Caring for Daddy Through His Last Months

Didn’t want Mom to wear shorts or slacks. Loved Spam, headcheese, hardtack, pickled pigs feet, and the liver and gizzard of the chicken. Didn’t like milk. Mom would be sure he was out of the kitchen when she made gravy and macaroni and cheese, or anything with milk. Made us use Sayman Salve on all our sores, cuts and bruises. Told us to stay out of the sun or we’d get cancer. (This was way, way before anyone knew this was true.) Held onto money. Made all the money decisions. Told us not to chew so much bubble gum, that it would stick to our intestines if we swallowed it. Kept canaries. Bought a motor scooter to ride around the neighborhood. Slept in his chair while watching TV. He always had one finger over his nose and his thumb under his chin as he slept. Loved to roam the neighborhood talking to his friends. Mom would send us kids out to find him at dinnertime. Daddy had a stroke on Christmas Eve, 1967. We didn’t know how seriously ill he was so we all went to Iris and Bill’s for the holiday. Mom stayed home with Daddy. Mom called Iris later that evening and said Daddy was worse, so Lee and Bob took him to the hospital. He stayed there two weeks, but the stroke had left him in a very agitated state, and the hospital said we had to find another place for him to stay. They suggested St. Anthony’s Hospital in Rock Island, but one look and we knew that was the wrong place. All the patients were smoking and Daddy was having a difficult time breathing. Mom decided she could care for him at home. All of us girls came to help when we could and Virginia came everyday, but it was just too exhausting to care for him day and night. We finally had to take him to East Moline State Hospital. He didn’t really belong there, but there didn’t seem to be a facility that would take him. He passed away at age sixty-three on May 23, 1968 with Mom and all of us kids around him. He is buried next to Mom at Riverside Cemetery, in Moline, Illinois.