Swartzy

In June of 1996 Mom, who was almost sixty years old, crawled into her dying father’s bed so she could be as close to him as possible and talk to him and hear him talk to her. Grandpa was dying of sarcoidosis, and he had reached that final stage of life where one sleeps more and more and where times of lucid conversation happen less and less.

“Daddy,” she whispered, “I just need to know. Are you trusting the Lord?”

He didn’t open his eyes, but he nodded and said, “I talk to Him all the time!”

Amy Brinkerhoff and Grandpa Swartz, Dec. 1991.

When I picture my maternal grandfather, Byron Joseph Swartz, in my mind, he is sitting in “his chair” in his and Grandma’s living room, one leg crossed over the other at the knee, bouncing his foot up and down. He is wearing unshined black leather shoes and white socks. His shirt and pants match exactly—both are what I would call a “military green.” He is holding his eyeglasses by one of the temples, twirling them back and forth. He is listening to the family conversations going on around him, generally not saying much but speaking with conviction when he does. Grandpa was nothing if not self-assured. (And ornery as all get-out—but more of that later.)

Next to his chair is a small wooden—possibly antique—end-table-cum-magazine rack, stuffed with reading materials. He could often be found reading a newspaper that was published once a week in those days, Grit. And he always had fascinating magazines—Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, National Geographic, and, on at least one occasion as a very young child I came across one called Saga: True Adventures for Men, which purported to feature “Space/Sports, Adventure/Animals, Girls/Guns, Astrology/Action.”

He loved to read: novels, including the Reader’s Digest Condensed Books; books about woodworking, about history and folklore (Foxfire), and anything written and illustrated by Eric Sloane. And he loved old automobiles, owning at various times a Model T car and a Studebaker pickup truck. Riding in the Ford’s rumble seat was a very special treat!

Byron Hastings/Byron Swartz

Byron Joseph (Hastings) Swartz, ca. 1916.

Grandpa had an unusual childhood. I’m hazy on the details, but as I was told over the years, his mother struggled with mental illness and was hospitalized on several occasions. His dad couldn’t care for him—Grandpa was the ninth child born into the Schwartz family (out of a total of twelve!)—and so almost immediately after Byron was born, he “farmed him out” to Will and Annie Hastings, a kindhearted older couple whose only daughter was fully grown. I highly recommend you read my brother’s blog post about the Hastings and Grandpa—it’s a very heartwarming story—but since he’s already told it so well, I won’t go into it here.

Although he was raised as a Hastings, after high school he started using his legal last name again—sort of. It had been “Schwartz,” but he shortened and simplified it to “Swartz.”

He and Grandma (Leta Elizabeth Green) were married young. He was nineteen, and she was twenty. Because it was 1934, in the midst of the Great Depression, folks didn’t usually have big weddings. In fact, if you just ran off and got married, your parents probably were happy about it, as it saved them money. And that’s exactly what Grandma and Grandpa did. He told the story many times—with that ornery glint in his eye—and it went something like this:

We drove down to West Virginia to get married because we’d been told you could get married there easier than you could in Ohio. So we stopped at a town and found the justice of the peace. He asked us how old we were, and we told him we were nineteen and twenty. He said he wouldn’t marry us because you had to be twenty-one to get married without your parents’ permission. We looked at each other and didn’t know what to do! So we got back in our car and drove to the next little town to find another justice of the peace—and, do you know, by the time we got there, we’d both turned twenty-one!

After the family stopped laughing, Grandpa would add, “Who knows! Maybe we ain’t even legally married!” And Grandma would shake her head and say, “Oh, Byurn!,” which was the way she always pronounced his name.

Grandpa clowning around. Note ornery grin!

That Sense of Humor

Grandpa and Grandma’s relationship was typical of the marriages from that era. He was the man, he was the boss; he did his things (woodworking, restoring old tractors, drinking coffee downtown with the other older men), and she did hers (cleaning the house, fussing over the grandchildren, and making meals). Though it may seem outmoded today, it worked just fine for them. In fact, Grandpa often said, “I never knew what true happiness was till I got married!” Then he’d grin that ornery grin and add, “And then it was too late!” And Grandma would click her tongue and shake her head and smile.

Here are two other Grandpa jokes—

[To the grandchildren] When your grandma and her twin sister was born, folks came from all over to see ’em! [Pause.] Nobody could figger out what they were!

All babies take nine months to be born. Except the first one. Sometimes the first one don’t take but six or seven months. . . .

