Author: Ronald Guenther
Written: April 19, 2014

Grandpa JB arrived at the hospital in Portland, I no longer remember which one but it was one of the biggest in Portland at the time, I believe it was Saint Vincent’s Hospital, though,  in order to undergo a series of tests to determine what was wrong with him.  Grandma took a small cottage that was available for people like her.  About three days later mom got a phone call from grandma.  She was upset and completely distraught.  She said grandpa had a tumor on the brain and they planned to operate in the next couple of days.  The situation was serious, could she come at once.  So, pop got a week’s leave from his job, they took Brother Bob to Aunt Edie and Uncle Dick.  They were his godparents and Bob loved them.  In fact, Bob stayed in contact with Aunt Edie his whole life, she even came to his wedding special and visited him in Hawaii.  Grandma and Grandpa Delsman were my godparents, it had to be that way.  I was to go with them to Portland.  They found a hotel near the hospital, it did not allow children, but I was told that I could not cry or make any noise and so they smuggled me into the hospital.  That was typical of pop, he smuggled a lot of kids and things into places where they were not supposed to be.  If it was Verboten, that is forbidden, that only made it a challenge.  Mom said that once I fell against a nightstand and really bumped my head and puckered up to cry, but mom quickly said, you are not allowed to cry and so I smothered my sobs and did not cry.  So, the folks and I went to the hospital.  The doctor was there at the time and he would hold up two fingers and say, how many fingers do I have held up and grandpa would say, four, and the doctor would smile and try another test.  Later, he said that grandpa had gone blind and that the operation had to take place immediately.  That evening they read in the newspaper and it was confirmed the next morning that the doctor was going to be the featured speaker at a medical meeting in Chicago.  Mom rushed in to see his nurse, the doctor was already gone, and she said that there would be no operation, his condition was terminal and he only had a few days left.  Mom was crushed.  My own memory of that time was that grandpa was in a rather spartan room, in those days they did not have all the apparatus that they do now, and that I would stand beside his bed and hold his hand.  Mom said I would hold his hand by the hour and then one day grandpa said, “Take him out, it is not good for a little boy to see me like this.”  And so mom took me out and I never saw him again.  The folks came home, he had gone into a coma, and a couple days after they got home, they received word that he had died.

Grandpa was brought back to Coos Bay and Father Sheridan, the same priest who had officiated at the burial of his daughter, our Aunt Louise, officiated at his.  He and grandpa had become close friends and mom said he cried at the funeral oration and barely made it through.  Later, he petitioned to the bishop to be moved.  He had become part of the community, had many friends, but he told the bishop that he was now burying his friends and he was not able to do that any more, this last funeral was too hard for him.  So, the bishop moved him.  When word came to the people of the community, they sent a petitioned composed of many Catholics but mostly of non Catholics who had admired him to the bishop to let him stay and the bishop then had to say that he himself was no longer able to bury his friends.  So the petition fell flat.  It is strange in a way.  The people of North Bend as a community admired Sister Genevieve and those of Marshfield admired Father Sheridan, both Catholics, both who had done a lot of good, Father Sheridan was the only one who was able and did take a public stand against the KKK when it was at its peak on the South Coast, but they did love those two.  The last day that he was at Saint Monica’s Church in Marshfield, he baptized Sister Louise.  Later that afternoon, he quietly left town.

Grandpa was buried in the Sunset Graveyard on the road from Coos Bay to Millington.  The empty grave next to him has a gravestone dedicated to Uncle Dick and close by are the graves of mom and pop.  Bob and I had a couple of stuffed animals from grandpa and grandma, Bob had a brown Teddy Bear and I had a yellow Teddy Bear and a little brown dog that I called my Bumbo.  We both kept these things for years until they gradually fell apart.  A couple years later, I was about  four, almost five, I asked mom, why we never visited grandpa any more.  She said, he died.  That was the end, she never said anything more.  That was sufficient for me.  I had not gone to the funeral.  Mom kept his memory alive all these years, I do not think there was anyone she admired more than her father.  My own memory of him is still solid, an old man who laughed, could do anything, had a wrinkled skin, smoked his pipe and gave me the barrel to roll while he rolled his mike cans.  He always wore a hat outside.  To this day, I like the smell of a tobacco store, although I hate smoking.  But the smell of tobacco stimulates something in my memory.  I do not like to put sugar in my own coffee but I remember so well how good his coffee tasted.

To be continued.