Father a huge influence in my life
A year ago, I wrote a story that explained how my mother’s influences help to create the person I came to be.
But that was not the whole story; there was someone else that had a great deal of influence creating the person I became.
My father.
I was hesitant to write this story because I wasn’t sure of the statute of limitations had expired on all these stories. As it turns out, that fear was moot. So here we go.
My father was born in East Vandergrift, Pa., and named Andrew Edmund. That later changed to Edmund Andrew. The firstborn of John Joseph and Joanna Ferencak, a mixed marriage as John was Slovak and Joanna was Polish. A rather tall, strapping young man he had a brother Bill and a sister Gerry.
His parents were strict, his upbringing was controlled or at least as controlled as it could be when you eventually topped 6 feet, 7 inches. That created a problem as he didn’t do well with treatment that he felt was undeserved. That would color his behavior and as a result his children’s behavior.
Dad was sort of complicated. We never heard stories about his youth, about growing up or about his family. Everything was on a need-to-know basis, and we didn’t need to know.
It wasn’t until my siblings and I were well into our teens that we heard he had a brother named Billy and that he passed away as a child from polio. Everything was a secret to be kept and he kept them well.
That is until we started talking to his mother when dad wasn’t around.
Dad always told us what an outstanding student he was and he always pushed us to do better using that as an example. Then grandma showed us his report cards. He did well but not as well as he told us he did.
We found out that we have distant relatives with names like Anastasia and Nikolai and that there is Gypsy blood in our lineage. I don’t know if I’m a Polish Prince or King of the Gypsies. Either way, you should NOT let me make change for you.
One night a few years after we all managed to make it to adulthood, dad decided to share some of his youthful indiscretions. He told us that as a teenager he did a turn as a bag man for a numbers guy in a town along the river. He said he never worried about it because the guy he was working for was chief of police.
Allegedly.
He never said as much, but you could tell that his business was his business and anybody that was interested into his business could be told any kind of story. In school my classmates would ask what dad did. We would just sigh, shake our heads and say, “I don’t know exactly. He leaves, he’s gone for a while then he comes back.” That got more than a few strange looks from both classmates and teachers.
It was hard to pin him down about his life. We really had to work at finding things out. We did learn from him though, he taught by example.
Dad joined Toastmasters. We received instruction on how to speak. To this day we don’t say crick, stillmill or Picksburgh. Uhhs and umms were banished from our vocabulary. That instruction was good for us as we have all had and still have jobs that require public speaking.
His stories continued off and on as we somehow managed to pry them out of him. When Dad was in the Army, President Harry Truman signed executive order 9981, abolishing racial discrimination in the armed forces. It eventually ended segregation in the military. Dad, by then a sergeant stationed in Austria, was put in charge of enforcing this policy change. He saw a southern colonel mistreating a black soldier. Dad’s intervention ended when he decked the officer. When all was said and done he got an “attaboy” for his endeavors along with a reduction in rank to private.
Here at home he was part of the organizations that lobbied for Fayette County. For roads, for jobs to just make life better. He ran for county commissioner, for prothonotary. He had a sense of humor about it though. He always said he came in second. It was a two-person race. He belonged to the Southern Poverty Law Center. He always tried to do right by his community and his family. His goal was to ultimately leave things better for those that followed.
He always said, if you don’t do it, who will? I think that’s been carried with us to this day.
I have one last story that helps complete the picture.
His dad was chronically ill. Tuberculosis, black lung, red lung and probably mesothelioma.
He was in a home near Erie. One night dad got a call that his father was not going to make it through the night and he should get there. Dad had just got in after a week on the road and was worn out. He asked me if I could drive him up. Two things here, after all these years dad was trusting me to drive HIM and he asked for something. Up to that time he just didn’t ask. He told, he directed, he expected. He never asked. This was a big deal.
So, of course, I went. I had no clue what to expect. When we walked into the room my grandfather was laying on the bed gasping for air. Struggling. I think he was waiting for dad to get there. But when he saw me, he straightened up tried his best to be… to be grandpap again for me. He lasted another week before the end.
Years later, dad told me the story of what transpired in the room after I was sent out to rest. Grandpap pulled my dad close and said, “Don’t you ever bring him here again.” Grandpap was ready, he didn’t want an audience.
Between mom and dad I’d like to think we turned out okay. What I’d really like to do is read this story to him, to see the look on his face.
There is one last trait I picked up from him.
Procrastination. Thanks dad.
Maybe someday I will get to read it to him, until then….
Goodnight pap, see ya later.
Edmund Ferencak is a resident of Washington, Pa.