Our Last Visit with Ann's Father

During the summer of 1964, Ann’s mother, father, sister, and brother came to visit us in Jamestown.  We had a wonderful time together. Mother (as I always called my mother-in-law), Dottie, Robert, Ann and I drove to New York City to see the World’s Fair, which was held in the Queens.  Ann’s father would not go with us.  He wasn’t about to set foot in New York City.  He said if we could arrange to get a helicopter to let him down in the middle of Yankee Stadium, and pick him up as soon as the game was over, he would go.  Otherwise, Jamestown was as close as he would get.  He stayed home and kept Elliott, and that turned out to be the highlight of his visit.  In my mind, I can still see him walking down the stairs of our apartment.  It was the last time I ever saw him alive.

Before they came we began construction on a  home or our own.  It was a pre-fab job, and you could get a loan without a down payment if you would do the interior painting yourself, and put in the yard.  The payments were about same as rent, so we went for it.  We moved in sometime in the early fall. We had barely moved in when we got the message that Ann’s father had suffered a  heart attack and died. We got the call about 10 o’clock in the evening.   We figured we wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway, so we got in the car and left about midnight.  I drove all night and into the next afternoon, when I gave the wheel over to Ann somewhere in Illinois. We had purchased another Rambler following the wreck, and one of the blessings of the Rambler was the ability to let down the right side of the front seat and make a bed.  I reclined on the bed and crashed, and Elliott sat beside me.  When I woke up we were in the middle of St. Louis at rush hour.  The lights were apparently timed at 50 miles per hour.  I looked up and saw the speedometer and realized we were driving bumper to bumper.  Ann said, “Lay back down; cover your  head and close your eyes.  I’m going to get us through here.”  That was before there were very many interstate highways..

It has been about 16 months since we left Texas.  Our time there was bittersweet because of the loss in the family, but we did have opportunity to visit friends and loved ones in Waco, Houston, and Clyde.   We stayed nearly a month before returning to New York.

Jeff Robert Williams was a good man.  I liked him from the day I first met him.  I’ll never forget standing under a tree on the back side of their place at Tater Hill and asking him if I could marry his daughter.  I remember him telling me that he had not approved of many of her suitors but he did approve of me.  We enjoyed fishing together, sports, and many other interests.   It was a special joy to be around him when he watched sports on television.  The officials never got their calls right, and he was quite vocal in expressing his opinions.  He did not attend church on a regular basis, but he was a believer.  He knew the Bible quite well. I’m not sure what all his reasons were for leaving the church out of his life.  He did a good job of raising his family, and I still miss him until this day.  He is buried in a cemetery just south of Waco.