A young mother, my mom had her little, black box camera handy to capture photos of me growing up.
Credit: Pinterest Photo
From infant to teen, my image appears alone, with sisters, and sometimes with my daddy. This week, before Father’s Day, I’m reviewing photos encased in albums from long ago. My fingers flip through pictures of me as an infant in the play-pen, cooling off in an aluminum tub in the back yard.
In another deckled-edged picture, Daddy holds me on the silver swing in front of the budding peony bush out back.
Obviously my dad went along with his wife’s photo set-ups, “Ray, hold Marian on the swing so I can take a picture.” My dad complies here; the moment is frozen in time: me starring at the camera, Daddy with a neutral, perhaps cautious, face. I’m sure my dad was happy I was a healthy child although as a farmer and farm equipment dealer, he probably wanted a boy as firstborn.
Growing up in the Longenecker family, I was my father’s uneasy daughter. Early on, I bucked his authority. Through my teen years, our relationship became increasingly adversarial. In Chapter 9 of Mennonite Daughter, I recall:
When Mom said “Sca-doo” at home on the top of Anchor Road, my sisters and I knew we could chase fun down at Grandma’s house, the other generation of Longeneckers connected to ours with strong family ties. Two vegetable gardens skirted her home, one edged with two bee hives which Daddy kept. I can picture him now with his white protective hood moving gingerly around the hives. Is there such a thing as a bee gentler, a bee whisperer? If so, my father played the role to a tee. Before he “smoked” the colony with a horn-shaped apparatus to quiet the bees, the Queen and her attendants buzzed and darted in the June sun. They were contained now though, their white hive emitting a low hum.
I watched my dad proceed with slow, respectful movements, taming the wildness within the hive. Why couldn’t he do that within himself–control his anger, especially with me? The relationship between my father and me continued to be adversarial all through my teenage years. When I countered his will with my increasingly strong voice, he punished me. If I needed someone to push against, he was the one.
“Marian, you gotta do as I say, and right away,” he’d command, about resisting his order to clean the shop.
Cocking my head, I’d retort, “But why can’t Janice do it” It’s her turn to clean the toilet, anyway.”
The whipping stopped in high school, but I continued to be my father’s uneasy daughter.
In 1986, more than 40 years after this scene, I wrote in my journal:
March 1986: Mom and Dad Longenecker visit the families of my sister Janice and me in Jacksonville, Florida. We all enjoy Epcot in Disney World, Dad’s chance to see a faux version of the Switzerland he never actually visited but planned to some day. My super-charged Dad seems more mellow now, slower, even takes naps. “Hey, Dad, I see you’re getting a pooch here,” says son-in-law Cliff, commenting on my dad’s weight gain as he playfully pinches his waistline.
April 1986: We get a call from Pennsylvania, “Dad has been diagnosed with lymphoma. Blood cell tumors have developed in the lymphatic system. Stage 4 . . . it’s too advanced to operate . . . they can try chemotherapy, maybe radiation after that . . . .” Like an earthquake, the news sends shock-waves through our family. Why, we just saw him a month ago.
May 1986: My father is now dying of lymphoma. I leave my husband and children and fly up to Pennsylvania, alone, to see him alive for the very last time. He looks nothing like my image of him in March. His skin, now scorched red-brown from chemotherapy, reminds me of a starving Indian. He is wasting away. “I don’t want to live like this,” he says, calling a halt to the treatment. Too weak to climb to the upstairs bedroom, he reclines now almost motionless on the pull-out bed in the living room, a solitary pillow under his head. On May 17, his 71st birthday comes and goes.
My flight south leaves a few days later. This is probably the last time I will see my father in this life. I approach him to say goodbye, and I add: “I love you, Daddy.
