The Tree Of Life

Something (Maybe The Shape Of Dad's Nose Or A Certain Way Of Thinking) Is Hard-Wired Into Every One Of Us

--By Linda

At times like this, we tend to better understand that we are all interconnected -- through what is commonly known as a "Tree of Life." All of us are part of that tree, as humans. But the people who descend from our Dad are even more connected, through our common genetic bonds, and our shared experiences with Grandpa. This is a look at how Grandpa's own life evolved along this tree, and where his love of books, and nature, and many other interests and abilities came from, as he himself grew up -- as a boy and then a man who passed his ways of thinking on to all of us.  

Robert Wysong's parents were Vera Lucille Wysong and Ira C. Wysong.

Robert had a brother, Bill, and a sister, Vera Irene. The family was very poor, His dad, Ira was somewhat irascible, but ambitious. Ira was a talented, but disgruntled bricklayer -- from a long line of bricklayers and masons that stretched way back into the "old country" of Germany, to the days of the great cathedrals. But there were no cathedrals to build

in America, just grunt work, like rock walls and house facings, and there wasn't much money in that. 

Ira Wysong had higher aspirations. In the American tradition he took his little family across the United States, traipsing the poorer parts of the countryside looking for wealth and adventure. And, as so many people did in his time, during the hard years surrounding the Great Depression -- failing to find either one. 

He purchased land in Missouri; land that his son, Robert, eventually went to view, many years later, with his own smaller children in tow. The property was so rural, and so isolated that the neighbors still clearly remembered him -- from so long ago, when he was  a child, as a little boy.

Wikipedia says this Texas 
toad can squirt
blood 5 feet into the air. 

The family went to Texas, where Ira tried to be a wildcat oilman, digging his own well. Robert was very young then. He mainly came back from Texas with tales about frogs.  Toads that squirted blood from their eyes! The blood-squirting toads of West Texas became the sum total of what "Texas" meant to him -- all the rest of his life. 

Ira C. Wysong (With His Sister,
Stella) As A Young Man

And, during those early years, they tried Arkansas, too -- and there, young Robert and his family lived in a simple log cabin.

Eventually, the family settled back into Marion, Indiana, on East Sherman Street, where a hill sloped down to the road in front of the house. 

The family home was built by their Dad, out of large stones: boulders. Almost like a cabin of some sort, out in the woods. It had a central room, and a kitchen and dining area in back. On both sides were small bedrooms.  The family home was a blending of the two worlds that Bob Wysong's father inhabited; his inherited "old" world of constructing things out of raw rock, and the brand new world of American frontier life. Neither one of these things was compatible with "Marion, Indiana," a rust belt semi-industrial town.

The home was a stone cabin. So, by definition, it was totally out of place in an Indiana town, surrounded by staid, Indiana neighbors. Actually, looking back, it wasn't that bad as a house. It followed the style of many western homes and buildings. But, it would have been better suited out in Yosemite, as a ranger's display cabin in a National Park, under a huge evergreen, than on East Sherman Street in Marion. 

The house backed onto an alley. Coal was brought in, through the alleyway, and dumped in the yard next to a small shed. Robert later remembered how filthy the coal made the air. He said that when you hung the clothes up to dry, they came off the line as dirty as they were before they were washed. 

Out in the backyard, his father had attempted to show his young son how to do masonry work with his hands. There was a small, flat, cement birdbath, that young Robert had made under a tree -- nothing much. Just a little slab.  

Robert Clayton Wysong was about to break the mold. Unlike his father, and his other male forbears, he was not headed to the life of laying brick and stone.  And that awkward messy little birdbath made this fact absolutely clear. To everybody.

Young Robert was an avid scholar, and he was encouraged by his mother.

"Glove Making Provides A Pleasant Occupation
For Young Women" -- 1930 Local News Story In Marion
Indiana Newspaper

She worked in a world of relentless manual labor -- the type that is now parceled out to China or Taiwan -- at the Marion-based U.S. Glove Company Factory. The factory produced over a million pairs of work gloves every week for the hard-working men of America. The glove factory was a place where a woman in those days could find lasting employment. You can look on the internet today, and see a classified ad for the factory: "Girls Wanted. Good Wages. Apply Today."  His mother was not a "girl" and the wages were obviously not "good." Day after day, year after year, Lucille Wysong sewed the part of the glove that extends from the tip of the thumb down through the curved part of the hand to the beginning of the first finger. 

Many members of the "Greatest Generation" -- the generation of Grandpa Bob -- went on to a future from which they often looked back and recalled how hard life was as they were growing up. But their generation, in spite of the hardships of their childhoods, managed to have comfortable and productive lives. Grandpa Bob, and others his age were, unknowingly, headed toward an era that was the exact opposite of the Depression: a time of bounty and wealth. It was as if a rubber ball had dropped down, down to the hard, trampled earth -- and then, suddenly, bounced higher up into the clear blue sky than anybody had ever seen.

