A Grandpa of the Heart

Probably the first people we met when we moved from the big city of Indianapolis to Smith Valley were Olen "Ode" and Katherine. The Perrys were the sweet old couple across the road from us. Little did we know how much they would come to mean to all of us. It wasn't too long after we moved in that the Perrys became our "grandparents". We loved going to Ode's house. Katherine crocheted beautiful bedspreads; and Ode's passions were woodworking and gardening--both vegetable and flowers.

Within a year or two of moving to Smith Valley, we had come home from visiting our grandma in Loogootee. That was early on a Sunday morning. We had no sooner gotten into the house when we heard a knock at the front door. It was Ode. All he could manage to say was, "Katherine's gone". He started to break down, so he turned and headed for his home. Katherine was Ode's second wife. (Ode had also lost his first wife Dessie, but that was long before we knew him.

After Katherine died, the only things I wanted to remember her by were her crochet hooks, thread, and instruction books. She didn't have much in the way of crochet supplies, but that was all I needed. I was given her crochet supplies, and I taught myself to crochet. I was probably in fourth grade about that time. And to this day, when I see pastel variegated crochet thread, I think of Katherine.

Over the next few months, I would run over to Ode's and cook for him. Of course, we had him over to eat with us, and we always took leftovers to him as well. But I still enjoyed cooking for him too. I can distinctly remember frying chicken for him; and looking back now, I hope I got it done! Within a few months, Ode didn't need for me to cook for him any more.

Ode had a new ladyfriend. And the first thing he did was introduce us to Romanza. It was important to Ode that we liked Romanza and approved of her. Although Romanza was as different from Katherine as night and day, we soon came to love her as well. She was from the hills of West Virginia, and it was nothing for her to trap a raccoon and fry it for lunch. Romanza was a salty old girl who spoke her mind and cheated at her favorite board game Aggravation. If you went over to Ode and Romanza's, most of the time you would get talked into staying to play. And if you did something during the game that didn't quite suit Romanza, you knew you would be getting a little kick to the shin!

Ode loved singing hymns. We three older kids would sit at his feet, and my little sister would sit on his lap. To this day, I don't care for the new Christian songs that are popular at a lot of the new churches. I love the old standard hymns that Ode sang to us. Ode always wore coveralls around the house. He had a cow to milk, pigs to feed, and a garden to tend. But every Sunday, he would wear his best Sunday-go-to-meetin' suit to the EUB church in the valley. Many Sundays he sang his hymns in front of the congregation.

Ode was a water witch! He used two metal rods, bent to form "L" shapes. Ode held one in each hand pointing straight out and simply walked. When he passed over water, the rods crossed (or moved out--I can't remember). Everyone said he was good at it too.

When we came home from school, we always had our bus driver Harry drop us off at the corner down the road so we could get home sooner. Our dog Rebel would meet us there every day and walk us home. One day as we were walking home, we heard Romanza calling us from the garden. All four of us ran to her garden to see what was wrong with her. She was sitting in the middle of the cabbage right where she had fallen hours earlier and broken her wrist. Because she had bad hips and the broken wrist, she couldn't get up on her feet or even crawl for help. We got her to her feet and into the house. Before the night was over, she was sporting a cast.

When we were in high school and again walking home one day, there was an ambulance in Ode's driveway. They had Ode on a gurney and were putting him into the back of the ambulance. We ran home and watched from the front door, all four of us sobbing like babies. Thankfully, Ode was released that night. He'd had a seizure, but was ok. It sure scared the heck out of us kids.

Ode ended up in a nursing home after I got married and moved away. I did a little research tonight and found out that he died in October of 1977. Census records indicated he was born in 1889, so he would've been around 88 when he died. After his death, Romanza moved back to West Virginia. Mom and Dad made a trip to see her at the nursing home. She died in West Virginia in October of 1981, four years after Ode.

Following is what my little sister wrote about Ode. I couldn't top her story, so I chose to write a few facts about our proxy grandparents.

