Some thoughts on Walter Lyle Day
Dad was born during the big flu epidemic of 1919 in Burke, South Dakota. He was a breech birth so his mother went to the local hospital in a buckboard to deliver instead of at home as was usual. He was the fifth of 7 children. Dad was very proud of his American heritage. His ancestors came over from England in the early 1630's. He was very proud to be a ninth generation American. His grandfather fought in the civil war for the union and had been a prisoner at the infamous Andersonville Prison. Walt's dad, Chauncey worked as a carpenter and tried to grow a few crops and dad's mother Mary, had won a land lottery, which brought her off of her family's Wisconsin Dairy farm. She met her husband when she was working in a cafe in the town near her land. They married, had kids. They hung onto the land grant in South Dakota as long as they could but times were tough. One of dad's bittersweet stories was about when he went into the barn as a five year old and thought he was helping out by feeding oats to their one horse. He kept feeding it and feeding it. Of course, the horse's belly swelled up and he died.
As a child, dad's family moved to Gordon, Nebraska where he spent the rest of his childhood. His dad was a carpenter and would build houses when there was work. It was the depression and money was scarce. My Dad often helped his father build houses and learned all kinds of useful skills from woodworking to plumbing, to electrical. We heard stories about the dandelion soup they would often have to eat. And the time they strung up a side of meat to keep it safe, and someone came along and stole it. His long-suffering mom said, I guess they must need it more than we do. We heard many stories about the bitter, long winters and the hot summers. Crops lost to grasshoppers. And moving from place to place.
Dad often talked about his father's pride and how he would never accept any charity or welfare.
Once dad was old enough he joined his brothers working on the local cattle ranches. Dad spent every summer breaking horses, and castrating calves, and making haystacks. In his later years, his memories of the ranch were his favorite. He had pictures of his favorite horse, Blackie, and his good old dog Patty. One of the saddest tales was of how Patty was lured away by a lone coyote, only to be attacked and killed by the pack. And the times they would drive by the Sioux Indian reservation and see the skins of their pet dogs hanging out on the line. As a child we couldn't fathom the world he had grown up in. He made sure each of us kids heard each story many times.
Dad's father died when dad was 17 and a senior in high school. Things became even harder than they had previously been. Dad continued working whenever he could to help out. After graduation from high school, dad was lucky that one of his uncles was head of a business college in Boise, Idaho that he and his siblings were able to attend. His older brother, Morley had gone there and was the fastest typist the school had ever had. Then sister Lorene followed Morley to the school and broke Morley's record. Of course, when dad came along, he had to keep up the tradition and break Lorene's typing record. They were a fast fingered, competitive group of siblings.
Dad worked his way through school by cooking in a restaurant where he could eat a meal everyday. He lived with his brother Morley who was dating a wonderful girl named Laura who he eventually married. His Boise days were among more of his favorite memories. He always spoke of Boise as his favorite city. He used to hop the freights to go home and visit his mom when he could.
It wasn't long after business school that World War II broke out and he enlisted in the Navy. He was eager to go to the front and see some fighting. But that was sabotaged by his typing and shorthand abilities. He was too fast a typist to waste in combat. I don't remember his first assignment, but he wanted out of the office and was told that if he transferred to Hawaii, he would soon get sent out to combat. So he volunteered for duty in Hawaii. Because he was so good in the office, they wouldn't let him leave. (One of dad’s old friends from his navy years came to the funeral and said Walt was a part of the group who broke the code that helped win the Battle of Midway which was a turning point in the war in the Pacific.) That was something he never bragged about.
Hawaii was paradise, but not for an ambitious, Midwestern boy in his early twenties who wanted to see some action. He spent most of the war in Oahu. He did meet many colorful characters in the Navy and also in town. Duke Kahanamoku, the famous gold medal Olympic swimmer, used to hang out at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel on Waikiki and chat with the young soldiers and seaman. Dad remembered him well. Of course, wartime in Hawaii meant thousands of men and very few women. It was tough on dad and probably most of the guys over there. Any single woman had her choice among many. Even some of the married women infamously dated the officers. Our Portugese haoli Kauai born, Uncle George lost his wife and the mother of his three sons to an officer during the war. When it was time to leave Hawaii, dad couldn't have been happier. The tradition at that time was when sailing away from Hawaii, people would through a flower lei on the water to float back to land, symbolizing that they would return someday. Dad said he'd have liked to throw a lei of horse dung on the water to make sure it wouldn't make it to land. He didn't want to go back, and he never did.
