My (Grand)Daddy spent a lot of time on his grandparents’ dairy farm in Michigan. His grandmother only spoke Finnish, and he only spoke English, but he said they still understood each other.
John and Mary Waltonen, my great-great grandparents from Finland
Not surprisingly, he was an adventurous child. Once, after having been to the picture shows, he tried to jump off the barn, thinking that an umbrella would slow his fall, as it had for a cartoon character.
My grandfather as a young man, with his younger sisters and parents.
But my favorite story from his youth is this one.
He played William Tell with one of his sisters–putting an apple on her head–and getting the bow and arrow ready.
He shot her in the cheek.
And then, somehow, he managed to convince his other sister to let him try on her.
And he shot her in the cheek.
The moral of this story: Waltonen women cannot resist that man.
Today, he would have been 89. If there’s an afterlife, I hope he’s with his sisters today and that all arrows shoot straight and that cartoon physics rule the land.
A very bad boy and his trusting sisters
