A Pennsylvania Dutch Man’s Legacy

I am one of the lucky few twenty-somethings I know who has living grandparents on both sides of her family. My mom’s dad is one of the most supportive, kind, funny men I have ever met. I call him Baby Pappy because he’s on the shorter side and has chubby cheeks (it’s where I get them from!) that make him look like a cute, small baby. He is amazing and I adore him and I could write a thousand pages talking about what an incredible person and grandfather he is.

However, this essay is about my dad’s dad, my Pappy II, who passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on November 10th.

My Pappy II, a proud Pennsylvania Dutch man, once taught me the PA Dutch phrase, “Mir Leiva Gut Un Nat So Lang” which means “We Live Well and Not So Long.” My Pappy lived to be 83 years old, but 83 years was not nearly long enough and there is no doubt that he deserved more time, if only to spend it with my grandmother who he absolutely adored.

I started calling him Pappy II (pronounced aye-aye) because when I was younger, he would say “aye aye aye” when I would do something silly. As I was looking at photos the week he died, it was clear that when I was younger, he was an excellent Pappy II. I found lots of pictures of us playing blocks, reading books, and eating ice cream on the porch. However, in the past 9–10 years, he became more than just a Grandfather to me.

He became my first call when my car was making a weird noise and I was stuck in Brooklyn with no idea what to do. If a phone call didn’t solve the problem, he became the person I would take my car to when I was home and he would fix it himself. He became the person who would sit on the phone with me and walk me through how to fix every apartment and household repair I called him about. He became the person I called when life was too hard and I felt like crumbling. He became the person I talked politics to even though each time he started off the conversation with “Now I’m not going to get into politics, but….” He became the person who taught me about fairness and honor, qualities that radiated from his actions on a daily basis.

But most importantly, my Pappy II became the person that taught me how to be proud of where you come from, even if that place isn’t perfect.

If you’ve ever heard a stereotypical country song about a small town, chances are you’ve heard a decent description of where I grew up. I lived in a rural town in Pennsylvania where everyone knows everyone, and you can’t get through the grocery store without running into your friend’s mom or your old soccer coach. My high school graduating class was less than 200 and yes, there was one day a year where students could drive their tractors to school. The people in the area genuinely cared about each other and looked out for each other because in a small community, everyone has to stick together. Most of us didn’t have a lot of money, but we had a lot of heart and love, so nobody cared if you were richer or poorer than the other person down the street. I could go on and on about the magic of where I am from, but in summary, it was a wonderful, special, irreplaceable place to grow up.

Despite all of this, I felt a strong need to escape my small, beautiful town as soon as I could. There were some parts of being there that made me feel suffocated. At the time, I felt the underlying current of racism and sexism, the overarching conservative political ideologies, and the lack of opportunity in the area were the driving force behind my need to get out.

Now that I’m older, I can acknowledge that while these things were definitely factors in my decision to leave, there were other issues at play. My childhood was not always an easy one; there were a lot of happy times, but there were also extremely dark, and at times dangerous, moments. I had a dad that is a very good man but was an abusive father, both emotionally and physically, and my relationship with my mother was strained at best and violent, on both of our ends, at worst (my mom and I are very close now though so mom if you’re reading this, I love you and am so glad you’re my mom).

I now have zero doubt that my desperate urge to flee my hometown had just as much to do with my inability to separate childhood trauma and abuse from my physical surroundings as it did with feeling like my politics and lifestyle didn’t fit in with the majority of those around me.

I moved to New York as soon as I was able to and felt very certain that I would never want to move back to the town that raised me. However, whenever I would visit on breaks or on a weekend home, I made sure to visit my Pappy and Grandma II. They always felt like my safe place growing up and I continued to feel a sense of calmness and peace there as I grew older.

My Pappy, who was born and raised in this same small town, had a strong Pennsylvania Dutch upbringing and was very proud of it. If you don’t know who the Pennsylvania Dutch are, they are basically a group of Germans that settled down in my area of Pennsylvania and had their own community and language (a mix between German and English). Typical Pennsylvania Dutch traits include stubbornness, a hard work-ethic, and a mentality that you always help your neighbor no matter what. Oh, and there’s a mandatory rule that everything you cook must have at least one stick of butter.