He was assigned then to Washington, DC He spent some time working for the U.S.O. His boss there was a handsome movie star named Edward O'Brien. Dad had some great stories about him and what a quality guy he was. He also once had a bowling date with a beautiful movie starlet named Marilyn Maxwell.
But his fate was changed when he went to work at the Navy Yard in downtown Washington where a beautiful, dark haired, green-eyed Navy wave from Philadelphia also worked. Sparks flew. But he was being discharged from the Navy. He applied for a job with Navy Communications, but hadn't heard anything. He went to Southern California where his mother, and most of his siblings had settled. He got a job in an insurance agency. He and Marie corresponded. He finally heard from the federal government that he was accepted for the job. They discussed marriage. She said she could get a good deal on a ring from her uncle in the jewelry business. His fate was sealed.
Mae took Walt to meet the family. Dad passed the first test put upon him by Marie's father, Dan and her Uncle Putts, who took him to their regular oyster bar, tried to get him drunk and ate tiny live crabs which were scurrying across the bar. If that didn't scare him off nothing would. Mom and Dad married on April 27, 1946, just shy of 60 years ago.
Dad had a very successful career at the National Security Agency for 30 years. Mom and Dad, started their family right away, as Mom said, thanks to the Pope. Their first child, Marilyn Marie came within a year. I was born 3 years later, then Maureen was born 4 years after me. Dad had high hopes for a son, but soldiered on with his three daughters.
Dad took an assignment in Japan from 1955 to 1958. It was a wonderful, special and broadening experience for all of us. Marred by Dad's first stroke in while we were there. It happened at night on a military flight between islands in the Orient. He was in so much pain, that he didn't think he'd live through the night. The left side of his body was paralyzed. He was hospitalized in Okinawa for a long time while Mom was in Tokyo with three small children. He got his left side working again and was back to work in 6 weeks. We always called it an aneurysm. But years later a brain scan suggested it was really a stroke. He told me once that it took him two full years to be fully recovered.
Also, while in Japan, Marilyn started showing symptoms of the mental and emotional problems that would plague her life and theirs. It was the beginning of many tough years trying to help Marilyn.
Back to the states in 1958, back to seeing the Casey relatives, going to the shore for two weeks in the summers, seeing Uncle Morley and Aunt Laura in Virginia, often. Dad loved to fish and to go crabbing. He usually had a small boat and motor. He took advantage of all the waterways in the Chesapeake Bay region. Maureen was often his companion on his fishing excursions. She was his little buddy. Maureen remembers sitting on the steps waiting for him to come home from work. Dad helped Maureen make aquariums with fish, and birdcages with birds. Dad shared her interests with animals and she tagged along with him when she could. It was shades of other little girls to come. Little girls always loved him.
Then miracle upon miracles, a baby boy in the fall of 1962. Little Christopher came along to light up all of our lives. The girls had a real live baby doll to hold. Dad had a son to take fishing.
The sixties were eventful. I remember never really knowing what dad's work was. I was always told to say he was an analyst for the government. During the Cuban Missal Crisis dad was called into work in the middle of the night. So, I guess that was a bit stressful. While we were ducking and covering under our desks, dad was on the job analyzing. When President Kennedy was shot and his body was put in the rotunda of Congress, Dad and I stood in line one cold night for hours and hours, to walk past his body lying in state. Dad hadn't voted for Kennedy and didn't much like his politics, but he knew what a historic thing it was and shared it with me. He also took me to see the Mona Lisa when it came to DC. Again we stood in line for hours to walk by it.
Dad loved history. And we saw all the great monuments and battlefields in the area. Whenever relatives came to town we did the sights. Dad loved American History. Once he retired from NSA, he went to work at the National Archives for five years. He didn't make much money but he got to research his grandfather's civil war records, which was a thrill for him.
Because of Marilyn's problems dad became active in the Montgomery County Association for Retarded Children. He served as president for a number of years. He was politically active in their behalf and used his skills to help pass legislation that guaranteed Maryland's retarded children educational opportunities that had not been available to them.