When their time came, the children of the Depression experienced an unheralded and unforeseen boom in American culture. Just as it had been a time of want, it was now, without reason, a time of plenty. They bought houses and cars. They had many children, themselves. They traveled cross-country on long family vacations. They had retirement funds. 

These were not the people whom the Depression hurt. The people who truly suffered from the Great Depression were their parents: people like Ira and Lucille Wysong, whose youthful hopes and dreams were crushed by those harsh years, never to be revived. The parents of Bob Wysong surely felt a lack of self-worth. The Depression dealt his parents a deadly blow by plunging them into an impossible, intractable poverty, scarring them (and many others) with a profound sense of failure that they carried with them to their deaths. The children of Ira and Vera Lucille Wysong easily climbed out of the Depression, along with all their classmates. After World War II, like tens of millions of Dorothys, Tin Men, Scarecrows & Lions, they headed off over the horizon toward a magical and plentiful Land of Oz: a strange, brave new world of televisions, Kool-Aid, tract housing, cocktail hours and Betty Crocker boxed cakes. But the parents stayed behind.

Grandma 
Lucille Wysong

Perhaps surprisingly, given her poverty and drudge work, young Robert Wysong's mother was like us. She was more than that; she was a woman from whom almost all of us who are in any way related to Dad draw at least some of our actual, physical components   --  in a way that we don't even know. She gave some of us the shape of our noses, and some of us the texture of our hair. (And some of us our lack of a chin!)  She gave some of us the quality of our skin… or the way our fingers are shaped. She gave some of us a part of our emotional makeup… 

And she gave some of us our fondness for books.

She liked books. And Robert liked books, too. He was very fond of books about Indiana, such as "Girl of the Limberlost,"  about a young girl who grew up in the rapidly disappearing swamps of Indiana, among the giant exotic butterflies still there from pre-contact Indian country. And books about adventure to strange places, such as the "Oz" books, and science fiction.  He read books about plucky boys with a lot of grit, like the Rover Boys and the Horatio Alger tales. And he read a popular how-to book of the day called "The Boy Electrician" which was dedicated to presenting, as its author wrote in its introduction, "a wonderland of science which can be readily understood, and wherein a boy can 'do something'." 

This was music to our Dad's young ears. So he promptly became a "boy electrician"  himself. Young Bob Wysong wandered around, gathering up discarded pieces of copper, lead, paper and iron, and building small, homemade radios with the junk he found. It was what kids did back then. They used what they had. Even if it was practically nothing. 

He loved music. He sang at what were known as "piano parties" and in the Glee Club. He sang in duets, and barber shop quartets. 

It wasn't fancy music --

Grandpa's boyhood ocarina was far less
fancy than these. 

In fact, he became proficient on those cheap hand-held instruments that came from the land of people without money. One of these was the "jew's harp" -- a small, twangy device that uses your mouth as a soundboard. He also had a thick clay flute-like instrument known as a "sweet potato" or "ocarina" which he liked to play. Eventually, he wound up playing the Hawaiian guitar, and engaging people with his ability to simultaneously attempt to wrap his legs around his neck while -- at the very same time -- playing snappy Hawaiian tunes. 

A born memorizer, Bob Wysong excelled in school. He read constantly. His Mom helped him, introducing him to fantastic tales, such as "Lawrence of Arabia." 

Yet, he read so much, that he annoyed his more pragmatic parents -- who had a heavy load of work to do around the house to keep things going. He never understood that his passion for reading and poking around looking at the world could be impractical, and that his parents might have had a point. It's good to know stuff, but it's also good to have some useful abilities, such as stepping in to change a tire!

Nevertheless, as Bob matured and became old enough to join the Boy Scouts, he was the type of Boy Scout you couldn't hold back. His Boy Scout merit badges formed the core of his vast knowledge base, which lasted him the rest of his life.  

The sash he had for Boy Scouts was thickly covered with merit badges. As a Scout, he learned just about everything he needed to know: the stars and constellations;  trees and plants; animals; cooking over a campfire; fire building…He aced everything he tried. He was the perfect Eagle Scout.

The fondest memory he had of scouting was the canoe trip that he and his friends took on his hometown river -- the Mississinewa, a 120 mile long tributary of the famous Wabash River, home of the Miami Indians, which flows past Marion, Indiana. 

There was a merit badge for that Boy Scout river trip too; a really big and exciting, homemade badge featuring symbols referencing that wonderful journey. The badge was designed and stitched, individually,  for all the boys by Bob's mom -- the glove maker.

As a student in Marion, Bob stood out.  The thin, lanky, eager, dark-haired, brown-eyed boy from the other side of the tracks couldn't be held back. People noticed he was something special. He received an award from his community:

The American Legion Medal
(Click to view in larger size)

A large, elaborate, copper-colored coin-like medal from the local American Legion.  The medal was part of the national American Legion School Award Program -- and Robert Clayton Wysong, that boy from Marion, was obviously such a stand-out that he was chosen by the guys at the American Legion Hall. The medal heralded him for his "Courage, Honor, Leadership, Patriotism, Scholarship and Service." This was what is now known as a "People's Choice" award. It wasn't from the hotshots. The American Legion is a tough-talking, hard-drinking group. And, in many ways, this award meant even more for that very reason; it was from ordinary folk -- who saw something in a hometown boy. They wanted to encourage him to continue on to great things.

