In my father's old photo album

Today, in 1907, my father was born. The second son of the second son. I am also the second son. I doubt there is significance in that, although having an older brother to strive to be like/with when one is young may perhaps accelerate development. 

Over the years of my childhood, I heard some things and was never privy to many others. I knew that Dad had bad back pain; it was late in my childhood that I found out that that was secondary to a fractured spine in Fiji. During World War II. He always downplayed the severity of the injury, and I only imagine the strain of lying immobile in a tropical hospital wrapped in plaster cast from shoulders to hips. It was there that he wrote to my mother and in that way they met.

The album where he put the four photos on this one page was unknown to me until it came to me after he died; too early. He was still basically healthy when he was felled by a posterior cerebral stroke at the age of 86. My mother determined that I should have his photo albums, because of my interest in photography. I am grateful she did so.

The albums show a man for whom family was important, and there are many photos of his siblings. There are also photos (of a similar size to these), presumably sent him by penfriends. In the days long before the internet and digital photography, writing letters and posting each other photos, was their version of facebook and email. I do not recall seeing these photos when he was alive for me to ask him to tell me about the photos.

He never did tell us much about that time. What I did know, and was proud of, was that he refused to use a gun, and that he volunteered to be an ambulance driver, to help those who were fighters. I knew also that all his brothers (except the youngest) enlisted and fought, and (perhaps miraculously) survived. His mother and father must have lived in fear, with five of their six sons far away and liable to sudden and painful death.

His day of birth has been an opportunity to reflect, to acknowledge both the man he was and the example he gave us of not shirking responsibility. He was chairman of the School Committee at the primary school in Waikino where his children began our schooling. He took on many other community roles, and he readily accepted doing the extra that was often required, and rarely (at least in my hearing) begrudged those who then left him to do it all.

I hope to be as good an example to my children and grandchildren as he was for me.