Thirty-three years ago today my paternal grandfather Ellis Spencer left this earth.  I was in college at the University of Missouri, not far from Ellis and Grace’s hometown of Tipton, Missouri. I was the first to arrive at the house and for a couple hours Grace and I reminisced. Ellis had been in ill health for a few years so his departure was not sudden nor without a sense of release from the sadness and helplessness he and his family had endured.  But I don’t remember much about those final years, rather I think of him as the warmhearted man with a wry smile and a wicked sense of humor.

He liked to play pranks…especially on Grace. She was a bit uptight and Ellis certainly helped to loosen those reins by tickling her funny bone on a daily basis!

My favorite memory of their interaction was one time when they were staying with my brother and me while my parents were away. Ellis was ribbing Grace at the dinner table. She took it in stride, but when she had had enough, she picked up her folk, pointed it at him and with a little edge in her voice asked, “Are we done here?” We were silent for a few moments before all of us got a bad case of the giggles. 

Ellis and Grace farmed in Latham, Missouri until the mid-1950s when they bought the house in Tipton.  Grandpa worked at the shoe factory and retired from Fisher Manufacturing, where they made billiard tables.  It is the reason there is a pool ball on my desk. 

Grandpa was a farmer, carpenter, gardener, and fisherman.  I always remember him having a large garden behind their house in Tipton. Ellis and Grace loved to fish and I spent many a summer day with them fishing on local creeks and in the ponds at my maternal grandmother Roma Siegel’s farm in Florence.  I have several of Ellis’s handmade items including the shelf behind my desk and the little foot stool where my feet current rest.  His designs are simple and utilitarian and endure, just as the many great memories do.  Grandpa, you are missed, but not forgotten.