Dreaming “America”

Being in the world was what my grandfather valued most. He was born in Switzerland in 1885 and came to America when he was three, living in a Swiss farming settlement in Kansas call Neuchatel. Being a first generation immigrant at that time in America’s history required courage, ambition and the spirit of making something of yourself. My grandfather excelled at all. He became an astute businessman and entrepreneur, acquiring a number of retail and wholesale lumberyards in Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri by the time he was twenty-five. In 1909 he settled in Onaga where, managing the lumberyard, he added a grain elevator, got married, had my mother and 2 other daughters, bought some enormous farms nearby and buckled down to live life. 

Onaga was a town of first generation Europeans who were keenly aware of fitting in. Grandpa’s life was largely defined by his deep pride at being an American citizen. Notebooks with stories and things in it talking about how to be more “American” were read and reread. To this end, he became very immersed in the community taking an active part in civic affairs. He served many years on the City Council, and was Mayor of Onaga from 1929 to 1933. During these years, the sewer system was installed, natural gas mains were laid, and some streets were paved. Joining the Masonic Lodge, the Congregational Church and becoming a Shriner allowed other ways of being active and influential. Serving on the Pottawatomie County Fair Board for many years, he was one of the original stockholders. Having a keen interest in sports of all kinds, he was one of the organizers and staunch supporters of the Onaga Baseball team as well as financing and overseeing the installment a golf course. Perhaps the thing that brought the most pride was putting his three daughters through college, which he did during the Great Depression. He became extremely loved, trusted and respected in the community.

People are complex though, and the Philip Cosandier the world saw was in many ways incongruous to my Grandpa. To me, my grandpa was a constant source of anxiety whose presence was always there, whether he was or not. I find myself standing off to the side when I talk about him now. For, you see, in my family we were not allowed to talk about ourselves to anyone. But the truth is he was the Patriarch of our family who loomed over us, larger than life itself. I often wondered how he wielded so much influence and power. I surmised early on this was probably a remnant of “the old country” and how families were set up there.

The fear of him seemed strongest in his three daughters. They passed this down to us children by demanding lots of rules and do’s and don’ts about what we could and could not do to meet Grandpa’s standards with such great seriousness and intensity it was like someone would die if we didn’t follow all the rules without question. It was a lot of pressure on me, but paled in comparison to what I felt my mother and aunts suffered through the years. The family’s fear of Grandpa hung over us all like thick fog and distorted my childhood perceptions of him.

The unspoken family stories about him were passed down by osmosis at birth, I concluded when I was twelve. No one would argue that the stories truly had mythic proportions and created in our hearts and minds images that were a blend of Zeus, Rumpelstilsken, and God. Regardless of the energies he personified, the overpowering distinguishing characteristic was that he was not “just” a man—but something greater.

He dominated our family silently, never expressing his feelings. It seemed to me his control over his daughters, that stressed them out at the most basic level, came in the form of money that was given yearly or not at his discretion, in his “own sweet time” my mother would say. None of this was revealed directly to me but over the years pieces were woven into my life like a patchwork quilt—one perfect small hand stitch at a time. I was completely convinced that the perfect behavior required of me was crucial to smooth the way for our survival.

There was another situation relating to money that paralleled my mother’s. My father worked diligently and selflessly for Grandpa at the lumberyard for over 30 years being paid very little, with the promise that when my grandfather retired he would give the lumberyard to my parents. Instead, when he retired, Grandpa offered to sell the lumberyard to my father for the current appraised market value. I was old enough to understand that this was a tragic betrayal and it really saddened, angered and confused me. The dysfunctional ebb and flow of my grandfather’s control with money set up a family dynamic that reached far beyond my ability to read minds when no words were spoken.

I was scared of him. Once when I was around four or five I went with my father to the lumberyard on a weekend to get something for a customer. It was cold and wintery so my father left me inside while he went out to get what was needed. The front door of the lumberyard opened into an area with hardware displays where the public came in, got helped and paid for their purchases. Back behind this retail space was my grandfather's office. This was his private world and was entered by invitation only. I had never been invited or allowed in his office and that very fact drew me to it like a bee to honey.

The lights were off and it was getting toward evening so it was kind of hard to see. I stepped into the shadows and crept across the room timidly—terrified but excited to be in this forbidden place. Grandpa’s gigantic wooden desk practically filled up the entire room and left very little space for the roll-top secretary desk in the corner with the typewriter on it. I rolled a little bit when I scooted myself up into his large burgundy leather office chair. A calendar with big squares was in the middle of his leather-covered desk.  Even though I had never been there, I was certain everything was in its proper place. The two pens that stuck up from a metal base fascinated me. A large stapler and pads of paper with Onaga Lumber and Grain Company were within my reach. I did not touch anything, though. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I began to look around. My gaze had just landed upon the posting machine—a skinny, large black calculator-looking thing on a stand—when I felt grandpa’s presence.