June 18, 1986 Daddy breathes his last, less than three months after his cancer diagnosis. We get the dreaded call and make plans to drive north for the funeral. My mind flits around in reminiscence. And then leaps forward with prediction: Now Dad won’t be attending the ceremony where I receive my Master’s degree in December. He won’t stand up to be photographed at any of his grand-children’s weddings or get to play with his great-grandchildren any more. At age 71, he has reached his heavenly home.
Had he lived, he would have turned 108 years old this year.
On this Father’s Day in 2023, I pause to give thanks for the gifts my father has given me:
1. Love of nature He went on walks in the wide meadows and sun-dappled woods close to Rheems, Pennsylvania, on Sunday afternoons. Sometimes I went with him.
2. Love for music He played a banjo, guitar, and piano with gusto and bought me a violin. Music has formed the sound-scape of my mind since then.
3. Intellectual curiosity He perused US News and World Report and The Wall Street Journal, listened to Edward R. Murrow, Paul Harvey, and Lowell Thomas, engaged in conversation about world events.
4. Value of hard work There was the tomato field, the sweet potato plot, the shop . . . .
Original Cover by Cliff: Tomato Girl
My father’s deep faith in God included honoring his own parents, as an embroidered piece of embroidered above the kitchen door in Grandma’s kitchen exhorted.
Exodus 20:12 Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. (King James Version)
Framed needlework above one of the kitchen doors in Grandma Longenecker’s house
Parts of this post were originally published here.
- Do you have a photo of your dad that tells a story?
- I speculate about my father’s emotion when my baby picture was taken, imagining his lack of affection for me. Perhaps, instead, he was worried about his business, or something else. Do you attach feelings to old photos?
Coming next: New Book Trailer
Wonderful memories, Marian!
Thanks, Jack. . . so good to see you here! 😀
Beautiful tribute, Marian! I had a contentious relationship with my dad for a while also when I was a teen. I’m grateful that we finally made peace. As for photos, the one that comes to mind is my father’s college graduation photo. I was the first in my family to finish college. My dad received his degree when he was over fifty! He went on to get a master’s degree in counseling psychology. So the photo shows him receiving his diploma–the product of a long sought after goal. 😊
You have a wonderful heritage and role model with your dad, not letting age limit his educational goals. Thanks for sharing the memory of these happy events here, L. Marie! 😀
Good morning, Marian! I’m not first responder today. This is a lovely post.
Such poignant memories. I’m glad you were able to reconcile with your father.
I was thinking a lot about my dad yesterday.
Both my dad and father-in-law had lymphoma. Isn’t that odd?
Actually, the reconciliation was rather one-sided. Our fraught relationship was one reason for writing my first memoir. Publishing it was both a literary endeavor and a path toward healing and forgiveness.
I think the treatments for lymphoma are better now. Immunotherapy, I hear, helps stop the growth of bad cells in some cases.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Merril! 😀
You’re welcome, Marian.🙂
Good morning, Marian. I enjoyed this post, as always. I am almost sure I spent some summer afternoons in an aluminum tub also. I love that look on your face: “Just think, some day I will write stories from my life. I had better look around and be wide awake!” I am so grateful for Brownie cameras and all that my mother captured with hers. My father never whipped me, but we had our conflicts, and he ruled the roost. Since he died the night of his 55th birthday, I never saw him grow into older age. He did mellow, though, in his last months. He influenced my spiritual life profoundly.
Yes, I do remember scenes on the farm with your dad in BLUSH. The biting-the-earthworm episode comes to mind just now–so funny, and telling.
About the wide-eyed look in the baby pictures: When we visited our second grandson as a 4-week-old, he stared at us intently. We could almost put words in his mouth: “Who are these people? They don’t look like Mommy and Daddy. I wonder who they are.”
Thanks for bringing the past to life once again with your perceptive comment, Shirley. 😀
Your post sent me to the past, with my dad, from childhood through our stormy times when I was a teen, and then our love as he grew into old age. Beautiful remembering and honoring, Marian. I have a photo but I don’t know how to share it here. Thanks for this gorgeous rendering of a man who was a loving father to you in the best way he could be. A man whom you learned so much from, and I have no doubt, who loved you unconditionally.
