A Grandpa story.

Not long ago, Lynne http://lynnewsnyder.blogspot.com/ posted about her grandpa, and chocolates. One of the stories I remember about my grandpa, was before I was born. I asked my dad to clarify a bit, because it's been awhile since I heard the story. We usually heard it every time we went to Wellington, but it's been awhile. My great grandmother lived there, and is buried there, along with my Grandma Rita.
In my Dad's words..
I was born in November, 1940, a year before Pearl Harbor and the beginning of World War II.
Vance was born in 1945, at the end of the war. Mom was “on again, off again” with my father during all those years of the forties and early fifties. She met and married Vance’s father, Walter Sullivan, in 1944/1945 sometime, and Vance came in September, 1945.

As long as I knew them my mother’s parents, Semon and Myrtle Golding lived in the little town of Wellington, Utah. Their little, two-bedroom home had the spacious yard and driveway, and corral, and behind the yard was a nice pasture, all common to homes in rural communities, especially in Utah. The pasture bordered on one of the Southern Pacific main railroad lines.

Their home was a refuge for Mom, and Vance and me, sometimes all three of us together and at other times, one or two of us. Mom was not successful in marriage, or in keeping a home for us to live in together.

Dad was always a cook, and in the navy during the war he was stationed at San Francisco, and his assignment was to ride the troop trains that carried troops back and forth between the coasts. As a cook, he had access to the supply cars of the trains.

The trains often used the line that went through Wellington, and passed behind the house. Food was short for everyone during the war, and well appreciated when it came, from whatever source.

This event must have been close to the end of the war, because I was old enough that I still remember it. The “folks” would all go down to the side of the tracks when Dad had phoned that he would be going through. When the train came Dad would have the side doors of the food supply car open, and whatever foodstuffs we needed, and would survive being tossed to the ground from a fast-moving train, he tossed.

The train came this day, and we waved to Dad as he passed, and he would kick the containers out the door. The stuff would be strewn along the side of the tracks for us to retrieve. What I remember is the bag of sugar, which was always in REALLY short supply, breaking open, with a cloud of the white stuff settling down in and on the black rock beside the tracks. I can still see the adults, and even me, bent over with fingers and utensils scooping what we could of the sugar into containers, so the precious white stuff could be saved.

I am the only one alive who would remember this story, because it was before Vance came, and all the folks are long gone from the world.

My kids didn't know my Grandpa McCabe - as he passed away shortly after Brennan was born. But, I hope to be able to keep him alive for them, in stories such as this.

And Lynne, if you can tell me how to put the link in with just your name.. inform me!!