I Believe

It’s going to be rainy tomorrow. The date is in some unknown time in the early sixties. How did I know it would be rainy? Because the weather dog told me. The weather dog sat on the window sill in Ode and Katherine’s house and changed colors according to the weather. I remember looking at the weather dog one day when one of his “weather specks” came off in my hand. I carried it back to my house so I would always know what the weather would be. Katherine died when I was very young, but I still remember one thing about her. When I would go across the road to visit them, she would say, “Olen, go get her a candy bar.” I can still hear that voice to this day. They kept Mr. Goodbars in their refrigerator.

Ode was the “old man” across the street. I loved him. By the time I arrived on this earth both sets of my grandparents had way too many grandkids to care much about me. To be honest, I probably wasn’t the easiest little girl either. I remember being much too whiny and sensitive. And my grandparents lived over an hour away. Ode lived just across the road. I don’t remember Katherine dying, but I know she did and Ode married Romanza.

Also on the window sill was a small white church. I remember also loving that small church. I don’t really know why, except that it embodied everything Ode was. He was a good Christian man, the old fashion kind. As a very small child I loved going over to their house. As I remember it, there were only four or five rooms in the house. One of the bedrooms was actually a hallway into their kitchen.

What I remember most is that I would sit for what would seem like hours with Ode on the couch. He had old spiral hymn books and he would teach me the songs. Old-fashioned hymns that I had never heard in the Catholic church. “I’ve got a mansion, just over the hilltop, in that bright land where we never grow old. And someday yonder, we will never more wander. But walk on streets that are purest gold.” I loved Ode and I loved those old songs books.

Most of the songs that we sang together were from those old songs books. “As I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore. Very deeply stained within. Sinking to rise no more. But the Master of the Sea heard my despairing cry. From the waters lifted me, now safe am I. Love lifted me. Love lifted me, when nothing else would do, Love lifted Me.”

I can still hear Ode’s creaky voice singing those last few high versus. He taught me those and the old time song, “Oh do you remember a long time ago, two poor little babes whose names I don’t know. Were stolen away on a bright sunny day, and lost in the woods, I’ve heard people say.”

I don’t know why or how, but there was an evening at EUB church where Ode was a member when he and I got up to sing in front of everyone. I couldn’t have been six at the oldest. I still remember the two of us getting up and singing in front of that church. I was a little nervous, but I also felt safe with Ode leading the way. I was proud he wanted to have me sing with him.

In hindsight, I can just imagine what the people in EUB church thought. I mean, really how cute to have an old man and a six-year-old singing old songs that he taught her? I would give anything for video cameras back then so I could have that memory forever. I suppose the memory I have inside my heart is better than any video could have been anyway.

When I was a teenager, they took Ode away to a nursing home. I probably hadn’t visited for years and I felt bad. My mother would go to see him and tell me how “out of his head” he was. I could not force myself to go (today, I would know better). I believe he was in the nursing home for a few years and I never visited him, I justified it by saying he wouldn’t want me to see him like that. I believe he died when I was 17 or 18. I was all full of myself and thought that in my mind he had already been gone for years, so I also didn’t attend the service either. How sad.

He and Romanza really didn’t have a lot. They had lived a simple life in that tiny house. But when he died, it seemed that relatives came out of the woodwork wanting the simple things they had in the house. I remember feeling so upset that these people who hadn’t bothered with either of them for so long were now raiding their house while Romanza was still alive, and just grabbing what little they had.

I think about those song books and the white church and weather dog. I would have given anything to have had them. They meant something to me. Ode and the song books formed a significant part of my life, my faith. I knew those small items were not worth anything and probably ended up in the trash. It’s the “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” truth. The songbooks were my treasure. They were something I shared with a man who was significant in my young life. His grandkids lived just next door, but they were busy being kids and didn’t realize how special it was to have your grandparents right next door.

I miss you Ode. Thank you for teaching me a quiet faith—one that doesn’t require looking down at people “lesser” than you. Thank you for showing me that while some families are created through blood, other families are created through the heart. I’m sorry for not visiting you in the nursing home or attending the service. I was young and selfish and I regret not getting to give you a proper goodbye. Thank you for giving me some of the most pleasant memories of my childhood and for politely sharing your amazing faith with me. What I wouldn’t give now to be able to tell you what an impact you made on my life. You will always be the grandpa made from my heart. I loved you so much.