You are right, Pam, my dad did the best he could at the time.
About the photo you want to share. I can attach URLs here, but no individual photos. If you like, send the photo to my email address. Then, when I put this post on Facebook, I can attach the photo. Thanks! 😀
What a mix of emotions here. I’m glad we (you and me) lived in a later era with our families/children and while we all have our ups and downs and mistakes in parenting, I’m glad our children have mostly great memories and thoughts towards their dads.
You are right, Melodie, we can make improvements in parenting in our own homes where possible. I’m happy to say that our children too can attest to happy childhoods, mostly. Thanks! 😀
Insightful post, Marian. It looks like there are quite a few of us, women, who acted rebellious during their teenage years and didn’t like to be told what to do. 🙂
In Belgium, Father’s Day was last Sunday, so I gave my dad a short call. He’s not a man of many words but I’m sure he appreciated the gesture.
One day, I should look through the photos my parents kept from when we were children. I sure hope they didn’t get rid of them after their big move.
More than once, I’ve said I wish my dad could see my plaque from the city for the “Outspoken Citizen” award. Fortunately, I learned to channel my thoughts and words in more constructive ways as I matured.
I join you in wishing you enough salvaged photos from your childhood. Yes, I’m sure your dad appreciated the call. Men-of-few-words often do care about family though they aren’t very expressive. Thanks for speaking out here, Liesbet. 😀
I was moved by your thoughtful words about your father, Marian. Of course, they make me think about my own relationship with my dad. He was a solid man with a strong sense of justice and love for his family, but like the rest of us, he had his faults. He had a bit of a temper, and I never liked making him angry. When I look at him as a whole, there were far more positives than negatives. Showing affection did not come easily for him, part of his strict German upbringing. I vowed not to be that way with my son.
Kudos to you for breaking the cycle, Pete. Anger management is a life-long learning proposition for strong-willed people. In fact, at one point, my daughter-in-law, an art therapist, was employed in an initiative to provide treatment.
Your strict German upbringing may have also provided you with a strong work ethic and reliability, so evident in your interactions online. Thanks for the example! 😀
Thank you for sharing these remembrances of you and your relationship with your father, Marian. 😊
Thank you for reading and joining the conversation here too, Barbara! 😀
This reminded me of the strong bond my father and I shared and the special memories I have of him. Thanks for sharing!
Welcome to my blog, Josephine, and thank you for sharing your thoughts. I visited your website and noted how books captured your imagination from an early age. The trailer for your novel “Misty Dreams” is beautiful! You can visit Josephine here: https://josephinestrand.com/ 😀
I enjoyed these memories of your father and it spurred me to thinking about my relationship to my own Dad. When I was a kid, I resented my father who’s “help” I didn’t always appreciate. My mantra became, “Don’t tell me! I know what I’m doing!” Fortunately, over the years we both mellowed and were able to express our love for one another in helathy ways. (And yes, I also have a photo of my young self in an aluminum tub.)
Linda, I began to smile when I read the words “we both mellowed” as an accomplishment in your tricky relationships with your father, a goal we all wish for, I believe. Thank you! 😀
Your memories are lovely and tempered with the reality that comes from being an adult who is looking back on a parent. The fatherly lessons you discerned clearly have influenced you for the better. I like the photos.
You intuited this perfectly. I am writing as “an adult who is looking back on a parent.” I would have had a much different book had I written as a 20- or 40- or even 60- year-old. Thanks for mentioning the photos too, Ally! 😀
What a lovely scene you paint of the relationship you had with your Dad.I think we all at times have disliked our parents and bucked against being given orders. I know I did. He went too young, Marian. I was lucky in that my dad lived until he was 90 yrs old and went the way he wanted to having been out for dinner with a lady friend,kissing her goodnight then went into his bungalow and died that night. in 1996.