Mom and Dad had a very difficult time trying to help Marilyn. She had a rough life for many years. She would not sleep for two weeks at a time, Mom and Dad would take turns staying up all night with her. Then they would do their busy lives during the day. She would scream and try to leave and they'd have to restrain her. The violence that was on the t.v. during the Viet Nam war would frighten her and set her off. She would have two good weeks then two bad weeks, off and on for years. They tried all kinds of medications with little result. Marilyn lived at home under her parent's loving care until she was thirty and moved into group home situations. Until her death at the age of 44, Marilyn was Dad and mom's constant worry. What would become of her when they were gone? They did their best to get her the help she needed. But it was in God's hands. The last years of her life were extremely hard with Marilyn being in a coma from a drug reaction, then losing her ability to walk and being wheel chair bound. By the time she passed away in 1989, there was very little anyone could do for her. It was a heartbreak that never healed. What courage, strength and fortitude, Dad and Mom had living every day with that worry and work they shouldered. It took its toll on the family, but also taught us all valuable lessons of compassion.
At the same time all of that was going on Maureen and Chris and I were growing up with the normal problems of youth. I became a hippie at college and protested against my father's bosses in the government. I used to argue politics with dad all the time. I thought he was one of the people on the wrong side of things. I was against everything he believed in. Yet, he would encourage me in my times of doubt and despair. Once my hippie commune had an open house for our parents. We children of Washington, DC were living in a big house with guys and girls together. One's parents worked for the FBI. Another's father was an Air Force Colonel, my dad was at NSA. But they looked around and dad's good-natured comment was, "It reminds me of the bunkhouses I lived on back on the ranch."
That was dad. He made the best of things. If you were someone he cared for he had the best things to say about you. He was friendly and helpful and tried to get along. He had strong opinions and thought he was right about everything. He had a great sense of humor and loved to laugh and tell stories. He was a family man. A man of high morals and integrity. He didn't understand why others were not. And it frustrated him no end.
I moved to California. Gave birth to his first grandchildren when he was in his early 50's. When I told him of his first grandchild's birth, his comment was, "I don't mind being a grandfather, but I don't know how I feel about being married to a grandmother."
Maureen eloped at the age of 18 to the guy with the fastest car in Wheaton. She told dad and left it to him to tell Mom. He took Mom for a drive up into the mountains. Once he got way out of town on top of a mountain, then he told her. It gave mom time to curse and scream all the way back home and get at least some of it out of her system.
Dad, always tried to make the best of things, and since Maureen's husband was a plumber, dad tried the business world by opening a plumbing company with his new son-in-law and his son-in-law's brother. The idea was dad would run the office and the younger guys would do the work. But unfortunately, they preferred to hang around the office and let dad handle the real work. That business didn't last long, and neither did the marriage, thank God.
Then Dad, bought his vacation home on the Chesapeake Bay in Nanicoke on the Eastern shore of Maryland. He totally redid the house. Mom said he even dragged a bathtub up the steps to the second floor by himself. He spent many hours mowing the huge lawn and fixing up the house. He made good friends among the waterman and their wives on the bay.
He eventually sold the house to a young couple, once it was in great shape.
Maureen made up for her youthful escapades by marrying again and giving dad and mom the best gift, their first granddaughters, twins, Lindsay and Heather. Maureen stayed with mom and dad at first to get some help with the constant juggling. Mom and Dad loved those little girls and had great times baby-sitting them and sharing wonderful holidays and birthdays and summers at the shore. Those little girls were the greatest thing for mom and dad. My dad just blossomed as a hands on grandfather. He couldn't spend enough time with them. The pictures of him with them tell the story of his joy and happiness.
Then Chris had a little girl in 1987, Charity joined the family and spent many days and nights with nana and poppop. She was a high energy, talkative little thing and gave poppop lots to do. With his three grand daughters Dad was in heaven. They loved him, he loved them. They say grandchildren are the reward for having had kids. Well, dad's life really proves that.
Of course, with dad's energy he had to keep working. He started being a handyman. Mowing lawns and hanging blinds for people in the neighborhood. He was friendly and helpful and people loved him. Somehow he started doing handyman work for the Jewish Community Center. They hired him as their building superintendent. He ran the big boiler that heated the building. He did all the repairs and work needed by the people in the building. There was a nursery school there and you can read the nice poem they wrote for him. He spent 5 years doing that until he was almost 70 and finally retired for good.
