Grandpa Floyd Persails

My Father’s father had died in 1952 when my Father was 15 and his death was a relief to my Father and Grandmother as by all accounts my Father’s Father’s best friend was the bottle and his greatest triumph was in beating his 2nd wife and their son. Carl McAtee had been a violent force in their lives.

The man I knew as my Grandfather on that side of the family came into our lives somewhere around 1967. His name was Floyd Persails and he was a good man with the kind of quirks that all of us have.

Floyd made a career working in the Buick plant in the city where he raised his family; Flint, Michigan.

Second marriages, even in 1967 could be fraught with family issues. Even adult children can feel threatened by a parent having a new spouse. And I think those tensions existed between Floyd’s children and my father as Eva’s only son, but I was only 8 at that time and those tensions didn’t impact me. I liked Grandpa Persails. What was there not to like?

The man grew gigantic gardens. I retain fond memories of helping him in the Garden. Grandpa Floyd wore a brown pith helmet to ward off the sun and I fancied myself his Gunga Din. Part of the garden was a huge plot of sweet corn. Grandpa would take the tractor out pulling behind him a huge cart and my brother, sister, and I would fill up the cart with sweet corn so that it was huge and overflowing. We would then sit perched atop the sweet corn as he wound the tractor back to the house. From there we would spend hours shucking corn and we would eat ourselves stuffed with sweet corn that he boiled in a huge pot outside. Out of the pot onto the plate and quickly in between a folded slice of bread as we applied generous amounts of butter.

The garden didn’t end with the sweet corn, though admittedly that may have been the high point for me. Grandpa Persails would also make huge vats of tomato soup from garden tomatoes as well as potato soup from his garden potatoes. What I wouldn’t give to have another cup of each in 2021. My grandmother delighted in her husband’s garden tomato sandwiches — a couple of slices of tomato between two pieces of bread with a little mayo and salted and peppered to taste. Now that was good eating.

When Grandma married Floyd Persails her house had no running water. Floyd soon fixed that has he built a bathroom addition to the small house and brought in running water. Even for a 10-year old that was nice as it was an end to that nasty outhouse with its Sears-Roebuck catalogue toilet paper.  Eventually, Grandpa built a four-car garage onto the house which was kind of funny because that made the garage as big as the house.  However, Grandpa kept busy in that garage as it soon became cluttered up as garages often do. Indeed, he was so busy he eventually brought a small house-trailer and put it on the property. In that house-trailer, he put all his caning material and opened a small business of caning chairs.

Oh… and he was an auctioneer also. His indecipherable speech at auctions mesmerized me. How could anyone know what they were buying or how much they were paying? I never understood a word he said as an auctioneer.

Grandpa Persails had a big personality. I suspect he came from a family of big personalities. He had a brother named Fred, I met a few times while visiting and Fred likewise had a big personality. They had a sister also, whose name slips my mind who likewise was no shrinking violet in the personality category. When those three got together all the oxygen was sucked out of the room by those huge personalities.

Visiting Grandma and Grandpa (they were only 45 minutes up the road) usually included playing Aggravation. Grandpa made a huge board that fit the kitchen table and drilled the holes in their appropriate spots. Grandma always chose the white marbles and Grandpa always had the black marbles. Everyone else randomly took whatever colors were left. We spent many evenings as children playing Aggravation with Grandma & Grandpa Persails. Again, I wish I could go back and play just one more game with them.

I don’t recall Grandma and Grandpa being particularly church-going people. It’s possible they may have been and I just didn’t know. However, every meal was preceded by a table blessing as led by Grandpa Persails.

Bless us, O Lord,
And these Thy gifts
Which we are about to receive,
Through Thy bounty
Through Christ our Lord we pray.

Amen.

I remember when I was about 17 something shocking happened. Grandpa asked me to lead the meal prayer and after that first time, it wasn’t uncommon for Grandpa to ask me to ask the meal prayer. To this day I don’t know why he made this decision. I never remember any of my siblings or anybody else being asked to give the table prayer. I promise that he had no reason to think that I would end up in the ministry. It was the furthest thing from my mind at 17.

When I was about 20 Floyd had to have some serious surgery and I, being in a in-between time of life was elected to shepherd Grandma during this time. As such, I spent a good deal of time at the hospital with Grandma and Grandpa. The one thing I remember the most was Grandpa trying to get his Doctor to try a piece of hard candy that Grandpa especially enjoyed. Every time that Doctor showed up for rounds Floyd would badger the Doc about trying this great hard candy. Finally, the Doc relented, just to shut Floyd up about the candy. Grandpa gave the Doc a piece of the candy and the Doc just tossed it in his mouth and began to crunch away. Of course, the idea behind hard candy is to suck and enjoy but as the Doc was being condescending he thought he would just crunch away and get it over with. The problem though is that the Doc had not bothered to take off the clear wrapper around the hard candy. Grandpa started laughing immediately while trying to tell the Doc he had to take the clear plastic wrapper off but by that time the Doc was to proud to fish the hard candy out of his mouth to get the wrapper off since that would have been a royal mess. Even I was laughing at this point knowing that the Doctor had so much pride he was going to swallow that damn hard candy — wrapper and all — because he was too proud to take the candy out of his mouth. Just a funny memory.

At the beginning of this piece, I mentioned that Grandpa Floyd had quirks. One of his quirks had to do with a framed picture. This picture was large, especially as it was placed in the center of Grandma’s very small living room. Keep in mind the house as a whole was small and was only rescued by having a second story where we could sleep when visiting overnight. For years I stared at that large picture directly over the television in the tiny living room having no earthly idea who that woman was. Only later did I learn that that picture was a picture of his first wife “Hazel.” At the same time, I learned that painting had created some friction in the marriage. What second wife wants the main attraction of her home to be a portrait of her husband’s first wife? I am now roughly the age they were then and I have to say that at this age I look back and still think that was a strange thing for him to do. Doubtless, he loved his first wife, but he should’ve found a better way to keep his memory ever before him.

Years later as I learned more, I began to admire Grandpa Floyd’s hatred for FDR. Whenever FDR’s name would come up the man would go into an absolute rant. Of course, at that early age, FDR was just a name to me. However, now I look forward to ranting with Grandpa Floyd in Heaven about the hell stationed FDR.

Floyd Persails was a good man. He filled a necessary gap as “Grandpa” for his stepson’s children wonderfully. It is a shame that in later years my Father and Floyd had a serious and significant falling out when my Grandmother died. Things happened at her death that often do when families are blended and my Father and Floyd’s children came to serious loggerheads about the estate. That put me and my siblings in the position of either supporting our Father or Grandpa Floyd and that decision wasn’t really difficult given some of the unfortunate things that happened surrounding Grandma’s funeral.

I was 24 when Grandma died and flew back from Maine for the Funeral. Matters were already tense when I rolled into Tekonsha, Michigan. I saw Grandpa a few times over the weekend of the funeral but after Grandma’s funeral, I never saw or heard from or contacted Floyd Persails again.

At this age, I now regret that.