4. The Heacox Family
We weren’t nearly as close to Dad’s family as we were to
Mom’s. First of all, Grandma Heacox really objected when Mom and Dad were
married. I guess she felt that Mom wasn’t good enough. Subsequent events showed
the error of that opinion. Then, too, Grandpap and Grandma Heacox just didn’t
have the natural warmth that Pap and Grandma had. Dad was one of nine children:
five girls – Georgianne, Andrea, Elizabeth (Bess), Lynette, and Leandra – and
four boys – Bill, Dad, Lewis (Duck), and Jim. The picture at right shows Grandpap
and Grandma.
Uncle Bill was the oldest, I think. He never lived far from Derry and was a state game warden most of my life. His eldest son, David Lee, was a day older than my sister, Judy. Unfortunately, he was drowned in a flooded creek at the age of eight. I’m not sure Uncle Bill ever really recovered.
Uncle Duck was a piece of work. He was smart, charming, and pretty much unscrupulous. He could swindle his own brothers and sisters without batting an eye, but somehow they just couldn’t stay mad at him. The last I heard of him, he was living in Las Vegas.
Aunt Andrea and her husband, Tom Netherton, lived in Altoona, about 90 miles east of Derry. He had a high-level job with the Pennsylvania Railroad, and they had a pretty up-scale life. During World War II, Tom was in the service and Andrea spent quite a bit of time with Mom and Dad. Even after the war, the two of them would visit for an evening, usually playing canasta, a card game that was all the rage at the time.
Aunt Lynette married Dave Mahoney and moved to Latrobe. Uncle Dave was a musician and both Judy and I took piano lessons from him. Every week or two, we’d visit them and combine a social visit with our lessons. Later, they opened a jewelry store in Latrobe.
Aunt Bess married Art College and eventually settled in California, so I saw very little of her, except for weddings and funerals.
Of them all, Uncle Jim and Aunt Georgianne were my
favorites. Jim is only ten years older than I, so we had some things in common.
The summer after I graduated from high school, Dad was in Ohio and Pap and
Grandma didn’t have a car, so a couple of times, when I had a date, Jim lent me
his car in return for my washing and waxing it. It was a beautiful
gray-and-white 1956 Mercury, one of the preferred cars at the time. Jim never
left Derry. He served his time in the army, then worked for Latrobe Steel until
he retired. He married Judy Stiffler, who is about twelve years younger, and
they’ve been happily married ever since. They have three grown sons and still
live in the house he grew up in. The picture at left shows Grandpap
and Uncle Jim, probably sometime in the late forties.
Georgianne married “Squire” Foster, whom I remember not at
all. They lived in a nice house on Fifth Avenue. After Squire died, Georgianne
became involved with Nick Darazio. It’s not clear in my mind whether he was a
boarder or just moved in with her. Anyway, it was a scandal in the family that
wasn’t fixed until some time later, when they were married. Grandma Heacox
would have nothing to do with Nick until the day she died, not that Nick was
terribly broken up about it. We spent a lot of time visiting them. Georgianne
was a favorite with the whole family and Nick totally charmed Judy. Their house
wasn’t big, but it was warm and friendly. Georgianne had a loud voice, typical
of the part of the Heacox family that took after Grandma. Grandpap was pretty
quiet, unless provoked. I remember winter evenings when Mom would bundle us up
and put us on a sled and Dad would pull us through the snow to Aunt
Georgianne’s house.
As I said, Grandma Heacox was less than thrilled when Dad married Mom. As Mom tells it, Grandma never saw me until Christmas, seven months after I was born. Finally, Dad had enough and told Mom to dress me and put her coat on. We were going to visit his parents, just like regular members of the family. Most of the brothers and sisters were there, which produced conditions somewhere between a riot and a rock concert. They never got together without arguing, and they always argued as loudly as possible. Finally, Mom went into the kitchen, where Grandma Heacox was cleaning up the dinner dishes, and offered to help. Grandma is said to have remarked on the fact that Mom was willing to help when her own daughters were not. After that, things were a bit more friendly, though never warm, between them. Mom always felt that Grandma favored her other grandchildren over Judy and me. I don’t know if that was true, but if so, it’s a bit ironic that I was the only one of her grandchildren who visited her regularly as she grew old.
Every summer, Grandma would make the world’s best root beer. It had a particular bite to it that makes me think it was a bit fermented. She’d put it in small bottles that only held a couple of ounces, so we never got much, but it sure was good.
Grandpap Heacox worked for the railroad as a conductor, I think. He was a quiet man who minded his own business. As a result, I never got to know him very well. I do remember sitting on Pap’s front porch and having Grandpap Heacox go by without even noticing me. In fact, Dad used to tell the story of the day he and Uncle Duck passed Grandpap on the street and said, “Hello, Mr. Heacox.” He replied, but that evening they asked him if someone said hello on the street that day. He said “Yes,” whereupon they said “Dad, that was us!”