by Rocky Macy
Garland Eugene Macy
19 October 1924 - 25 December 2009
My father passed away ten years ago last night - in the wee hours of Christmas morning. He was eighty-five-years-old at the time of his death and had lived a very full life. Dad was born in rural Newton County, Missouri, to an alcoholic father who posed as a farmer and made a scratch living from milking a few cows, and a mother who was physically abused by her husband while trying to raise four children in Depression Era America.
My father went to a rural school in Newton County. It was called Westview and it still serves as a school today. Dad was smart, so smart in fact that his teachers promoted him from first to third grade. an act that caused some animosity among his friends. After he "graduated" from Westview at the end of eighth grade, he moved to Neosho and lived with his Aunt Pearl Lowe and her family while he completed Neosho High School. He graduated in 1942 and joined the Army Air Corps at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis soon after.
Dad was the second oldest, and both he and his older brother Wayne saw service overseas in World War II. They once, in fact, were able to meet up briefly in Wales during the war. Several of their cousins were also in the war and served in various parts of the world. Cousin Lee Macy fought in Africa. Dad made staff sergeant while in Europe, and was involved in maintaining the gun sights in military fighter planes. Many of his cousins called him "Sarge" after the war because he was the only one of the Macy clan to achieve that rank.
My father was wounded in a training exercise in January of 1945 in France and received the Purple Heart.
(My father's best friend in the military was a fellow named Joe Spake from Memphis, Tennessee. Today I maintain occasional contact with Joe's kids.)
After the war Dad turned his attention to making money. Like so many kids who grew up in the Great Depression, he saw money as the true measure of success. He and his cousin, Dalton Macy, were both driving cabs in Neosho, Missouri, trying to make their grubstakes right after the war when they met a couple of the Sreaves girls from Seneca. Dad wound up marrying Ruby "Florine," who would become my mother, and Dalton married Florine's younger sister, Betty Lou.
My father and mother bought into a small grocery store in Neosho while Dad continued to bring in a paycheck by working at Pet Milk. Later, after my sister Gail was born we moved a few miles south to Goodman, Missouri. Dad worked an evening shift at Pet, and some of my earliest memories are of sitting up late with my mother and listening to radio programs while we waited on him to get home from work. I'm not absolutely certain of this, but I suspect that my mother worked part-time for her sister and brother-in-law, Christine and Bob Dobbs, who ran the Linwood Cafe on 71 Highway at Goodman.
About the time I started school at Goodman, my parents had saved enough money to go into business with the Dobbs. The two couples built a new cafe and station on the highway across from the Linwood Corner where the old cafe was located. The Dobbs' family had a home behind the new enterprise, and the Macys' built a new home on the adjoining lot. I remember while all of that was going on that one of the girls in my first grade class told me that I was rich - an image that my father took pride in cultivating.
But while we always had food on the table, we were far from rich.
When I was ten and just leaving fourth grade, my parents sold their share of the business on the highway to the Dobbs' family, and we moved further south to Noel, Missouri, where my folks bought an eight-unit tourist court on the beautiful Elk River. The six years that we spent running Riverview Court were some of the best of my life. We all worked hard, but there was also plenty of boating, swimming, and fishing - and we made friends with regulars from around the Midwest who came to say with us year after year.
After taking over the court and teaching the rest of us to run it, my Dad went into the town of Noel and found a business to lease - A DX gas station. A few years later, after they sold the tourist court on the river - at a nice profit, I suspect - my parents bought a building on Main Street and opened an appliance store there. Dad and my mother ran that for several years, and she also managed to get a cosmetology license and work part-time at a local beauty shop.
As the years wore on and Walmart began driving small town merchants out of business, Dad was able to sell his store and enter other pursuits. He sold real estate for many years and bought rental properties when he came across bargains. After my mother passed away in 1986, he began focusing on the stock market and managed to build up a nice portfolio before his death.
In addition to being focused on the accumulation of wealth, my father also had a strong commitment to his community, realizing that without a strong community, all of his business efforts would be for naught. He served terms on our local school board, the city council, and was even a director of the local bank. My dad was a strong proponent of the Chamber of Commerce and always played a role in town activities.
He was also not surprisingly a Republican - but more of a business-oriented Eisenhower Republican - and he wasn't afraid to break with his party when it was wrong. I remember his commenting on a vote he had cast in a state referendum not long before his death - a vote to allow people to carry concealed hand guns. He said he had voted against it because giving people permission to carry concealed weapons was "just nuts!"
My father entered the world during the Calvin Coolidge administration and left just as Barack Obama was completing his first year in office. He saw technology advance from home radio's operated off of car batteries to home computers and telephones that people carried with them in their pockets. He had trapped and sold rabbits for 25 cents each as a kid, and as an adult he sold most of the people in town their first color television sets.
Ten years ago on Christmas Eve he slipped and fell on an icy porch - hitting his head - as he was delivering Christmas candy to his renters. He made it home on his own, but later that night knew that it was time to call for an ambulance. He lived in a big house, alone, with his nearest child, my sister, more than fifty miles away and me in Arizona. The ambulance attendants let themselves in, found him in his bed upstairs, and took him to the hospital in Neosho - not very many miles from where he had been born eighty-five years earlier. He passed away quietly soon after arriving at the hospital.
And ten years later Garland Macy is still missed by many - and especially by his family. Rest in peace, old man.
