Clarence, Later in Life

Back to my father. He continued working at the county treasurer’s office during the war. In 1947 my parents moved back to the little brown house. About the same time he left the treasurer’s office and started to work full-time at the Johnson Lumber Company (his long-time second job). I happened to be back in Iowa at the time and I was out in the barnyard and my uncle Carl stopped to chat with me. I told him that my father had quit at the treasurer’s office. He scowled as if to say “What’s next?” I then told him that my father would be working full-time at the lumber company. I think he grunted. He did not have a very high opinion of my father and I don’t think that he realized that my father was more highly regarded in the community than he himself was. My uncle had many good traits but he was not introspective enough to examine himself and notice his deficiencies.

Although business was good in the early post-war years for the Johnson Lumber Company I think the reason my father was given a full-time job was so that his Social Security payment would be higher after he retired. Which he did after a few years. He ten spent him time gardening around the little brown house and growing field corn in what used to be the pasture for our cow. He developed Parkinson’s disease and in the later 1950s was pretty much housebound. Though he and my mother did make a trip out to California to visit me in my Seaview house. He was still fairly active at the time and used his time to grub out some berry vines on my lot. I still have the spade he (or I) bought for him to use. It was the longest trip away from the state of Iowa that he made during his lifetime. During the visit I drove down to San Diego for them to see Marold and Jeanne — Marold was then in the Navy.