Last month we had to temporarily remove
part of a chain-link fence in our backyard so a tree removal service
could come in. As I was undoing the wire ties, I realized how
expertly that fence had been put together. It wasn't done by a
professional, but by my father-in-law, Junior L. Crews, who died
September 8. For him, it was a labor of love.
He wasn't supposed to be named Junior,
but James Lee Crews, Junior, when he was born July 11, 1922, on a
farm just outside Ravanna, in north central Missouri, just south of
the Iowa line. His parents never completed his birth certificate—he
was Baby Boy Crews, according to legal records. When it came time to
get a proper birth certificate in order to receive Social Security,
he had been going by Junior for so long that he made it his legal
name.
He didn't have an easy boyhood growing
up on a hardscrabble farm in the 1920s and '30s, and a father with a
drinking problem didn't help. When he was a teenager, he had worked
all summer to buy an air rifle. His father took Junior's prize
possession and hocked it to buy whiskey. And one of his regular
chores on the farm was to kill and pluck the chickens. He rarely ate
chicken for the rest of his life. When Kathleen and I visited and
cooked chicken, we tried to disguise it as much as possible. He'd eat
a little bit to please us, but he never really liked it.
Like most young men of his generation,
he was eager to join up and fight after the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor. He tried more than once, but a farm accident had left him
with no feeling in parts of his right hand, including his trigger
finger. The Army wouldn't take him. But the war had affected him. His
father had moved his family to Davenport, Iowa, to work in the
factories. And for Junior, the move to the city meant he could
complete high school. For someone with nerve damage in his right
hand, he had quite a bit of artistic talent,from the drawings I've
seen. He was older than many in his graduating class because he had
to skip a lot of school to work on the farm.
It was at Davenport High School that he
met the love of his life, a big-city girl from Milwaukee whose family
had also come to Davenport for war work. Marilyn Margaret Moon, a
lovely brown-eyed brunette, also had a parent with a drinking
problem. Both wanted the stability of church and family. After
attending several churches in Davenport, they settled on the First
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). One fellow parishioner was so
impressed with this bright young man from Missouri that he offered to
send him to Drake University, a Disciples school, to study for the
ministry. But more practical things intervened, especially after
Junior and Marilyn were married in the church on October 8, 1944. He
got a job with the City of Davenport and worked for the municipality
until he retired at the age of 62. But he stayed with his church, and
became a deacon.
Junior and Marilyn's first child,
Constance Carol Crews (Jackson) was born August 4, 1946. Six and a
half years later, Kathleen June Crews (Wylder) came into the world on
December 30, 1952. Junior and Marilyn loved the outdoors, and took
their girls on extended camping trips to many of the National Parks
and Monuments, including Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, Wind Cave,
Mount Rushmore, the Great Smokies, and Mammoth Cave.
Junior set his own pace. One legendary
story happened on the trip to Mammoth Cave, when, fascinated by all
the cave formations, he lagged so far behind the tour group that the
lights were being turned off just behind him.
Junior wasn't perfect. He had a temper,
as well as a streak of stubbornness. That stubborn streak may have
kept him alive for many years longer than anyone expected him to
live. Decades of working in Davenport's sewer system had given him a
case of emphysema. But he lived to be ninety, and was physically
strong into his eighties.
I didn't get to know Junior until 1972,
when he was fifty, and I was courting his daughter Kathleen. He
seemed a bit scary at first—he was protective of his little
girl--but when it was clear my intentions were honorable he helped
Kathleen and me immensely. During the summer of 1973, before Kathleen
and I were married, he took her to estate sales and secondhand shops
to get furniture and tools for us. We still have the table he found,
along with some tools that will last for generations longer. And when
he learned I loved trains, he found two Milwaukee Road railroad
lanterns and a switch lock from the Davenport, Rock Island and
Northwestern (the DRI Line) for me. I worried a bit about the switch
lock, but so far as I know, there weren't any derailments on the
line.
After he retired, he remained active.
He and Marilyn spent many summers at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin,
where they kept a trailer and Junior fished on the Mississippi. We
enjoyed the bass and Northern Pike he caught in abundance. When our
children were born he made child-size furniture, as well as doll beds
for the girls. And when we moved to Indiana he came up and put up
that fence in our backyard.
He was deeply in love with Marilyn
right up to the end. In early August, when both of them were in the
Good Samaritan Rehabilitation Center, they were able to eat together
in the dining room. It was wonderful to see them together, for even
in poor health they treasured each other's company.
When I posted a brief notice of
Junior's passing on Facebook, a friend of ours wrote, “I enjoyed
meeting him and will always remember Kathleen calling him an 'old
coot' with fondness in her voice.”
He loved and supported his wife and
family, and was generous to all. I was privileged to be his
son-in-law.
