My Father

George Elmore Rogers, Jr.

I was so loved by him, and I loved him in return, always trying to be his "good girl."
I really don't remember him ever disapproving of me, or saying no.  He would just say, you have to check with your mother on that.

What have I not yet shared about his life? (After all he lived a lot of it without me around!)

 All the people around him usually had positive things to say about him, and would smile and joke with him, as I remember.

Above was a photo of our Studebaker besides our first house we owned in St. Ann, MO, probably around 1956.  My parents had owned a home in Dallas, TX and Houston TX before we moved to St. Louis, MO where lived in apartments for the first 7 years there.

My dad was an accountant, and a devoted Christian Scientist who didn't go to church much.
   
His father had been a bookkeeper before him.  I guess that's why I always felt pretty secure about math.

Chauncey, Zulie, Alex, and George, Kansas City, Mo 1918  George was 4 as they visited their mother's sister's family.  Zulie was a cousin while Chauncey and Alex were his older brothers.

December, 1921, George in sailor suit at age 7, Chauncey sitting next to him with Alex in the back.

James (baby in this photo) had been born in January of 1922, and Ada Rogers ("me") and standing behind on porch was George wearing something on his head.  This house burned before they built a new one out of brick which was photographed in 1927 (see below).  They lived in the garage while Poppy built the new home and probably worked his full time job as well in the packing company in Fort Worth, TX.

12/26/36 Junior (George E. Rogers Jr.) at Dumble's ranch

My father's parents, George (Sr.) and Ada Rogers had married at the home of the bride's parents in Galveston, Texas, They resided in Galveston in the home built by George Sr. until 1918, at which time they moved to Meadowbrook Drive in Fort Worth, Texas, where he was employed by the Fort Worth Packing Company as office manager. This began a friendship with the company Manager, Norman Dumble that lasted twenty-five years.  They would go hunting on his ranch (as in photo above.)

Poppy (George Sr.) on l, Chauncey in rear, Alex, and George Jr. on r. 

His father had been 37 when George Jr. was born. Very few photos exist where Poppy didn't look old, but he certainly was an active father all his life.

He never saw a doctor in his life.  His family called him Junior all his life.

I remember how when he'd retired from the Mother Church (of Christ Scientist in Boston, MA) and moved to Houston again, he worked part time in an Ace Hardware store.  Most of my information came through letters from my mom.  He apparently had trouble with his feet working in the store, and I suggested one of those foot-baths...which weren't at all medical.  I don't know if he ever used it.

I wasn't able to go see him in his last months, and was sorry in many ways.  But also I was unable to move beyond the strictness of the CS taboos which I'd had trouble coping with during my grandmother, Ada's, last illness and death.  She was also a Christian Scientist who refused medical treatment, and I wasn't able to deal with her groaning in pain for hours on end.  I am not good with other people's pain.

And my mother had always been the gatekeeper of information, which she slowly designated my sister to do...and that was not a good thing.  I got mis-information as much as truth as far as their conditions.  I'd been given sunny reports for months, and then someone else would let me know that he was dying.  Then I'd get another letter saying "they don't want you there."  This was probably because I'd want to push them to get help in a medical way.  They knew me by then.  I am just what I am.

So when he was leaving this life 32 years ago - I only had to imagine it, and several months later when I had finished whatever graduate-school work I was involved in, I went out to Houston from FL (after being invited,) and mother gave me a lot of his junk.  My sister had already gone through it and taken much of the good (ie. working tools) things, so I got a lot of baby food jars full of screws and nails. Today the remaining screws are still in my own toolbox (but the baby-food jars are now gone.)  I also still have the sweater I'd given him the Christmas before his death in January, which he probably never wore.  I still wear it sometimes to remember him.

I took the bus to Houston after he died, because he'd left the car to me...an older Pontiac sedan, which had supposedly been checked over by my sister's mechanic, but had been sitting in the garage for a few months. My mom was effectively blind with cataracts untreated at this time.

I started home to FL and got on the bridge over the bayou near Louisiana and had a tire blow-out, and no idea how to jack up the car, or change a tire...while semi's were zooming past about 2 feet away from me (no shoulder to speak of, and of course it was driver's side rear tire.)  Some kid stopped and helped me change it, and I went and bought tires in the next city.

 OK, I'd better quit.  I've still got stories to tell obviously!  Sharing this with Sepia Saturday this week, because I finally have real sepia toned photos to share.

Father's Day

A remembrance for George E. Rogers, Jr.
My dear father.

(Sorry to Facebook folks, I'm posting this picture again.)
The chair he's sitting in above was the one in which he rocked me and read bedtime stories.  The globe was how I learned about the world outside my own home.  That picture was taken about the year my parents married (1939) and yes, that's a radio on the table.  My childhood memories of the 40s and 50s include listening to a radio daily.  That was the norm for entertainment.

He was a man who was dedicated and worked as an accountant almost every day of his life.  And he acted happy most of the time.  And he just escaped problems by reading the paper, or going to his workshop space to "tinker" with things.  If he ever made decisions in my family I never knew it, because my mother would be the one who voiced everything. He listened well to me, but didn't give much advice.

Outside the home he was not only a jovial man, but a flirtatious one as well.  I didn't notice that until I learned how to flirt in middle school, at around 12 years old.

My Mr. Rogers also was dedicated to his religion, Christian Science, though he broke several of it's tenants.  He wasn't a church-goer.  And he sneaked smokes sometimes.  I was maybe 10 and playing hide-and-seek with my sister once (younger sister) and hid in the coat closet.  I noticed a bulge in my father's coat pocket, and pulled out a pack of Luckies.  Oh my.  I'm sure that's why he gargled with Listerine all the time.  Later my sister (who lived with her parents for a while as an adult) shared some stories about other ways my father had feet of clay.

My father was raised in and lived his whole life in the religion which used prayer for healing, and never saw a doctor, and even died at home. He lived until he was 70.

I was not popular with my parents in their later years, because I had not only left the religion, I was an active advocate of medical treatment.

But I did love them, and my father holds a special place in my heart still.

My father was a great and dedicated man who through the hard times and the good would always do what was right, what was expected of him, and provide a bit of a smile every time you looked his way.  He even learned to say he loved me when I started saying it to him the last 20 years when I visited him.  It took a few tries.

I loved how he would always sneak a $20 bill to me as I was leaving and say "Now, don't tell your mother."  She did all the finances so this must have been from his allowance.  

I wish everyone who is a father a happy day this Sunday, Father's Day.