This is one of the few pictures I have of my dad, grandfather (my mom’s dad) and myself. I think I am about three years old here. How many pictures will my grandchildren have with their grandfathers? Hundreds and hundreds.
Grandpa Julius Golcher is somewhat of an enigma. When a friend who knew his way around genealogy attempted to do a family tree on my mom’s side, he could go no further back than Julius’ parents in Costa Rica. Which is interesting, because we were always told he was from Argentina.
As you can see from the picture, he wore one of those old wired hearing aids. He worked as a machinist in Philadelphia, but was placed in the Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry at some point, suffering from a form of Parkinson’s disease attributed to the Spanish influenza epidemic of the early 20th century.
I do remember that he primarily spoke Spanish, which means that there must be a compelling story of how he met his wife Mary Fox, my mom’s mom. She immigrated from England and worked as a nanny in Philadelphia, which is interesting because we were always told she was a governess, but census records tell a different story. Ancestry on her side only goes back as far as a lighthouse somewhere along the North Sea. (There are too many “Mary Foxes” from that time frame to know which branch of the tree to follow.) She came to America with two sisters, Peg and Elsie. I knew her much better, and will write about her in a future post.
Somehow that unlikely couple got together and had three daughters, but I’m not sure there is anyone left who knows that story. They raised their family in a row home on Rosalie Street in the Olney section of northeast Philadelphia.
That’s all I’ve got on Grandpa Golcher. But I am pretty sure that my brother and sister and I all got our thick heads of hair from him.
Suddenly the whole Mike Pence strategy of not being with a woman who’s not your wife has a whole lot of value. Initially he was ridiculed, but now, as celebrities, politicians and news personalities fall one by one to claims of sexual misconduct, the wisdom of setting and maintaining such boundaries makes a whole lot of sense.
As I reflect on last night’s confirmation class, I can’t get a couple of the student’s comments out of my mind.
That relationship means so much. They may not remember everything I taught them. But they will know they can talk to me when life begins to happen, everything from graduations to children and beyond.
My grandson Elijah was spending the day with me while his mom was out shopping with my wife. One of our projects that day was putting up the Christmas tree. I just knew it would be a memorable moment when I plugged in the lights and he saw them for the first time. He’s been watching and waiting for Christmas “‘ites” for weeks. I was not disappointed. His delighted “Oh-Oh” still makes me laugh out loud.
It’s early. Really early. It’s dark. Really dark. It’s quiet. Really quiet.
When Eli and I were decorating the tree yesterday, I noticed that my collection of ornaments included eight snowmen. We haven’t bought any ornaments for ourselves, so all of these were given to us by someone sometime in the past. Try as I might, I can’t remember where any of them came from. But since the snowmen hold eight seats in our congress of decorations, I thought I would make a few observations.
I knew I’d be watching my two-year-old grandson Elijah for a few hours today while my daughter and wife did a little shopping. Before he arrived, I set out our little Playmobile nativity out on the porch.
Waite for it... 