The Sentinel, My Grandpa 201026

Grandpa was a handsome young man. This picture was him with a parish priest.

      My sister-in-law Sheri became a genealogist late in her life. She spent countless hours researching our family tree. I was revisiting her work this morning and decided on this post for today. This post is about my grandfather, (God rest his soul).
      My grandfather was abandoned on the steps of an orphanage in 1892 at the Good Sisters of Charity in New York City when he was an infant. The sisters raised and cared for him until he was 3 years and 9 months old. Then he was put on a Mercy train to Saint Joseph, Missouri to go to his new family. The family already had his brother Frank, 1 year old (another boy who was sent there from the same orphanage in New York). His brother Frank had been adopted by the family, but grandpa never was adopted by the parents. His brother was of German descent, but the good sisters changed his last name to an Irish name. Grandpa had a Polish name. Maybe that is why the family never actually adopted him, no one knows why. The family let grandpa know that he was only there to be a companion to Frank.
      Frank turned out to be not a nice man at all, while grandpa turned out to be a wonderful man. Grandpa played baseball for the old Saint Louis Browns team. He met and married a good Irish girl Bridget and had my uncle Tom, Aunt Maryanne and of course my wonderful mother. Grandpa lived through some rough times during his life. He and his friend (who was named Riderex), the 2 of them ran bootleg whiskey during the great depression to support their families. Later grandpa got a job at the US Post Office where he worked for 40 years until his retirement.
      I have always felt grandpa was more a father to me than my real father ever was. Grandpa did more to raise me than my father did. All I ever got from my father was ridicule. I was not his favorite child. The strange thing about that was I was so much like him, looks and thinking, more so when I was under 40. After that I changed, while he never did. Grandpa always had time for me and never criticised me unless I did something dramatically wrong and even then he just mentioned it was wrong and I should not do that again and I never did.
      I still pray for my father every night, never for grandpa. His priest who knew him well and buried him, said, “he is in heaven this very day because he had the faith of a child.”