MY MEMORIES

Charles Glenn Petersen

Father

The decision was made, I resigned from American Can Company, much to many people’s surprise. We bought a home in Ames out west of campus in an area referred to as Ontario. We were all packed up and ready to load the rental truck when the phone rang. Tragedy had struck, my father had died of a heart attack. I completely lost it. Winnie had to take the phone and get the details. I was sitting on the floor crying. I get chills just writing this. I didn’t realize until that moment how much I loved my father and how much I would miss him. All I had left in this world that I cared about was my wife, my children, and my brother.

The funeral was to be in three days. Should we drop everything and go immediately back to Iowa or should we finish packing and drive like hell for two days. We made the wrong choice. We finished packing, drove the next day to the middle of Missouri, where we checked in with Mabel, my father’s wife. She was all but screaming at me. My brother took the phone and explained. The service at the Masonic Temple had been held that evening and the funeral was tomorrow at the Methodist Church in Terril. We left the truck and the trailer with the sailboat in the motel parking lot, we had already checked in. We drove all night to Winnie’s parent’s home arriving about 8 am. My father-in-law then drove us to Terril where we arrived 1 hour before the service. Mabel was never my favorite person and after a couple days with her back in Hampton where they were living, we went to our new home in Ames. Mabel has never spoken nor written to me since then. In fact, none of her side of the family have made any contact with me, nor I with them for that matter.

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