The youngest of eight children, I was still a baby when my father was totally disabled in an industrial accident. Trapped in a body that made it impossible for him to walk, and very difficult to talk, my dad maintained his honored presence as the head of our family thanks to Mom who cared for him night and day for the next 31 years.
Completely devoid of self-pity, Dad had incredible empathy and social consciousness. He taught us that no matter how tough things ever got for us, there were always others who were worse off and it was our duty and honor to help them.
A few years to the day of Dad’s passing, I was working as a zoning inspector in the town where I grew up. Called out to the tough end of town on a property line dispute which I suspected was racially motivated, I helped an elderly woman determine, once and for all, that the rose bushes her neighbor kept brutally mowing back were indeed on her property. As I delivered the good news, she saw my name badge.
“Goodness, are you one of Charlie’s boys?” she asked.
“Yes ma’am, I’m his youngest.”
“I want to tell you something about your daddy,” she continued. “You see this house? Well, before you was even born your daddy came up and sold life insurance to us colored folks — his friends from the foundry. That kind of thing just didn’t happen back in those days. You understand?”
I nodded as her voice began to crack.
“When my husband passed away I was able to keep my home … because your daddy wasn’t afraid to do what was right. He was a fine man, that Charlie. I believe you might be that kind of man, too.”
John C. Lorson
Orrville