Rural Issues: Memories that bind a family

Jim and I traveled back home to join family and friends for the funeral services for my husband’s uncle. Dean was the last of the three siblings in his family. He was the younger brother of Jim’s dad, Bill Puyear.

As is so often the case due to time and distance, it had been years since we had seen Dean’s son. His “little” boys are now in their 20s.

We left the cemetery and were pulling into the parking lot of the VFW when we saw Dean’s youngest grandson walking away from the building where family was gathering for lunch.

Jim hopped out of the truck to follow him. Despite his long stride, Jim did not catch up to him.

Forty-five minutes later when Josh walked in, rosy-cheeked, to the VFW, he explained that he had ducked into the town library to look through yearbooks from the mid-1950s when his grandpa was in high school.

As the youngest son of Jim’s youngest cousin, Josh had only heard secondhand stories — tales his grandpa told of childhood and teenage years spent in the community Dean cherished.

Wanting to bring those memories to life, my husband offered to help with some “on-the-ground confirmation.” I climbed into the backseat of the dually, giving Josh a front-row seat as we drove through the small town.

We drove past the high school, where Dean had been a star athlete in football, basketball and track. Dean’s number 22 football jersey — retired in 1956 — still hangs proudly in a display case.

Jim pointed out the church Dean attended as a boy, and the town garage, standing in the same spot it had since the 1940s.

Josh took pictures as we toured the town, asking questions along the way. He asked about his great-grandparents: what they were like and if we knew how they had met. Jim shared his own memories, as well as a few stories he heard from his dad.

As we drove to the farm where Jim’s dad, aunt and uncle were raised I recalled Jim’s dad telling us how his father had started farming with a pair of horses, a disk and a harrow.

The house and most outbuildings on the old farmstead are long gone — and the latest owner will soon tear down the rest — but an old barn and milk house were enough for Jim to paint the picture from memory.

“Is this where he milked cows before going to football practice?” Josh asked.

He took pictures of the basketball hoop and backboard in the old barn where two generations of Puyear boys shot hoops.

Jim told him about the big garden along the road that would cause people to slow to a crawl as they drove by on the highway, as Grandma Fern’s gladiolus were a remarkable sight.

Josh recounted a story his grandpa had told him about how, as a small child, he would fall asleep under the piano when Josh’s great-grandparents were playing music at barn dances.

I am quite certain a passel of Puyears smiled down from heaven that afternoon as Jim and Josh sat in my mother-in-law’s living room, playing guitars and singing.