In no particular order of importance.
I never saw Poppy get mad or raise his voice. I expect that he did – don’t we all – but I never witnessed it. His sons-in-law respected him. Tony, Harry, Don and Joe were not afraid to tease him, and they loved him like a father.
He was a story-teller. He may have exaggerated a little, but when he spoke, people listened. He told stories about his life and the people who touched it.
Poppy loved ice cream. He ate it almost every night. With Margaret it was primarily vanilla with Hersey’s Chocolate Syrup. Virginia added new temptations like peach and butter pecan.
He listened before he spoke. He offered advice to those who sought it, but thought before he answered. His words were concise. He gave it to you straight. If he thought you were out of line, he told you so. He didn’t chastise, but encouraged you to think it through.
Poppy was playful. After I married Ruth, he saw her bare feet and marveled at the length and strength of her toes. She won every toe wrestling contest and he watched in amazement as she defeated (no pun intended) anyone who chose to challenge her.
He was a teacher. I shaved for the first time when I was sixteen. I had a dark mustache that I wanted to get rid of. He asked what type of razor I used “straight or safety”.
“Straight”. (I thought electric razors were safety razors.)
He chuckled. “No, you use a safety razor. You change the blades on a safety razor and use a leather strap to sharpen a straight razor. You change the blades on yours – right.?
“Yes”.
“How often do you change the blade?”
“I haven’t.”
He chuckled again.
He taught me the meaning of hard work. The summer that I got my driver’s license, I worked with him for three weeks. We spent most of the time “cleaning” furnaces. This was a time when many coal-fired furnaces were still in use. Most gas furnaces were retrofitted from coal-burning.
Cleaning a gas furnace required the removal of a whatchamacallit and the clearing of the gas flow line. He taught me how to “remove, clear and replace” the whatchamacallit.
Cleaning a coal-fired furnace took more time and was much dirtier. I reached through the furnace door with large metal brushes and scraped soot off of the inside of the furnace wall. Once that was done, I stuck my head into the furnace door, put my hands in the door used to remove coal ash, and sucked up the dirt with a large, industrial “shop vac”.
It was a dirty job. I ended each day by washing my hair multiple times to get rid of the soot.
Poppy taught me the value associated with being the boss. Once I had mastered both furnace cleaning techniques, I was allowed to clean the furnaces on my own while he drank coffee and ate pie with the lady of the house. Working with him was one of the reasons that I chose to seek a job that required me to use my brain rather than my back.
He loved his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
And they loved him.