In the summer of 1936 my grandfather got a raise. He’d been making $2.50 a night working 12-hour shifts at a chicken hatchery in Cedar Falls, Iowa. He was the last man standing after several grueling weeks and he asked his boss to bump his nightly wage up to $3.00. He got the raise, which he deemed sufficient to allow him to marry my grandmother, which he did almost exactly 73 years ago today. The next summer they had their first of six children, the third of whom was my father. By my count, my grandparents now have 62 direct lineal descendants. When you throw in spouses and babies on the way we have – well, a whole bunch of us. Though my grandparents are no longer with us, their legacy runs strong as evidenced by the large gathering of Petersons at the YMCA of the Rockies in June.
My father and his siblings grew up on a farm in Minnesota, but in the typical diaspora of the 20th century American family, they all left the farm and spread out around the country. About a third of the family moved back to Minnesota eventually, and the rest of us live in places as varied as Southern California, Ohio, Texas and Georgia. We try to get together every few years, and some of my greatest memories are from those reunions.
In simpler times our reunions were full of games, intra-generational athletic competitions, and lots of conversation. Though things have changed a lot with our wired generation, we still spend our time with games, intra-generational athletic competitions, and lots of conversation. For whatever reason, my family is particularly fond of Yahtzee. I’ve got to admit that it’s still a thrill to roll five 6’s.
This year’s twist is that we were enjoying each other’s company in the midst of the Rocky Mountains. The YMCA gave us use of the “Texas Room”, which was an old cabin with a nice front porch that served as family headquarters. Hundreds of games were won and lost, old stories re-told, and new memories created. One of my favorite memories was standing with my cousins and uncles in front of the Texas Room watching a massive thunderstorm roll in. After the sun set, the lightning continued on the other side of a ridge of mountains surrounding the camp. It looked like a horrifically wonderful artillery barrage between warring armies, and it went on for hours. I’d never seen anything like it.
Things do change. My parents, aunts and uncles have moved into the patriarchal and matriarchal roles of their own clans. My cousins and I constantly watched, corrected and entertained our kids just as our parents had done for us 30 years ago. We have a family web site now and stay in touch daily, so there was little news to share. But what remained unchanged was the tremendous sense of love we have for each other. It’s not a small thing to drive or fly a big family across the country, and it meant a lot to all of us that so many were willing to make the sacrifice.
I love my family. There is no Prescott Bush, Joe Kennedy or Pierre DuPont in our lineage, but there is a nobility that transcends wealth. My grandfather and grandmother were imperfect people, but unquestionably people of faith and prayer. I see the fruit of their faithfulness in my parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, my cousins children, and in my own kids. I aspire to leave that kind of legacy, and pray that one day my children’s children and their children will choose to lay aside worldly concerns, sacrifice a bit of their earthly treasure, and gather with a similar spirit of affection for one another.
In 1981 my grandfather wrote a brief history of his early life for my sister and me. He concluded with these words:
The years have been hard at times but they have also been rewarding. Grandma and I have enjoyed each other for forty five
years now. We are happy to have six children, all Christians and married to Christians and to have eighteen grandchildren whom we love so dearly and are happy for everyone of them, and now our first grandchild is married so we have another granddaughter to love. We pray for each of you every day and ask the Lord to bless and keep you in His tender care, always.
As related in the written history he left with us, my grandfather worked hard all of this life for modest monetary gain. He was driving teams of horses in the field with his brother when he was only 9 years old. He never finished high school, and probably never made more than a few thousand dollars a year. He died at the age of 89. My grandmother’s life was also hard. She started a family during the Great Depression, lost her only sibling (a bona fide war hero) to a kamikaze pilot in WWII, and she lived her last years afflicted with Alzheimer’s. But despite those obstacles, they left a unified, functioning, loving and healthy family that I am persuaded will be a blessing for generations to come.
My grandparents left us virtually nothing monetarily. But as I consider the things of my life that will remain, my grandparents’ legacy of faith stands out as something precious, enduring and imperishable.
Things That Remain 