Farmer, baker, grandfather

My children were born with a special gift I never had.  They had the blessing of growing up with both grandfathers and both grandmothers in their lives.  Both of my grandfathers died long before I was born.  While I did have both grandmothers (and I loved them both) I’ve always felt an emptiness in that space where my grandfathers should have been.

For some reason I have always felt closest to my paternal grandfather.  An immigrant from Hungary, Karoly Csaszar first lived in Chicago before settling with his wife and young son (my father) in rural Lamar County.  He lived there on a farm until he died in 1959 at the age of about 74.  From what I’ve been told he did many odd jobs in and out of town, whatever he needed to do to support his family outside of farming.  But his primary skills were in baking.  I’ve heard he was an excellent baker, and was especially practiced in the art of making his own phyllo-type dough.  I have his kitchen table.  Its well worn wood reminds me of the time and effort he must have put into each baked good to please his family.

I have his wallet in which I found his last driver’s license.  It was issued on December 31, 1958. The thin yellowed paper documents the gray hair and brown eyes I’ve seen in his pictures.  In my mind he was a large man, but the driver’s license proves me wrong.  The state says he was only 5’6” tall and weighed 160 pounds.  The wallet also contained his over-65 hunting and fishing license giving him permission to hunt and fish without a license and authorized by the Deputy Sheriff and Tax Collector, Louis Csaszar, my father.  But from the other things I’ve heard about my grandfather I have a feeling these little pieces of paper were only formalities, and no one was going to tell him he couldn’t drive, hunt or fish if he was not lawfully licensed.  Rumor has it my father gave up his Deputy Sheriff and Tax Collector position to avoid having to arrest his father for brewing his own beverages.  But that’s only a rumor, of course.

I’ve never been able to understand this attachment I have for a man I never knew.  I remember feeling jealousy towards my older sisters because they did know him.  Hearing them talk about him made me feel like there was a great party and I wasn’t invited.  No, I did not know him, but I did meet him once in a dream.  In my dream I was at his house.  I saw my mother sitting on the couch and she was young, so I knew I must have travelled back in time.  Then I thought, if I’m at the farm, and I’m back in time, then Grandpa’s here and I’ll get to meet him.  Sure enough I turned and there he was sitting in a chair with an ottoman in front of him.  I sat on the ottoman and faced him, our knees almost touching.  He was smiling and just as we were about to speak my grandmother came in and made me leave him to help her change the sheets on her bed.  I call this dream a visit because it was so real.  It was also very real because it would have been just like my grandmother to call attention away from him and to her.

My father was a dedicated son to his parents.  I never heard him speak of them in any ill way.  He revered their memory, and when his health began to fail he wanted pictures of his mother and father hanging on the wall in front of his recliner, above the television, where he could see them.  I think this comforted him in some way.  After he died I took those pictures home with me.  I have the one of my grandfather hanging in a position in my dining room where I face it everytime I sit down to eat supper.  It comforts me in some way.  It also reminds me to remind my children how fortunate they have been.