes, this was before transistor radios. I remember listening to Winston Churchill's funeral on the BBC, it was a month after my grandfather died, it was January 24, 1965. I don't remember going to my grandfather's funeral but I heard a lot about how his property, a duplex, was sold for only $17,000.00 and that my uncle, who sold the property, had sold it to the first person who made an offer; my uncle chose this real estate agent who was an old man, a veteran, and who my mother didn't like or trust. To be a fool with your money was the greatest insult. After my stepfather died, and even before when he was in hospital, my mother used to comment on how he sold the property next door to where we lived, he sold it for less than he had paid for it; what a fool! The original Hallicrafters radio eventually didn't work and I bought a new Hallicrafters radio, but it was never as good as the old black Hallicrafters radio. In the Hampton basement my grandfather had divided the space for storage, for himself and for his upstairs tenants, an old woman, Mrs. Erskine, and her daughter; they had to  move when the place was put up for sale; they had been nice company for my grandfather.

When I was about three years old I put lighted matches into my grandfather's mail box and set the curtains on fire. What kind of a child would do such a thing? Does it have significance that my grandfather was a fireman? I also remember staying with him at his home and smoke coming into his flat and he called Station/Caserne 46 in case it was a fire; this is the station my grandfather had been captain until he retired around 1940. One of the firemen who arrived that day said, laughing, that there was no fire, and did my grandfather report a fire to get his chimney cleaned for free? He knew that my grandfather had been the fire captain at his fire station. 

My mother remarried in 1963 to another sick man. They went on their honeymoon and my grandfather stayed with my brother and I. I don't remember anything of this time except going to the airport to welcome home my mother and stepfather; my grandfather drove us to the airport with me sitting beside him in the front seat, I was thirteen years old, my brother sat in the back seat. As we approached the airport my grandfather must have said something, had we missed my mother? And I said something like I was glad she was returning home because my grandfather, sitting beside me, would return to his own home and that it hadn't been nice with him living with us. He didn't like this comment, that I hadn't liked having him stay with us for two weeks, I never considered that he had put himself out and been generous, cooked our meals and been responsible for us, and he slapped me in the face. I would never hit a child, it's not in my nature, but that's what happened in the old days; I doubt it made any child a better person. 

Continued in next post.