Oh, my goodness, Joy. You certainly have pleasant memories of your dad. Even though you might miss him still, his life ended well. In the States, we’d call this a Hallmark ending–a TV movie series where all the endings are perfect. . . and predictable. Thanks for tuning in today and commenting as well! 😀
You can find Joy here: https://joysjewels707447175.wordpress.com/
What a wonderful tribute, Marian. I see this rebellious behavior in my granddaughter…she doesn’t like to be told what to do and at five years old, she’ll tell you so. I was also brought up with the switch…in my father’s case, his leather belt. However, without his discipline, I often wonder how I would have turned out. Surely, not as I am today. However, the days of “the switch’ are gone and parents/grandparents have to show more patience when dealing with these pre-adults. Sometimes, that’s very difficult. Hopefully, my granddaughter will grow up to be a model citizen and loving parent. By the way, I love your piano drawing…quite the talent!
Look out for that feisty grand-daughter. She will make waves one day, and in a good way because she’s getting family guidance along the way.
All the drawings are courtesy of my artist husband, who illustrated both of my books. Thanks for stopping by with a comment today, John! Readers, John is a Viet Nam war veteran who has written extensively about his experience as a marine. You can find more on his website: https://cherrieswriter.com/ 😀
Thank you for sharing a portion of your relationship with your Dad. I know the emotions that these thoughts bring during this coming up Father’s Day.
After knowing your father Ray as a father-in-law, I could see both the good and the “wished he’d done some things differently” in his relationships.
When we visited your Mom and Dad (mostly traveling by car or cargo van from Florida to Pennsylvania) I could observe both sides of your father. I know he loved our son and daughter, but he shared his love shyly regarding them, unlike what I was used to as a child with my Dad, openly with hugs, kisses and big smiles with humor.
The times when your Dad seemed most happy was when he was talking and laughing with his fellow farmers at his machine shop (Longenecker Farm Supply) repairing farm equipment, playing his upright piano deliberately as if he used a lighter touch the piano wouldn’t produce the correct notes, or going sea fishing at 4 in the morning, searching for blue fish off of coast of the New Jersey shore. When he got home he was became very quiet and introspective.
After Marian and I were married I tried to concentrate on the positives of both my Father and Father-in-Law. Thank you again for this post.
For two decades you had a ringside seat observing the Longenecker family dynamics. I choose now to focus on my father’s kind and true attributes and let the rest fall away. I’m old enough to do that now, not denying the facts of my childhood. Thanks, my dear. 😀
This was really a poignant tribute to your dad Marian. I felt all your details about his illness; what a sad, shocking time for you and your family. I’m glad you had just seen him, healthy and happy in “Switzerland.” What a fond memory. I know your relationship with him was rough as a child, but I love how you looked beyond that and decided to focus on the things he gave you. It speaks volumes to who you are and what you believe in. ♥
Thanks for your reassuring words, Melanie. Time and intention to understand have mellowed my view of our adversarial relationship. In the end, love always wins. 😀
Agreed! ♥
I have a black-and-white photo of little me sitting in a wash basin in the yard at about the same age as you. My daughter “leveled-up” in her photo at that age. She was in an actual blow-up kiddie pool.
You write very movingly about your relationship with your father. I remember how fraught it was when I read Mennonite Daughter.
I have a number of photos of my dad that tell a story. The one that immediately came to mind when I read your question is a 5 X 7 black-and-white photo taken in the early 1980s, when he was pastor of the Episcopal church in Berlin, New Hampshire. From the expression on his face, I’ve always thought of it as his “weight of the world” photo.
“Blow-up” kiddie pools were a part of my children’s early lives, not mine either.
Pastors do carry much responsibility, often including contentious parishioners, the effects of which you have probably detected in your father’s expression. Thanks for going back in time to review old family photos, with telling images and sentiments frozen in time, Liz. 😀
Yes, to the contentious parishioners. This particular parish had a reputation for “involuntary resignations,” which my dad, coming from a different diocese, didn’t know.
