Grandpa Francis

I have been working on family history. My favorite place to research is in old newspapers at Newspapers.com. I discovered that my grandpa had amazing parents and that he, himself, was an amazing human being. He had experienced a lot of loss at a young age, yet he did not grow up to be bitter or angry. He was authentic, sincere, and unpretentious. My mom said she never heard my grandpa and grandma argue. The were kind and patient people.

My grandpa, Francis, was two years old when his mom died at age 31, while giving birth to her third son, my grandpa’s baby brother. Francis’s older brother was about 7 years old when their mother and baby brother passed away.  

Grandpa Francis’s dad had gone blind and could not raise his two boys after his dear wife passed away. My grandpa and great uncle were sent to live with my great-grandmother’s parents. Grandpa’s dad (C. M.) went to a school for the blind after his wife passed away, where he learned how to live with his blindness. He learned how to tune pianos and was able to get by okay.

My grandpa was nine years old when his maternal grandfather died. He lived with his grandma until her passing when he was 25. He moved from Kansas to Idaho where he met and married my grandma a year later. She was 17 and he was 26. They raised 7 children together, worked hard, grew a garden each year, canned their own fruits and vegetables, loved their family, and each of them lived to be 90 years old. Neither of them drank alcohol. Grandpa was well-liked in the community, running the downtown “show-house” early on in their marriage and working for the City on the canals later in their marriage.

Grandma was quiet and busy with, cooking, canning and raising their children. She loved spending time with Grandpa, however, on coin-hunts, camping, and traveling back to Kansas so he could spend time with his brother and other family members from time to time.   

My grandparents have both passed away. My mom (turning 81 in 9 days) and her six younger siblings (the youngest turns 60 in October) are all still alive.