My wife’s aunt, Faye Irene (Moler) Pohl, passed away on July 18, 2017, in Wichita Kansas. She had gone there for surgery, an extensive surgery for one who was 90 years old. She didn’t survive this, passing away less than a week later.

I first met Faye in October, 1975. I was dating Lynda at the time, things were getting a bit serious between us, so I was obliged to make the trip to the hometown and meet the family. After a late arrival and a night’s sleep, we walked the two blocks from my (then future) mother-in-law’s house to Faye’s. Her husband was in the midst of remodeling a large home in Meade. I didn’t see a lot of Faye on that trip, as there was much to do and many people to see. But we ate Sunday dinner at her house, and I could clearly see she was a gracious hostess and a good cook.

Over the years, I’ve had many chances to be with and see Faye, always at family times. We made trips to Meade, she and her husband Leonard made trips to where we were, and I got to learn much about her. Her gifts as a hostess I saw demonstrated many times, in meals large and small. She always had a nicely set table, a balanced meal fixed, and desserts at the ready. She also always urged second or third helpings on me. Yet, I’m not going to blame my lingering though shrinking obesity on her. I did that all on my own.

Faye’s life was spent mostly in Meade County, Kansas. She was born in Meade, the county seat, but the family soon moved a few miles north of town to the silica mine, where her dad, Millard Moler, was the crane operator. Her first seven years of school were at the Artesian Valley School, a one-room, rural schoolhouse. The family moved back to Meade in time for Faye’s 7th grade year. She lived in Meade, or on a family farm south of Meade for most of the next two decades. Briefly the family moved to Colorado then Idaho, but was back in Meade by 1973, stayed there until the late 1990s, when Leonard retired and the moved to Hutchinson Kansas. After Leonard’s death in 2005, Faye moved back to Meade for the remainder of her live.

For those of you who don’t know the Kansas high plains, it’s bleak, dusty, and windy. Part of the so-called  “Great American Desert”, it’s devoid of trees except where the town folk plant and nurture them. It’s farming country, traditionally for winter wheat, though more recently for corn, always with other crops mixed in. If you aren’t a famer or farmer’s wife, you are working to somehow support agriculture. The land isn’t quite as flat as you might think. It’s gently rolling, with a fair amount of true flatland. Farmers have done some major earth moving and flattened miles and miles to make the land more suitable for easy farming. Despite the bleakness, I fell in love with the Kansas prairies a long time ago.

That was an aside to say that Faye learned to be prepared for weather on the prairies. I remember stopping at a cemetery in Spearville, Kansas, at Faye’s request. We were taking her from Meade to Hutchinson sometime after her husband died. She and Esther had an uncle buried there, who had died as a boy in an accident with some horses, before the family moved to Meade. She wanted to see his grave, which she hadn’t seen for a long time. We found the cemetery, on the prairie north of Spearville. The minute we got out of the car that wind hit us hard—not a storm; the wind just blows constantly. I noticed that Faye already had on a clear-plastic rain hat, to protect her hair from the wind. She must have pulled it from her purse and put it on before leaving the car. Yes, she was well prepared for what the prairie would throw at her, that time, and every time.

Faye was active in her husband’s accounting business in Meade, as well as on the farm for the years they lived there. She was a life-long member of the Church of the Nazarene, teaching Sunday School, singing in the choir, and taking various positions of service within the church. Faye demonstrated the heart of a servant in all she did. Her ministries extended beyond the local church. She served as treasurer of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and was active in Country Gospel Music Association events, singing with other family members.

Faye will be missed much. She enriched the lives of those she met and interacted with. She lived her last twelve years as a widow, and survived cancer during that time. She’s now singing the old hymns and choruses in the celestial choir—with maybe a little country gospel mixed in.

One hundred years ago today, in Riverside, a district of East Providence, Rhode Island, Norman Victor Todd was born. He was the first son of Oscar Todd and Lilly (Vick) Todd. An older sister, Mary, had died sometime the previous year. Four siblings would be born over the next nine years.

The family home was 15 Viola Avenue in Riverside. Whether this was already purchased at the time of Norman’s birth, or whether it became home as the family expanded, is unknown. Norman attended public school in East Providence, going as far as the 8th grade before dropping out. He wasn’t out of school long, however, as he enrolled in a trade school to learn how to be a linotype operator. He graduated from this, and began his career. So far as I know he had only two jobs his adult life. First he worked for the Delmo Press in Pascoug, RI, driving there every day from East Providence. World War 2 came and he joined the army. After the war he went back to the Delmo Press, but within the year he switched to working for the Providence Journal in downtown Providence, setting type on the night shift. He would eventually retire from this job.

His war service is worthy of a blog post on it’s own. The short version is he started as G.I. Joe, in a unit that at some point would be on the front lines. Already 26 when they sailed first to England and then to North Africa, Norman saw an edition of the Stars and Stripes newspaper. He figured it was being put out by G.I.s, and that they needed typesetters, so he put in for a transfer. It came through just as his LSI was about to embark on the invasion of Italy in 1943. He spent the rest of his time in the army with the Stars and Stripes: in Algiers, Italy, and several locations in Southern France, always attached to General Mark Clark’s 5th Army. He finished the war with the rank of technical sergeant, and mustered out of Europe in August 1945.

I believe it was soon after his return to R.I. that he met Dorothy A. Sexton. They began a three year courtship that resulted in marriage on January 20, 1950. Norman was 34, Dorothy was 32, neither having been married previously. From 1950 to 1954 they had three children, and moved from Providence to Cranston RI.

Dad spent the rest of his days at that address. They were years of tragedy and heartbreak for him. Dorothy, unknown to her and Norman, was a very sick woman. Breast cancer resulted in a double radical mastectomy. This was followed by kidney failure, in the years before dialysis was a common and easy to obtain treatment. Her physical condition spiraled downhill, and she died in August 1965. Dad and Mom has 18 years being together, 15 years of marriage. At the time of her death, we three children were 14, 13, and 11.

Dad soldiered on as a single dad. He continued working the night shift at the Journal. He dated little, preferring to use his time to parent his children. We, of course, grew up. Two of us moved far away. One moved halfway across state. Okay, that’s a joke—in Rhode Island halfway across state is still very close. Technology overwhelmed him at work, as electronic typesetting moved and made hot lead type obsolete. He tried for a year to adjust to the new way of doing things, something he’d been doing for four decades, but couldn’t master the technology. Dad took early retirement in 1976, at age 60.

From then, Dad lived a quieter and lonelier existence at the house on Cottage Street. He enjoyed regularly seeing my brother and his family, and the less frequent visits from me and my family, and the even less frequent visits from my sister. He made few trips out of state, coming to see us twice and his brother in Florida once. He was fortunate to know all his grandchildren. When he passed away in 1997 at age 81, he was still in his house, having lived there for almost 47 years, the last 32 of them as a widower, the last 21 of them alone.

I’ve tried several times to write a memoir/history of the lives of Norman and Dorothy Todd, both in manuscript and typing, and have been unable to do so. I need to get this done, however, or most of this history dies with me. Perhaps writing this short tribute to Norman will spur me to get on with the work. I just need to figure the structure and style, and get writing.

Norman—Dad—was one of the quiet heroes of this world, a hero because he persevered under great trial, and never broke, never gave up. He was a patriot—a patriot because he faithfully did the small, everyday things that make a nation great: such as obeying the law, working for his keep, paying his bills and taxes. And he was the world’s best role model of a husband and a dad. I got to observe him for 45 years, first up close, then at a distance. My life is better for it.