Roy’s Sunday Letter for November 15, 2026
A Grandkids Memory Of Grandparents
I knew to be back from my morning exploration of the east Texas woods with Wolf the farm dog. Grandpa would often step down from his tractor and crossover to his aged farm truck. I would make the climb into the truck’s cab. The morning was more special when I was allowed to push the button to start the truck, no keys, 60 years ahead of time. We were off, grandfather and grandson, seven miles to downtown Gladewater and the Block House Tavern and a mug of early beer. Grandpa added salt to his beer. I added salt to my coke.
Next, we made the walk up to the train station to give witness and a wave to the Texas & Pacific rolling through to Louisiana. After buying the local paper to read that evening, grandpa would take the rural roads back to his tractor and Tunk the eve- present farm hand, by then, grandma had been to the barn to gather eggs and toss chicken scratch to the waiting hens and one rooster.
Holidays and summers were grandparent days. Bill the horse was always my first to find. I witnessed the births of calves and deaths of up the road elderly aunts as an ongoing part of country living on an east Texas farm. Litters of pigs, chickens and goats were sold for the cash needed for crop seed, bags of feed to be stored in the barn or supplies to repair a fence or tractor. Daily life was a generational mix of aunts, uncles, and grandkids. Every stop by visit a storytelling of crops, weather and news about adult children long ago moved away from morning milking or caring about a season of watermelons damaged by last week’s storm.
Laughter came from the caretaking of farm animals. The grandkids found humor when the milk pail tipped over, or when one of us left a gate open with cows wandering toward the road. Fortunately for good neighbors and Bill, the horse, the cows were soon returned to the pasture with the delight of a real “round up” for the grands.
My grandparents did not have the parent responsibility for my education, being a chauffeur to take me school, across town to dance class, or knowing where the football and baseball fields were. My grandparents’ role was to wrap me in their love, keep me safe and guide me in the daily life of a working country farm. My grandfather served as President of the Rocky Springs Cemetery, typed weekly letters to his three city living children and served their generation of farmers quietly and peacefully.
Bill the horse and my grandparents died during my freshman year. I had become self-absorbed in college, golf team, and being young. I was not there to say thank you, to say goodbye…My lifelong regret.
Thank you grandpa and grandma for your kindness and finding ways to love me into my becoming me.
Roy, grandson
I did not know my own grandparents well, but my college roommate took me to visit her grandma in White Oak some weekends. We saw cousins and extended family, ate biscuits and gravy at her grandmother’s kitchen table. Different from your experience, Roy, but still special to my growing up!
good morning Roy. Wonderful story. Thanks for sharing these wonderful memories and revealing this regreat.. Happy Sunday.
I never knew my grandparents on my father’s side, he died when I was 2 and they never persuade tta relationship with us. They lived a couple of hours from us and my mother didn’t have a car. My older sister and brother did spend time with them and my very German grandmother never learned English. She knew cuss words that her son’s frequently used and she taught my sister how to cook. My mother’s mother lived with us after my father died and took care of the family while my mother worked. I remember her as tough, religious and always cranky. She had a tough life bore 6 children and was the midwife in their small town. I was not like her in that I openly love my grandchildren and great grands as well. Tough times make tough people.
I never knew my grandparents on my father’s side, he died when I was 2 and they never persuade a relationship with us. They lived a couple of hours from us and my mother didn’t have a car. My older sister and brother did spend time with them and my very German grandmother never learned English. She knew cuss words that her son’s frequently used and she taught my sister how to cook. My mother’s mother lived with us after my father died and took care of the family while my mother worked. I remember her as tough, religious and always cranky. She had a tough life bore 6 children and was the midwife in their small town. I was not like her in that I openly love my grandchildren and great grands as well. Tough times make tough people.
WE each, we all have such different eyes and heart of experiences.
My father more like your mother’s mother…..ex-Navy, bank VP.
You are showing your love and caring to the grandkids, being a guide and also cheerleader.
Together again soon…Roy
Roy, the tears began to fill my eyes long before I anticipated the sad ending.
This is American nostalgia as it should be.
This is homesickness in the best way.
This is love of life and love of neighbor and love of ancestors and love of future generations all rolled up into one story.
I am honored you shared it with us.
My senior editor says I write best when I “heart write.”
Today I also was taken over by memory of days went too quickly.
I treasure I was blessed with grandpa’s tractor, early beer, and waving at trains.
I miss their quite steady ways…..& the open acceptance of grandparents.
Perhaps more on Wednesday………Roy
Grandpa (paternal side) entered this world on the Nebraska Plains in a sod hut during the mid 1890s. As a young man with a young family in the southeastern part of Iowa, he drove a road grader for the road department and also repaired tractors. In my Dads first year of high school, Grandpa got a job with a tractor and implement company in Minnesota just over the border from Iowa. Grandpa worked on tractors out in the field where they came to a halt with some sort of malady. He had large hands that weighed practically nothing. When he held my hand I could feel the calloused and thickness of his hand due to hard work. When I awakened early morning and made it to the kitchen in their small house, a bowl of oatmeal, half consumed, would be waiting for me on the kitchen table. Grandpa would eat half and leave the other half for me. A product of being raised during hard times where one learned to share what they had. A humble man who spoke softly, I never heard a bad word or a raised voice from him. I recall fondly riding on his lap while he plowed or cultivated a field and he let me steer. I’m a Grandpa now with grown Grands. Our time together much different. I do own a 1954 Ford Jubilee tractor and each of my grandkids has driven it – a passing of a tradition, I suppose. I call the tractor Frank – Grandpa’s name. His legacy carried forward in some small way.
What a wonderful add on to my writing.
You have created the best of allowing and guiding younger ones to become themselves.
You have lived out your days in the best of ways…..and more to come.
Roy
Roy, what a wonderful description of connections, memories, and loving moments with family and in a world of finding ourselves. Thank you for those of your loving moments in time. My Grand Parents lived a thousand miles away from us. Connections with them were in the summers when my parents would gather up our family and travel to connect with grand parents and other family connections. Would stay with my fathers parents and sleep in a wonderful basement with all the smells of family history. Would listen to family history as well making our own history of treasured loving moments. I could write volumes of family history of those summer connections of one of a kind wonderful moments. My grandmother was crippled as a child, but that nevered slowed her down. In fact I never identified her as crippled until years later. She was a “Wonder”! My father’s father was a skilled furniture craftsman from Norway along with my grandmothers skills and other skilled family members. My Mother’s father passed prior to my birth. My mother’s mother was a wonder in raising a family by herself through the Great Depression and feeding her family by making a living through owning a restaurant and making sure that those with no money would also not go hungry through her gifts of food. All of these moments of lifes early family connections bonded me with loving building blocks to connect to life in this world.