And another funny true story he told—

If you go out in the woods [like us, the grandparents lived on a wooded property] with a stick and you hit a tree and look up, sometimes a flying squirrel—we useta call ’em fairydiddles—will poke its head out of the trunk and look around to see what’s goin’ on. I was doin’ that one day, just walkin’ around and hittin’ the trees, when Howard Stoneman [his nephew] drove up and saw me.

Howard rolled down his window and said, “Byron, what are you doin’?”

I said, “I’m lookin’ fer fairydiddles!”

Howard just looked at me for a minute. Then he shook his head and said, “I always knew it was just a matter of time. . . !”

Grandpa’s sense of humor could be pointed, though. He often kind of set me back by his comments—I wasn’t always sure how to take him. When I was really small, he scared me a little. If you walked too close to his chair, he might suddenly grab you and say, “You need a lickin’!” And then grab your arm and lick it with his big, thick tongue all the way up your forearm—bleah! He got quite a charge out of it as the child would struggle away, wiping Grandpa’s gross saliva off his arm as fast as he could.

Although I don’t remember it myself, Mom told me how he teased me when I was very small. At one point when I was at his house, I was carrying a sack of candy around. I don’t know why, but Grandpa thought it would be funny to yell “Sack!” when he saw me every so often after that. I never knew when to expect it. I could be quietly heading past him to go to the kitchen for some cookies (Thank you, Grandma!), and he’d suddenly yell, “Sack!” as I walked by—which would send me into an unwarranted tizzy of anger and tears.

You might say, “That doesn’t sound like a very nice trick to play on a little kid.” Well, it wasn’t. But he thought it was hilarious, and I don’t hold it against him in the least.

Antiques and Tobacco

Grandma and Grandpa’s home was filled with antiques—many of which Grandpa had rescued at junk sales and then refinished. He knew that antiques experts despise it when old furniture is refinished, but he didn’t care. He was making it beautiful and functional again. I treasure a big, heavy machinist’s toolbox I inherited from him, beautifully refinished all the way down to the tin and felt in the bottom of each drawer.

For most of his life, Grandpa was a smoker. Sometimes cigarettes, sometimes cigars, sometimes a pipe. When I smell cherry pipe tobacco even now, its delicious aroma immediately makes me think of Grandpa. He also periodically chewed tobacco. When I was very young, I asked to try some. He put the tiniest pinch on the tip of my tongue. It burned like crazy, and I spat it out immediately. I accused him of giving me tobacco from a cigarette rather than chewing tobacco because I couldn’t imagine anyone would intentionally put something that tasted like that in his mouth!

I’ll tell you one thing, though: I never, ever tried it again!

Grandma and Grandpa had two daughters, so eventually they had two sons-in-law, my dad and my Uncle Russ. Grandpa’s relationship with both of them seemed easy, lacking any strife, and characterized by mutual respect. I don’t know when my dad started calling him “Swartzy,” but that’s how he always referred to Grandpa. I never heard anyone else call him that.

Grandpa was active in politics in our tiny town. He served on the village council, served as a volunteer fireman, and was elected mayor more than once. Us boys used to think this song was about him: “The old gray mare she ain’t what she used to be, ain’t what she used to be, ain’t what she used to be. . . .” After all, he was old, he had been mayor, and his hair was gray. Why the song referred to him as “she” never made any sense to us, though.

Grandpa was faithful to the local Presbyterian church. I wouldn’t be surprised if he served as a deacon or trustee there, although I don’t know that for sure. He never talked much about things of the Lord other than to say that he’d been to a Catholic wedding once and it was “just like one of ours.” Then he’d add, “Seems like it’s just a different road to the same place.”

Grandpa (right) and fellow milk hauler Paul Justice.

He did tell one fascinating story about a time he felt the Lord spoke to him. He had completed his tasks at a local dairy farm, had put the hose and other tools back into the tank truck, and was getting ready to back up and leave, when, “I just stopped. I didn’t hear a voice, but I felt like the Lord told me not to move. I got out of the truck and walked around back. There sat a little boy, playing in the dirt. I’da run over him for sure if I’d of backed up.”

Animal Lover

He loved animals. Every night he would put food for raccoons out in a tree along the top of the cliff that edged their property, and he would sit on the porch and watch them climb the tree and eat it. He had bird feeders all around his property and enjoyed identifying the various kinds that came to eat. Sometimes he teased animals (not cruelly), just for a laugh. He would do this with dogs quite often, and once I remember seeing him tease a billy goat out on the farm. The goat was tied to a stake, and I found him large and intimidating. His eyes were weird, and his “baaaah!” was loud and disturbing, and he had big horns on his head. Grandpa stood within the circumference of the circle until the goat charged him, and he caught and held him, leaning forward, his feet planted on the ground, his palms against the horns, not allowing him to move further. And he was laughing the whole time.

