#52 Ancestors

Week 1 – An Ancestor I Admire the Most

 

It’s hard to admire a person who you didn’t know personally. Of course, there may be a lot written about someone, or stories handed down, but admiration, to me, comes from face-to- face interaction.  Based on this, it’s easy to write about an ancestor I admire the most…my dad.

 

Robert Earl Powers, Jr., was born in 1917, in Muskogee, OK. His dad was an oily, and his mother took care of him and his older sister.  Their family moved often, chasing the oil field work across Texas and Oklahoma, mostly living in camps. At times these camps consisted of nothing more than canvases thrown over a wooden frame, but if they were lucky, they might get to live in a wooden shack.  They were transient people.

 

Although polio had been around since ancient Egyptian time, it wasn’t until the 1900s when widespread epidemics developed around the globe.  I’m not sure at what age, but when my dad was very young, he contracted poliomyelitis.  A significant spike in outbreaks occurred in 1921, so one might assume this is when he was afflicted.  The debilitating illness would paralyze or kill its victims, which most often occurred in children six months to four years of age.  My grandparents were told my father would never walk.  I always knew my dad to be stubborn, and it appeared that this stubborn streak started early on, because he did learn to walk.  He wore braces on his legs for several years, but eventually, he managed to get around just fine, albeit with a substantial limp.

 

My dad was a genius, but this did not manifest itself in his educational opportunities. He hated school, didn’t like his teachers, and refused to do his homework. He was the class clown and although he never revealed anything about this to me, I have wondered if he was bullied because of his physical impairment. No matter as he would rather be earning a wage so when he was around eleven or twelve, he got a job at the local bowling alley.  He wasn’t able to bowl because of the unsteadiness on his feet, but that didn’t prevent him from excelling as a “pin-setter” long before advent of the bowling machines that automatically reset the pins today.  All that aside, he did manage to graduate from Shawnee High School.

 

While his legs were unsteady (one leg was not much bigger around that my arm and shorter), his upper body strength more than compensated for that.  After graduation, he was hired by the oil company his dad worked for. It wasn’t long before he had mastered the job of roughneck and moved on as a pipefitter. If you know anything about the oil field industry, you know how dangerous working on a rig is. Imagine a small guy (5’ 8”) with a gimpy leg able to perform the job of much more able-bodied men.

 When I said he was a genius, I didn’t say that lightly. He could fix anything, I mean anything.  If you wanted something made, he could build it. If you had a question, he knew the answer.  Always. He worked all day then came home and found projects that needed doing. I am not aware of one single time that he called in to work or took a day off. He was the hardest working man I’ve ever seen.

 

My dad overcame almost insurmountable odds. He came through it all with a wonderful sense of humor, undeniable honesty and integrity, and fierce loyalty to his family. While I admired my dad for all these attributes, the thing I admired most was his work ethic.