From Eagle Scout
To Lieutenant

In the army, during World War II -- he suddenly evolved striking good looks, which paid off by winning him a wife -- Rita Neises -- also from a small midwestern town. 

Robert decided to try to join the Foreign Service -- partly, he often said, thanks to that book about Lawrence of Arabia. Although he had taken some college courses, he was not a college graduate. The test used by the Foreign Service is remarkably difficult. It's known as one of the most difficult exams you can take in America.

In addition to being able to write and explain the entire structure of the English language, you also have to have a real handle on United States government, geography, world cultures, the types of foods grown in various countries -- and their languages, mining, and other details.  You have to know all about the states, the Founding Fathers, transportation, colonialism, The Age of Discovery, and Revolutions. Plus, you have to know math. 

He did not have a PhD -- as so many Ivy League Foreign Service Officers do --  he didn't have a Master's degree, either. Or even a bachelor's degree.

But, Bob passed the test with flying colors. He said later that they had asked him -- incredulously -- how he knew such things as the cash crop of Venezuela. He had said,  "Why, I learned that in Jr. High, in geography class."

Linda & Dad

A naive, open personality characterized the Bob Wysong who was to become my father in 1947. I remember him in his suit, debonaire and confident, coming home from work. I remember him smoking the pipe that he later said he was glad he had stopped, because he would have died long before. I remember him swimming in the big pool we had out in the yard in Mexico. And speaking Spanish -- and me, speaking Spanish, too. I remember him speaking Portuguese. And me -- speaking Portuguese, too!

And I remember his openness to other people and their cultures, back then. And his ability to mix with Arabs, and Lebanese, and Egyptians without prejudice. And me, deciding at a young age that I would be open to every culture, too! I wanted to be like my Dad. 

It was a charmed life, in which I recall riding along, as a young child, on the exciting adventures that he had headed toward  from the very start, back in Marion. I got to piggyback on his efforts, and the remarkable, almost unbelievable, new world of opportunity that followed the Great Depression.  As a child, I reaped the benefits of  his schoolwork, the Eagle Scouting, his reading of books, his turning away from being a bricklayer -- by living an unusual and wonderful life. 

And then, as years went by, after leaving the Foreign Service, and after working for Montgomery County, he came back into my family's lives -- working for us at the Copper River Country Journal in Alaska, over the phone and internet, every day for thirteen years, making rural Alaskan ads, charts, graphs, and maps. And  working after that for the Bearfoot Travel Guides. He began working with us in the 1980's. He sent us his last piece of work by email,  20 years later, in February, 2008.

A page of Grandpa's notes to
help us start a business in Alaska.
(Click to view larger size)

Dad had a huge impact on our lives and our work in Alaska. And his time working for us actually became his third (although unpaid) 20 year long career. He was there with us at the start of our business. In 1985, he came out to Alaska, and we talked -- during his yearly August trip -- about our prospects starting a rural business. Recently, Mom gave me a notebook, written that summer in 1985,  in which he had jotted down page after page of a complete analysis of all possible types of work that Alaska could support -- including analyses of countries with similar climates : Lapland, Scandinavia, Russia, Iceland -- 

Dad and Jeremy at Frenchton Place

He was a great Dad. To all of us. He spent a huge amount of time with us, taking us all fishing, playing the guitar -- all in a relaxed and unhurried way. He bought that piece of land in Sharpsburg, and took all the younger children fishing on the Potomac River -- something my husband Jeremy and I had never experienced, ourselves, until just a few years ago, when we went there with my brother Bob. 

It was an amazing thing -- that so called "cabin" at Antietam, and wading into the Potomac, where the troops had crossed during the Civil War. It was thrilling to stand there, up to our waists in the warm and now-clean river, catching fish and feeling the breeze, and imagining the Indian encampments along the shore.  And the reason we were there was Dad's vision of what could be done, by us, his family, in that historic part of Maryland out in the countryside. And, on that land, he made his own version of a "cabin" that he had somehow internalized from his  father's efforts, from his early life in Arkansas, and from his Dad's cabin in Marion Indiana, made of cannonball sized boulders. Our Dad had done it too -- he had made a home, just like his Dad had. And he was proud of it. 

He always tried to help his kids and grandkids in any way he could. And we appreciated the month he spent with us every year for at least 20 years and more, sleeping at night in midsummer while wearing his wool cap, reading Robert Louis Stevenson by the Gulkana River, baking dozens of loaves of bread, and walking, biking, canoeing, camping, reading, reciting, and making up his own poetry, gardening, berry picking, and noting the birds and trees and comparing them to those back home -- back home again. In Indiana.