That was the year that dad started having heart problems. After a couple of unsuccessful angioplasms, which he said were the most painful things that had ever endured, he had triple by-pass surgery on his 70th birthday. It was a full moon, and like his astrologer daughter predicted, the full moon is no time for surgery. Another women was in surgery for hours before him, it was problematical and took much longer than expected. They had chilled dad down for the surgery, and by the time he went in and was worked on it was late at night. Afterwards, the other patients keep bleeding and so did dad. The stitches weren't holding. The surgeon was so exhausted they had to bring in a second surgeon to repair the bleeding on him. What a night. What an ordeal. He said later, that the nurse told him there was often lots of bleeding on a full moon. I could have told him that. Oh, I did.
But they told him the bypass should last 15 years. It lasted 16. Dad had lots of quality time with his family, especially his grandchildren. He made lots of trips to California to hang out with me and Peter and his grandsons. They took an amazing salmon fishing trip one year, and dad caught two of the biggest fish of his life. He brought home a 32 pounder, and almost had a 38 pounder but the net guy let him down. But we had a great salmon feed for the Day's that summer.
Dad was a family man, first last and always. If you were a Day or a Casey, you could no no wrong. He loved the Casey clan. He adored Grandmom Casey. And I think she thought a lot of him as well. They were the two Protestants in a family of Catholics. They were the lucky two that didn't have to go to Mass on Sunday. Some of us were envious.
Generations of the Casey grandchildren will remember their first crabbing trips with Uncle Walt out on the back bay in his boat the Lil' May. Then those big crab feasts with grandmom boiling the water for the crabs, and one would always get away, and send the kids scurrying for shelter. Then newspapers on the dining room table at the old Ford house and picking and eating those wonderful crabs for hours.
He was very close to his brothers, especially Morley, the other one who settled in the East. The rest of the Days were west of the Rockies and there was always a friendly rivalry between the east and west coast relatives. One by one the Day siblings had heart attacks and joined their parents on the other side. Morely passed away a couple of years ago at the age of 92.
It was a full and busy life. Dad made the most of every part of it. I think he taught not so much by his words and his stories as by his actions. He taught us all to hang in there. To never give up. To do our best. To nurture a sense of humor. That a little laughter goes a long way. He showed his love every day. He was friendly to strangers and neighbors. He loved to talk with people. He knew no strangers. He had the prejudices of his background, but he was kind to most people. He thought that it was really important to find work that you liked since you spent so much time doing it. He was always generous with his kids, maybe too generous. He never gave up on his kids. He loved Chris and did his best to keep him safe through many scary and difficult years. And it paid off. In the last year of his life, Chris was with him, helped him, took him out every Sunday and was available to him and mom.
The last six years were different. From being an intelligent capable and always in control man, strokes diminished his wonderful mind and memory. From the age of 80 on he was a different kind of a dad. Instead of him telling us his endless stories, he didn't have any. He didn't tell us what was right and wrong anymore. Instead he needed care and guidance. He wasn't old Walt. Some of him remained. Always his sense of humor. Even if you thought he wasn't listening, he would come up with some funny line to make us all laugh. Up until the last few days, you could make him laugh, usually at his own expense. I'd ask him, how do you feel dad? and he'd say, if I felt any better, I'd be dangerous.
For the first time in knowing him, he was open to love 100% The armor was all gone. He would express love and affection easily. The gifts of these last years have been great. He's been lovingly cared for by his wife of 60 years. He stayed in his own home up until the end. He had his beautiful daughter Maureen, and her husband Bud and the granddaughters, Lindsay, Heather and Charity, giving him endless hugs and kisses. They thought pop pop was soo cute. Charity even said the night he died that pop pop was spoiled. If he was he more than deserved it.
Dad's life is a testament to the power of love. He taught all his family so much. He was like a lit candle that passed his light onto those of us lucky to share his life. We have thousands of memories stored up to last for years. Dad deserves a really good send off by all of us who knew him. He showed his kids and grandkids how to be a good dad, a good grandparent and a real, authentic person with defects and character flaws easy to see and often pointed out to him. He hung in there through the tough times, times that would probably have broken many. And he survived to enjoy the good times. He defined for me and my family what life is all about. He wasn't a religious person but he believed in God and he saw it in nature. He loved the earth and plants and animals and most of all his family. Walt lived for his family and we will never forget him.
You need to be a member of Eggtrick to add comments!
Replies