Standing in the shadow of the doorway and I could see the anger in his face through the sunbeams coming through a back window that magnified the dust particles floating in the air. I was paralyzed. I knew I would surely die. When I had leaned back in his chair and put my small feet on his desk—wondering what it felt like to be him—I hadn’t anticipated getting caught. 

My breathing stopped when he stepped into the room. Slowly and purposefully I could hear the steps coming toward me, one carefully placed foot at a time. Then he put his hands on the desk and leaned forward. His breathing was irregular and hard. “Have you ever been bad before?” was all he said, and without giving me time to answer, slowly turned around and left. I knew I had done something unspeakable. So, I never told anyone about it, until now. And neither did Grandpa, I believe.

Another time when I was nine I remember being scared. I was mowing Grandma’s yard. I was pushing the mower up a substantial incline, smelling the green of the newly mowed grass, humming something about a hound dog by someone named Elvis Presley and thinking about what I would do after I finished mowing, when I looked up and saw Grandpa standing directly in my path. I quickly swerved the mower to one side to avoid a collision.  I was startled and a bit rattled. I turned the mower off and stood there in silence. Surveying the entire front yard critically, he looked me in the eye and asked, “what did you do, shave it?” I swallowed hard, and panicked as no words came into my mind to respond. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out two quarters, which he slipped into my trembling hand. “Don’t tell Grandma”, was all he said turning toward the house and disappearing.

As I got older I began to have experiences where I could tell from his actions there was genuine caring for me. This frightened me, as I didn’t know if I could trust my feelings or him. There was no doubt he delighted in taking his grandchildren to swim, to fish, for picnics, to amusement parks, to Kansas City for A’s baseball games. It was at these times, when our mothers weren’t there, that he relaxed. That’s when it seemed he loved being with us. Of course, he loved the boys the most. That was just the way it was, but that didn’t take away from the hotdogs, the rides, the happiness of spending afternoons at swimming pools in nearby towns.

Especially fun was the enormous box that would arrive filled with fireworks on Fourth of Julys. He generously and joyously let us, as well as children in the neighborhood, pop as many firecrackers, write our names with swirling sparklers, make musty-smelling black snake ashes on the sidewalk and shoot off as many roman candles as we possibly could. The fireworks coming out of the box seemed endless! At the end of the day when it got dark our fathers would light up the sky with exploding colorful fountains. Then we’d have homemade vanilla ice cream with fresh strawberries in it that our grandmother had made, waiting for us in a metal cylinder, ice and salt melting around it in a wooden tub under an old rag rug.

Another sweet memory I’ve never talked about before was when I was in high school, my first year running track. I was on the new cinder track that circled the football field. There was a rather large hill overlooking it. The first day at practice I just happened to look up and saw his baby blue finned Chrysler sitting all alone. When we were finished with practice, I broke away from my pack of friends and ran up to his car. The electric window opened slowly and without a word he reached out and handed me a pair of white leather cleats. I had never felt such a direct show of love from him. They were my size, too. How had he known? Every day for practice and at every meet he was in his car watching. It made me run faster to have someone interested and genuinely supportive of me.

Sometimes all the grandchildren would pile in his car and he’d drive fast and recklessly on the dirt roads home from fishing on one of his farms. One special way he enjoyed taking us home had a small hill that went up to a crest and then dropped down quickly onto a wooden one-car bridge. His foot would push hard on the accelerator pedal going up the hill and then he’d let the car fly until we’d bounce on that bridge hard enough for me to almost hit my head on the ceiling. When the car took flight he would scream out at the top of his lungs “whop-tee-do”. You cannot imagine my shock still to this day, that my stoic, proper grandfather would be screaming “whop-tee-do”, let alone driving like that!

I wonder if my grandfather, at the end of his life, felt like he had reached the level of Americanization he had so desired? Did he have any understanding of how his choices and those his family made gave him immense power, which created a world of fear for his family? I believe he would have recognized some things in his life as great successes and also admit to disappointments and regrets. From the outside, everyone viewed him as a huge success. From inside the family, our feelings were discombobulated, battered and bewildered.

It’s not surprising that Grandpa remains a mystery to me. I’ve never been able to merge the world’s relationship with him, my own experiences (both scary and wonderful) and the intense overlay my mother and my aunts projected onto our lives through him. It feels odd to be around someone for eighteen years and still not know or understand him. I have come to believe when humans think about what they want to call “God”; they translate that into a form they understand. But this Energy, this Source that we give the label of “God”, is not something we can ever understand. When we attempt to, the distortions are enormous. Was my grandfather human or was he God? Honestly, I don’t know...