Since I no longer lived 15 minutes down the road from him, I think my Pappy II felt it was important for me to still feel connected to my home. He loved history and genealogy and every time I would visit during college, at least part of the conversation would revolve around the town’s history or our family’s role in the town or our PA Dutch roots.

On one visit with him, I learned that my great-great-grandmother used to own a massive farm in our area, a farm that I had adored ever since I was a child. Another visit, I learned that as a small girl, my great-grandmother used to clean the tobacco spittoons at a popular hotel that was less than five minutes from where I lived. I learned that my great-grandfather was dropped off by a mailman at some random family’s house near the Church I went to growing up, and that’s who raised him. I learned that my Pappy was drafted into the Navy and sailed all around the world but always missed our hometown. I learned that my Dad was the star baseball pitcher for my high school when he was a student there. I learned about old stores that had closed down, different hunting trails in the woods around us, and stories of families whose grandchildren were my classmates in high school. During my four years of college in New York, I learned more about my hometown and my family history than I had in my 18 years of living there. More importantly, I learned that my Pappy could not be prouder of growing up in this tiny little town that, he himself acknowledged, was far from perfect.

In seeing the pride my Pappy felt about our hometown, our roots, and the memories they held, I was able to rebuild the way I felt about our area and the way I felt about my upbringing. Places that used to look like run-down buildings or random fields of corn were transformed into places my Pappy and his friends would hang out, hunt, laugh, and love. I gained a better understanding of my family and the dynamics that, at times, made my childhood difficult.

Everybody who knew my Pappy could tell you he thought about the world in very black and white ways, and yet, it was my Pappy that helped me see that my town, and my chaotic childhood, were not solely good or bad, they were not simply black or white. They were many beautiful and wonderful and tragic and interesting shades of grey….and just because something was grey, didn’t mean you couldn’t be proud of it; something doesn’t need to be wholly good for it to be worthy of love.

My Pappy taught me so many things. He taught me how to strip paint off of my windows when my landlord was a little too careless with his paint job in my Brooklyn apartment. He taught me to appreciate the hummingbirds outside his kitchen windows that just needed a little sugar water to be happy. He taught me Pennsylvania Dutch words and phrases (my earliest phrase I learned was “Gelt Sprank De Welt”….it means ‘money makes the world go round’). He taught me that self-discipline is the most important trait you can develop for yourself besides, of course, a strong moral compass. But most importantly, he taught me how to love where, and who, I come from, despite the imperfections.

One of the last conversations I had with my Pappy was recently at his kitchen table, tears streaming down my face, telling him that this past year had been too hard for me and that I was still struggling despite months of trying to pick up the pieces. After a horrific breakup (from a man my Pappy had grown to know and love) and so many hard life changes, I told him I didn’t know how to recover from all of it and that I was scared I would always feel this ruined and low. Without hesitation he told me “Your life is broken up into parts. If you get stuck in one of the parts, you’ll miss the next one and once you miss it, you don’t get it back. You can’t get stuck in one of the parts. You need to keep moving forward.”

It is cruelly unfair that such a magical, incredible, wise man was taken from all of us. But I know that he wouldn’t want me to get stuck in this part, the part where I feel lost and sad and confused in a world without him. He wouldn’t want me to miss all the wonderful parts I hopefully have ahead of me. He would want me to keep moving forward.

I thank my Pappy II for every single lesson he taught me, for every time he gave me invaluable life advice, and for every crossword puzzle he helped me complete.

But I thank my Pappy II the most for teaching me that things don’t have to be perfect to be loved. My hometown isn’t perfect but I can say I absolutely love it anyway. My childhood wasn’t perfect but I am able to see the love in it. And I, in all my quirks and flaws and struggles and mistakes, am far from perfect… but I am loved anyway. After all, one of the greatest men I’ve ever known loved me as his granddaughter.

Thank you for teaching me how to love, Pappy II. I am a better person because of it.