Some eye remind me of blue china plates. Some are as green as pine trees. Others are as dark as chocolate truffles with eyelashes resembling ruffled paper cups. But my great grandfather had eyes the color of copper pennies.
His name was Leon, and his eyes took on the glint of a new penny when he smiled–a smile that spread out wide like he was a grown-up pixie with a face full of childish adventure. His smiled possessed a spark of mischief for which everyone forgave him because his mischief was wrapped in an effervescence of charm.
My father drove Mom and us kids to Winona, Minnesota from California during the summer when I was four years old. That was the first time I ever met Great Grandfather even though my father had told us many stories about him as we sat at the foot of his brown arm chair, our arms propping us up from behind. Dad sat back in his chair, one foot perched on the other knee, his face hazy behind the smoke of his pipe.
In one story, Dad told us how he moved away from home when he was fourteen to live on Great Grandpa’s 761 acre farm, a collection of wet emerald hills and valleys, prime for alfalfa crops, acquired piecemeal through the years. After school each day and even on the weekends, my father drove the tractor, tilling the soil. “That’ll keep you outta trouble,” Great Grandpa had told him.
Dad described the big, rambling, clapboard house that Great Grandpa had built on the property. A porch, big enough for stacking up piles of firewood near the front door for the winter, spread across the whole front of the house. The house was two story, had running water and two inside toilets, modern conveniences for the time it was built. Built as the mansion for Great Grandpa’s plantation, it was nevertheless a humble abode, reflecting the unassuming personality of its owner. Furniture was utilitarian and sparse. The walls were hung with religious icons and little else.
In 1961, when Leon sold his farm to the State of Minnesota to be The Memorial Hardwood State Forest, vandals ransacked the house, trying to find the still Leon had built and used during Prohibition to produce liquor for himself and his friends. Sheetrock was slashed and kicked in, floorboards were pried up and cupboards were destroyed in the search for a secret chamber; the chamber and still were never found. My father believes that the still is buried in a hidden grave somewhere among the hills of the fields, rust and useless now.
Great Grandpa was one of the first babies to be born in the town of Winona. His father Ignacias founded the town with his four brothers during the 1850’s. An ideal location on the Mississippi to set up a sawmill and take advantage of the logging industry farther up north. By the time Leon began farming, he had passed his family sawmill obligations to the Brom family who later became his relatives when his son Leon Jr. married Lillian Brom, my grandmother.
Years before Prohibition, Leon took on the job as Winona’s first sheriff, but this too has passed by the time my father arrived on Great Grandpa’s farm in 1943. By then, Leon had earned a reputation as a respectable farmer and had contributed a significant amount of money to build Winona’s first Catholic church, St. Stanislaus.
Perhaps my father inherited Great Grandpa’s looks from being around him so much. All the men of my father’s family line bear an uncanny resemblance to each other. In pictures of them as toddlers, they have white-blonde hair and doughy-soft limbs. Later childhood pictures show how they grow into strong-limbed young boys, hardy-looking, and clear in complexion. As young men, they are debonair and tall. Eventually, they mature into handsome broad men with rounded edges, kind creases around their eyes, and erect, stocky frames. Their chests and arms provide strong hugs and they are masculine enough to accept love in return.
I have a picture of Great Grandpa Leon when he was 96 years old. He is standing, holding a fishing rod, his eyes cast down and his thumb resting on the handle of the reel. His wrinkles are life creases: the knob of his chin, slightly bulging jowls, cheeks puffed out as if they are storing nuts for the winter, and eyes recessed under a frown of concentration. His hair, thinned since youth, glows a lustrous white. His face and posture are regal like that of an older priest or religious man.
Leon lived until he was ninety-eight years old. Up until his last two years, he fished down at the family boathouse on the Mississippi or chopped wood for the fireplace. On Sundays, he spent an inordinate amount of time at church. The pastor was his friend, and he showed his friendship by spending time and money on the parish. Perhaps, Leon was playing all his cards carefully to reserve that scarce space for himself in heaven.
That summer when I was four and first visited Winona with my family, Great Grandpa Leon was already over eighty years old. My father drove our station wagon onto Grandma’s graveled driveway on a hot and sticky June afternoon. Us kids tumbled our of the station wagon and stretched the endless cross-country miles out of our crampy, gangly limbs. Giddy with excitement to explore the new town, we asked for permission to scout out the neighborhood. The three of us set out down Sixth Street toward downtown, striding under the sprawling shade of the great leafy high-arching cathedrals of elm trees that protected our blond heads from the hot sun.
We had barely walked a block when we met a man with the glint of a penny in his eyes. He looked at the three of us, and, slowly, a smile brightened up his face like a church candle lit at Mass on Easter Sunday. Stopping in front of us, he poked his hand into his pocket and pulled out a fist full of candy.
“There’s enough for all of you,” he said.
Shy at first, we were hesitant, but looking up into his glowing face and sparkling eyes, he looked trustworthy. Kind creases softened the skin under his eyes and the honey hue of his irises cast diamonds of light into the air.
“Thank you very much,” we repeated over and over again, clutching our tiny, wrapped packages of pleasure.
Running back to Grandma’s house, we found Dad and Mom sitting with Grandma around the metal kitchen table. “We met a very nice man who gave us this candy!” we exclaimed in unison like angels with new wings.
“Don’t you know who that was?” Dad asked, turning around from looking out of window. “That was your Great Grandpa.” Dad sat back in his chair and laughed, then leaned toward us and opened his eyes wide until we could see the copper pennies in his irises.
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