Keeper Of The Garden

My husband’s grandfather, Robert Knox was a hardworking man all his life. When I first met him, he was already retired, of course. Nevertheless, he was still working hard. Grandpa was the keeper of the vegetable garden. We all benefitted from the vegetable garden, but it was Grandpa who kept the garden. I got involved in some of the harvesting…we all did, but I don’t think Grandpa would have appreciated it if we tried to get out there and “tend” the garden. That was his domain, and you really should stay away from it. Seriously though, Grandpa loved his vegetable garden. It got his outside and kept him busy. He would probably have been bored silly without it…and Grandma would have had to figure out what to do with him if he was bored silly.

Grandpa was blessed on his 67th birthday with the coolest birthday gift ever…the birth of his third great granddaughter, Machelle (Cook) Moore. Grandma had been given that blessing with their first great granddaughter, Corrie (Schulenberg) Petersen, and Grandpa really wanted the same gift. A year and 5 months later, he was so blessed…and so happy. Sharing a birthday with a child, grandchild, or great grandchild is something that doesn’t happen for just anyone, so those who are so blessed, usually know just how rare a treat that is. Not very many people get to have that, and to have two in one couple is really rare.

Grandpa loved to read. He had a stack of books that was usually taller than he was. The funny thing was that he would read several at one time, and he could totally keep up with the story line on all of them. Western were his book of choice, which is typical for his era. He was born in 1908, and in during that and they subsequent eras, westerns were pretty much what was out there. I don’t know what he would think of some of the book of our time, but my guess is that he wouldn’t have liked them very much. I can’t say that I necessarily care much for most of them either. While we were two generations apart, and he probably though I was a silly girl when I first met him when I was just 17 years old, I grew to love that old man. Sadly, he died of cancer in 1985, when he was far too young. He was just 77 years old. Today is the 115th anniversary of Grandpa’s birth. Happy birthday in Heaven, Grandpa Knox. We love and miss you very much.