It was perhaps the bravest thing I’d ever seen anyone do.

For a number of years Grandpa had a hound dog named Sam, and they just loved each other. Now, were Grandpa here, he would correct me on that. The man who sold Sam to Grandpa swore Sam was a German shepherd whose ears had never been cut, so they flopped down like a hound dog’s ears—but he was 100% German shepherd, sure as shootin’!

But the problem with that story is that German shepherd pups’ ears are never cropped. They are genetically predisposed to stand up vertically. I suspect Grandpa paid a German shepherd price for a hound dog mutt.

Be that as it may, Sam was an intelligent and faithful companion. Grandpa took him places with him, talked to him, trained him. Sam lay at Grandpa’s feet every evening when he and Grandma watched TV—except for one evening. Our family was visiting the grandparents, and, as dogs will do from time to time, Sam did something that made everyone laugh at him—I don’t recall what it was. But Grandpa laughed loud and long and pointed at him. Sam gave him a classic hangdog look and went and lay in the corner all that evening. No amount of coaxing could persuade him to return to Grandpa’s feet. His feelings had been hurt, and he wasn’t going to open himself up to that kind of pain ever again . . . at least, not tonight.

One time Grandma and Grandpa took a trip and couldn’t take Sam along, so we kept him at our house. He was a good old dog, no trouble at all. He did something I’ve never heard any other dog do, though. He spoke to me.

I’m sure you don’t believe me, but it’s true. It happened when I was alone with him in the living room. I was reading a book, and Sam was resting on the hearth. He decided to stand up to move, and as clear as day, as he exhaled and moved his tongue and his lips flopped, he said, “Dangit.”

You don’t have to believe that story, but it really happened, and I can vouch for myself that I am a trustworthy source.

Sadly, it was during the time that Grandma and Grandpa were away that Sam died. He became very sick one night, throwing up and obviously very ill. Mom and Dad took him to the vet—he had a ruptured spleen, and there was nothing that could be done for him. I don’t remember whether Mom and Dad waited till the grandparents were home again before telling them, but I do know that it was a source of sadness and concern in our family that Grandpa’s companion was suddenly gone—when Grandpa had been away. Grandpa never owned another dog after Sam.

In Memoriam

Byron Joseph (Hastings) Swartz was born April 6, 1915. He died in his home on June 23, 1996. My cousin Peggy (daughter of mom’s sister Millie) was with him—here are her memories.

Grandpa was in a hospital bed in the front living room. He’d lost his eyesight by then as his body began to shut down. When Ivan Weaver showed Grandpa photographs of his renovation of the horse barn in Fredericksburg, Grandpa pretended that he could see them. Ivan wasn’t any the wiser. But we knew.

Grandpa was on oxygen and the machine rumbled constantly. In the early hours of Grandpa’s last morning, Aunt Jan went home to get some sleep, and Mom was upstairs in bed. In a moment of consciousness before the end started, Grandpa had asked us not to leave him alone. So I sat on the couch next to his bed, working on a syllabus for a college class I would be teaching in a couple of weeks.

By this time, Grandpa had gone into what I later learned is called Cheyne-Stokes breathing: a deep sharp inhale, louder than the oxygen machine, a loud forceful exhale, five or ten silent minutes would go by, and then I would be startled by another loud inhale from Grandpa. I’m not sure how I knew that the last one was his last breath. But I did. It seemed different, especially the exhale. I leapt off the couch and called to Mom from the bottom of the stairs and telephoned Aunt Jan to come quickly.

He was gone.

Copyright 2023 by Steven Nyle Skaggs

Many, many thanks to my brother Eric and my favorite cousin ever in the whole wide world, Peggy Brinkerhoff, for their immensely helpful contributions!

December 1990. Left to right: Andy Apperson, my dad (Nyle Skaggs), Grandpa, me.

Riding a real tractor with Great-Grandpa—what a thrill! May 1991, Matthew Skaggs, 4 years old.

May 1991. Great-Grandpa and Ben Skaggs, 2 years old.

August 1994. L to R: Mom, Janis Swartz Skaggs; Great Aunt Verda Green (Grandma Swartz’s sister-in-law, widow of Grandma’s brother Lou); Kristie Skaggs; Dad, Nyle Skaggs; my wife, Cindy; my brother Joel’s girlfriend/future wife, Betsy Teach; Grandma Swartz; my brother Eric and his wife, Aimee; Grandpa Swartz.

Grandpa and Grandma and their first three great-grandchildren: Weston (Keith and Diana’s son); Matthew and Ben (Cindy’s and my sons). December 1991.

Snoozing in his favorite chair, December 1990.