| Biographical Non-Fiction posted October 20, 2023 |
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Remembering my grandfathers
Grandfathers
by Frank Ball
The author has placed a warning on this post for language.
My father often drove our family to South Pasadena to visit my mother's parents, Cora and Newton Evans. My grandfather Newton had medical training at Cornell University School of Medicine and enough curative experience to be a leading member of the California medical community, a pioneer. He actively salvaged the educationally and financially struggling missionary medical school in Loma Linda, the College of Medical Evangelists, now Loma Linda University. He also became the medical director of White Memorial Hospital before his death at seventy-one, closing the book on his career.
To a toddler, Cora and Newton could seem dreadfully Puritan; Seventh-Day Adventist religious persuasion dominated their household. When Grandmother’s discourse needed an expletive, she used the word pshaw. It meant nothing to me as a child. Still, when I think of it now, I'm sure it was a stand-in for shit, which she would never have uttered in public, even if she had a mouthful.
On the office wall behind Newton's desk, above his head, was a framed statement. It hung in a conspicuous view of any student coming to him for a thoughtful review of some personal problem.
The atmosphere is darkened by the murmurings and whimperings of men and women over the non-essentials, the trifles that are inevitably incident to the hurly-burly of the day's routine. Things cannot always go your way. Learn to accept in silence the minor aggravations; cultivate the gift of taciturnity and consume your own smoke with an extra draught of hard work so that those about you may not be annoyed with the dust and soot of your complaints.
Sir William Osler (1849-1919)
I don't wish to be cheeky here; they were loving grandparents, even merciful in their own way. Once, they purchased a new mohair sofa upholstered in a pelt of fine fibers, all standing upright from the woven cloth structure. As a visitor, I was alone; my family required a parking place for me while on an errand, which is inappropriate for a child my age. I found my grandmother's sewing scissors after deciding that the new sofa fabric could be perfected. When an overwrought interruption brought my industry to a rude close, the mohair bristles were trimmed as close to the woven structure as possible. It exposed the foundation fabric in a patch the size of my young hand in a highly conspicuous location, centered on the headrest cushion. It seems more than likely that Suffer the little children… came into play, saving me from a thrashing of lasting memory.
There was a second grandfather I can remember, my father's father. Grampa Ball always seemed very old, but from my current perspective, not so much; my present age is twenty years beyond his high-water mark. Like my mother's father, his life's work was in the medical field. His training period was contemporary with Madame Curie’s tangleled
Clarence took up radiology as a medical specialty. He hatched a bright idea as a medical graduate and a young married. An X-ray might be an appropriate treatment for hemorrhoids; the condition troubled his young wife. The experimental therapy changed the hemorrhoids sure enough, but not in a pleasing way; they blossomed into scar tissue. Scars are among the lesser-yielding of bodily tissues and are even less supple than hemorrhoids. It is not difficult to gain a mental image of the life-long adversity rooted in the star-crossed result.
I know little of the intricate details that became a daily struggle in my grandmother's ninety-eight-year lifespan. She did not share ANY of this with me, which saddles this scuttlebutt as legal hearsay. But it is not beyond probability to suspect that her conversations with her husband were not so prudent regarding the anxieties at her nether eye.
My father often drove our family to South Pasadena to visit my mother's parents, Cora and Newton Evans. My grandfather Newton had medical training at Cornell University School of Medicine and enough curative experience to be a leading member of the California medical community, a pioneer. He actively salvaged the educationally and financially struggling missionary medical school in Loma Linda, the College of Medical Evangelists, now Loma Linda University. He also became the medical director of White Memorial Hospital before his death at seventy-one, closing the book on his career.
To a toddler, Cora and Newton could seem dreadfully Puritan; Seventh-Day Adventist religious persuasion dominated their household. When Grandmother’s discourse needed an expletive, she used the word pshaw. It meant nothing to me as a child. Still, when I think of it now, I'm sure it was a stand-in for shit, which she would never have uttered in public, even if she had a mouthful.
On the office wall behind Newton's desk, above his head, was a framed statement. It hung in a conspicuous view of any student coming to him for a thoughtful review of some personal problem.
The atmosphere is darkened by the murmurings and whimperings of men and women over the non-essentials, the trifles that are inevitably incident to the hurly-burly of the day's routine. Things cannot always go your way. Learn to accept in silence the minor aggravations; cultivate the gift of taciturnity and consume your own smoke with an extra draught of hard work so that those about you may not be annoyed with the dust and soot of your complaints.
Sir William Osler (1849-1919)
I don't wish to be cheeky here; they were loving grandparents, even merciful in their own way. Once, they purchased a new mohair sofa upholstered in a pelt of fine fibers, all standing upright from the woven cloth structure. As a visitor, I was alone; my family required a parking place for me while on an errand, which is inappropriate for a child my age. I found my grandmother's sewing scissors after deciding that the new sofa fabric could be perfected. When an overwrought interruption brought my industry to a rude close, the mohair bristles were trimmed as close to the woven structure as possible. It exposed the foundation fabric in a patch the size of my young hand in a highly conspicuous location, centered on the headrest cushion. It seems more than likely that Suffer the little children… came into play, saving me from a thrashing of lasting memory.
There was a second grandfather I can remember, my father's father. Grampa Ball always seemed very old, but from my current perspective, not so much; my present age is twenty years beyond his high-water mark. Like my mother's father, his life's work was in the medical field. His training period was contemporary with Madame Curie’s tangleled
Clarence took up radiology as a medical specialty. He hatched a bright idea as a medical graduate and a young married. An X-ray might be an appropriate treatment for hemorrhoids; the condition troubled his young wife. The experimental therapy changed the hemorrhoids sure enough, but not in a pleasing way; they blossomed into scar tissue. Scars are among the lesser-yielding of bodily tissues and are even less supple than hemorrhoids. It is not difficult to gain a mental image of the life-long adversity rooted in the star-crossed result.
I know little of the intricate details that became a daily struggle in my grandmother's ninety-eight-year lifespan. She did not share ANY of this with me, which saddles this scuttlebutt as legal hearsay. But it is not beyond probability to suspect that her conversations with her husband were not so prudent regarding the anxieties at her nether eye.
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