My Daddy Was a Carpenter
By Ann Milholland Webb
My Daddy was a carpenter. His hands were rough, but his touch was soft. I was his only girl child and he called me, “Pal.”
I never walked so tall as when he was holding my hand en route to the grocery store, where the grocer let everyone put their groceries “on the tab” to be paid when our Daddies, could find work.
We never walked just for the exercise. We met our healthy quota just trying to make it through each day. Being the only girl for blocks around, most of my miles were accumulated trying to keep up with the boys.
The Great Depression financially crippled everyone we knew. I remember when Daddy walked to Sugar Creek to see if there might be a job opening. By the time he arrived, there wasn’t. He was faced with a choice of either spending his only nickel for streetcar fare to the Plaza, where another job had just broken ground, or buying a package of cookies. He walked to the Plaza, and found no job available there, either. He walked home again and was more tired than if he had worked all day, but he saved a cookie for each of his children and one for their mother.
When Daddy did have a job, he carried a black, metal lunch bucket. It had a thermos clipped into the domed lid. Mama would put milk in the thermos, if we had some, and water if we didn’t. Mama always made Daddy a bread, oleo, and jelly sandwich. His second sandwich was bread, oleo and meat, if we had some, or sugar, if we didn’t. Mama wrapped each sandwich in a square of waxed paper to keep them fresh.
I would watch for Daddy to come home at night and run to meet him. He let me carry his lunch bucket. It was my job to clean out the papers and wipe the inside clean. I always looked for that little piece of a sweet sandwich he would tear off and leave in one of the wrappings for me.
During the summer, we walked to our garden plot, about two miles away, for back-breaking work until dusk. Daddy didn’t make me work. It’s no wonder the boys didn’t like me tagging along with them and their friends. I was a pain in their collective necks.
One night, long after dark, the boys came home and Dad asked, “Where’s Ann?” The boys looked at each other and replied, “We’ll go look for her.”
I was still “Hiding,” waiting for someone to come “Seek” me. Nobody bothered to holler, “all-y all-y outs - in free” before the pack dissolved and all, ‘cept one, went home.
I was always “Daddy’s Little Girl,” until my daughter replaced me. He never sprayed his yard for weeds after she expressed her appreciation of his beautiful yellow “dandy-flowers.”
He had already started my son’s collection of tools, along with detailed instructions on how to use and care for them.