Garland Eugene Macy
19 October 1924 - 25 December 2009
My father passed away ten years ago last night - in the wee hours of Christmas morning. He was eighty-five-years-old at the time of his death and had lived a very full life. Dad was born in rural Newton County, Missouri, to an alcoholic father who posed as a farmer and made a scratch living from milking a few cows, and a mother who was physically abused by her husband while trying to raise four children in Depression Era America.
My father went to a rural school in Newton County. It was called Westview and it still serves as a school today. Dad was smart, so smart in fact that his teachers promoted him from first to third grade. an act that caused some animosity among his friends. After he "graduated" from Westview at the end of eighth grade, he moved to Neosho and lived with his Aunt Pearl Lowe and her family while he completed Neosho High School. He graduated in 1942 and joined the Army Air Corps at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis soon after.
Dad was the second oldest, and both he and his older brother Wayne saw service overseas in World War II. They once, in fact, were able to meet up briefly in Wales during the war. Several of their cousins were also in the war and served in various parts of the world. Cousin Lee Macy fought in Africa. Dad made staff sergeant while in Europe, and was involved in maintaining the gun sights in military fighter planes. Many of his cousins called him "Sarge" after the war because he was the only one of the Macy clan to achieve that rank.
My father was wounded in a training exercise in January of 1945 in France and received the Purple Heart.
(My father's best friend in the military was a fellow named Joe Spake from Memphis, Tennessee. Today I maintain occasional contact with Joe's kids.)
After the war Dad turned his attention to making money. Like so many kids who grew up in the Great Depression, he saw money as the true measure of success. He and his cousin, Dalton Macy, were both driving cabs in Neosho, Missouri, trying to make their grubstakes right after the war when they met a couple of the Sreaves girls from Seneca. Dad wound up marrying Ruby "Florine," who would become my mother, and Dalton married Florine's younger sister, Betty Lou.
My father and mother bought into a small grocery store in Neosho while Dad continued to bring in a paycheck by working at Pet Milk. Later, after my sister Gail was born we moved a few miles south to Goodman, Missouri. Dad worked an evening shift at Pet, and some of my earliest memories are of sitting up late with my mother and listening to radio programs while we waited on him to get home from work. I'm not absolutely certain of this, but I suspect that my mother worked part-time for her sister and brother-in-law, Christine and Bob Dobbs, who ran the Linwood Cafe on 71 Highway at Goodman.
About the time I started school at Goodman, my parents had saved enough money to go into business with the Dobbs. The two couples built a new cafe and station on the highway across from the Linwood Corner where the old cafe was located. The Dobbs' family had a home behind the new enterprise, and the Macys' built a new home on the adjoining lot. I remember while all of that was going on that one of the girls in my first grade class told me that I was rich - an image that my father took pride in cultivating.
But while we always had food on the table, we were far from rich.
When I was ten and just leaving fourth grade, my parents sold their share of the business on the highway to the Dobbs' family, and we moved further south to Noel, Missouri, where my folks bought an eight-unit tourist court on the beautiful Elk River. The six years that we spent running Riverview Court were some of the best of my life. We all worked hard, but there was also plenty of boating, swimming, and fishing - and we made friends with regulars from around the Midwest who came to say with us year after year.
After taking over the court and teaching the rest of us to run it, my Dad went into the town of Noel and found a business to lease - A DX gas station. A few years later, after they sold the tourist court on the river - at a nice profit, I suspect - my parents bought a building on Main Street and opened an appliance store there. Dad and my mother ran that for several years, and she also managed to get a cosmetology license and work part-time at a local beauty shop.
As the years wore on and Walmart began driving small town merchants out of business, Dad was able to sell his store and enter other pursuits. He sold real estate for many years and bought rental properties when he came across bargains. After my mother passed away in 1986, he began focusing on the stock market and managed to build up a nice portfolio before his death.
In addition to being focused on the accumulation of wealth, my father also had a strong commitment to his community, realizing that without a strong community, all of his business efforts would be for naught. He served terms on our local school board, the city council, and was even a director of the local bank. My dad was a strong proponent of the Chamber of Commerce and always played a role in town activities.
He was also not surprisingly a Republican - but more of a business-oriented Eisenhower Republican - and he wasn't afraid to break with his party when it was wrong. I remember his commenting on a vote he had cast in a state referendum not long before his death - a vote to allow people to carry concealed hand guns. He said he had voted against it because giving people permission to carry concealed weapons was "just nuts!"
My father entered the world during the Calvin Coolidge administration and left just as Barack Obama was completing his first year in office. He saw technology advance from home radio's operated off of car batteries to home computers and telephones that people carried with them in their pockets. He had trapped and sold rabbits for 25 cents each as a kid, and as an adult he sold most of the people in town their first color television sets.
Ten years ago on Christmas Eve he slipped and fell on an icy porch - hitting his head - as he was delivering Christmas candy to his renters. He made it home on his own, but later that night knew that it was time to call for an ambulance. He lived in a big house, alone, with his nearest child, my sister, more than fifty miles away and me in Arizona. The ambulance attendants let themselves in, found him in his bed upstairs, and took him to the hospital in Neosho - not very many miles from where he had been born eighty-five years earlier. He passed away quietly soon after arriving at the hospital.
And ten years later Garland Macy is still missed by many - and especially by his family. Rest in peace, old man.
1 comment:
Garland Macy was a fine man. He was a beloved brother-in-law to my mom and dad, admired and respected by them both, and he was definitely one of my very favorite uncles. RIP, Uncle Garland.
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