In Memory

 

I came across this award, for 15 years of service, dated 1958. So he would have started working for Behr- Manning in  1943, about the time we moved to Valley Falls. 

Like many men of that time, he had little interaction with his children's daily lives. Workday started when he left the house at 6:30 A.M., and he returned about 12 hours later.

 I have 2 vivid memories. He taught me how to play checkers when I was about 10 years old. When I was 19, my dog Lassie died. It was the norm for him to bury our deceased animals in the back yard. But he told me he didn't want to bury Lassie in the bare dirt, so he built what he called a "rough box" and laid her in that before burying her in a section of my mother's flower garden, close to our house.