“Involuntary resignations,” — oh, my goodness! That doesn’t sound very godly!
It wasn’t! That was my dad’s parish. He left to establish a hospital chaplaincy and never looked back.
:-/
Opps. *on his face
Fixed it–no problem!
Thanks!
I have a photo of my dad at a refugee camp in Germany. He is sitting on the ground, squinting in the sun, a smile on his face. I, a four year old, am sitting on his lap and my two year old sister is standing in the crook of his arm chewing on a piece of bread. My hair is very short, probably had to get it shaved at some point because of lice. All refugees had them! I always felt safe with my Papa. He never spanked us, which was unusual at that time. Just always used gentle persuasion. My mom, on the other hand, used a wooden spoon on our behinds when she felt we needed it!
Elfrieda, I recall your regarding your father as a benign presence in your life from other blog posts and your memoir. How sorely needed was his smile as your family endured life as refugees. You remind me of the story of Corrie ten Boom who rejoiced with her sister Betsie that their “cell” was infested with fleas. Because of that the guards fled, leaving them with the fleas, yes, but also with the ability to read scripture which would have been “verboten” if the guards had been present. Thanks for checking in today, as always. ((( )))
Lovely memories well described. My picture is a pastel portrait taken from a photo. The story is in the penultimate paragraph of this post: https://derrickjknight.com/2012/08/07/would-you-believe-it/
Thanks for visiting here, Derrick! I see your “knightly” Gravatar image on various blogs I visit–bravo! Most writers don’t seem to have artistic talent. However, your gift to your Mum defies that assumption. Again, huge thanks. 😀
A lovely tribute to your father Marian. It makes me want to go dig into my old photograph chest. I know I don’t have as many treasured photos as you from the far past. I find it stunning that my parents hardly ever took any photographs. Thanks for sharing your memories. <3
Debby, my mom didn’t use albums. She stored loose photos, nilly willy, under the lid of the piano bench. Maybe you’ll find some treasures in your chest–enough to make a blog post. As always, thanks for joining the conversation here. 😀
Hi Marian, this post is a lovely tribute to your father. My dad is 73 and he was very ill during his 71st year. He had a pulmonary embolism and it was right during Covid so I had to treat him at home. It is very hard watching parents ailing. Hugs to you.
Family members are good care-givers, but it’s very taxing as I know well from experience. What makes the experience so difficult is that we knew our parents when they were strong and able-bodied. To see then fail, is difficult both physically and emotionally. Thanks, Robbie! 😀
Hi Marian, yes, I think you are right. Watching parents age is heart wrenching 🤗🌸
I wonder if I daughter thinks so. . .
A beautiful tribute to your father, Marian like you I clashed with my father often as a teen but in hislater years we rebuilt our relationship he was always a stern man but did mellow with age 🙂
Strong-willed daughters often turn into high-achieving women, as your life demonstrates. Thanks for adding your “Dad” to the mix this week, Carol! 😀
Thank you, It does seem that way, Marian.😎😊
Marian — The ongoing gifts you received from your father are priceless!
Yes, Indeed!
I know you can also trace your imaginative mind and high spirits to you own ancestry. Brava!
Marian, I can see your dad as his body wasted from cancer. So much like Vic’s body as he died with lymphoma and also my dad who had a kidney disease and died when I was 14. My dad was a sweet one, but I never knew him when he wasn’t sick. His only brother, my Uncle Jim, said my dad was always sweet even when he felt lousy. I’m grateful for the loving men in my life. (I finished your book last night and loved so much about it!)
These old pictures are amazing. I was thinking he was afraid he may drop you. Men those days weren’t as comfortable holding a little one. A lovely tribute to your dear father. xo
As firstborn, I was probably the only baby my dad had held. Yes, he may have been scared, as you mention, Darlene! 😀