A Life Unanswered

An old photograph. It has been worn,washed and abused. Well, not really abused, but I would say neglected. It is a photograph of my paternal Grandfather Elwood Reichart, Sr. I never knew the man, nor did my father for that matter. You see, the back story is this. My paternal grandmother Clara passed away less than a month after giving birth to my dad. Grandfather Elwood, the man in the picture, entrusted the care of my father and his brother to my paternal Great Grandfather and Great Grandmother. In this old picture you see him holding his two sons. I would estimate the picture being taken about 1925. In 1927 Grandfather remarried. He had two more sons, Peter and Harry. And then in 1932 he passed away. He was 32 years old. A short life to be sure. The cause of his demise was a ruptured appendix. In 1932 doctors knew little about what to do for this.
Grandfather Elwood first married Clara. That was in 1922 when he was twenty two years old. By 1924 he has two sons and his wife passes away. In 1927 he takes a second wife and has two sons. In 1932, one decade has passed and he departs this world. This picture is one of a few remaining traces of him. I should correct that statement. One of the few traces left of him that I am aware of. My own father had no tales to tell of him. I do have two other snapshots of him but that is all. The only other trace of him remaining to me is his headstone. I have a picture of that stone and have visited it. On it are a rope and anchor, a clue about his livelihood. He did love the water.
All his sons are now gone. His oldest Son Elwood had no sons, only daughters. My father had one son (me) and a daughter. With his second wife came a son Pete. Pete had two sons and a daughter. Finally there was Harry. He had a daughter. The second generation is all that remains. Myself,and my cousins. None of us ever knew this man. In his married life, a span of ten years, he produced four sons. The sons are gone and that is not unexpected given the time that has passed. What I believe is unusual is that no grandsons or granddaughters remember him. To all of us, he is the man in the picture. But for us he would fade into anonymity. Even if the picture remained, the identity would be lost.
My father seldom took out pictures to share with us. When he did do that it was almost always his photo album from the war. In that album where mostly pictures of airplanes and comrades. There were a few personal photos in there of family, but very few. I came into possession of that album. There are many pictures of my fathers " buddies " and they are all anonymous to me. Who were these men and what is there story ? Even the family members took research to identify.
There are a lot of questions I would love to ask Grandfather Elwood. What sort of man was he ? He was spoken of very little and I got the impression, even as a child, that Great Grandfather did not approve of him. Was that because he married his daughter and she subsequently passed away during childbirth ? Did Great Grandfather harbor resentment ? Or did it have something to do with Grandfather Elwood remarrying, having two more sons, but never taking his first two sons home to live with him ? A curious thing to me. Did his second wife, a fine lady I knew as a child as Aunt Lina, not want the other two children as her responsibility ? It could be that Great Grandmother having taken care of those boys for two years after her daughters death did not want to relinquish them. I'll never know those answers. And that is what I see when I look at that old photo. A life unanswered. It is also why I have taken to writing everything down. I do not want to leave unanswered questions. Slowly, over the years I am going to tell. I hope someone finds it of interest.
Somehow I feel the need to explain. Perhaps that feeling stems from some guilt. Guilt for mistakes I have made over the years. And maybe some guilt for certain choices. Maybe it is nothing more than I need to talk the whole deal over, this deal we call life. Am I living my life correctly ? It is good to question, don't you think ? Sometimes the questions are more important than the answers.