October Festivities

It has been almost a year since I wrote my first blog post on Halloween of 2010. I shared some things about Halloween in the first couple of blog posts I wrote. My husband's birthday is near Halloween on October 26th. This year he will be 78 years old on his birthday. When we were kids that was considered old. We may look like seniors, but we still think like younger folk. We may have more wisdom than we did a number of years ago, but it is still hard for us to see ourselves as elderly. When the newspaper writes about someone in their sixties they refer to them as elderly so that must really mean we are old. Then when we walk down the street I can tell that we are not as young as we used to be as we have slowed down significantly.

My father did not have the chance to get to be a senior. Dad was only 53 years old when he died from kidney cancer. He was a hard worker all of his life, until the very end. Mom and Dad painted houses together for many years. They started painting together after World War II and continued into the sixties. Mom was still painting even after Dad died. Dad was born in Washington DC on October 16, 1911 and died in November of 1964 in Chula Vista, California. He was the ninth child in a family of nine children. He was the seventh son and was twenty years younger than his oldest brother. He was the only one born in a hospital of all nine children. He became an uncle at the young age of one year old when his sister had her first child.

Dad told about the time he was playing in Rock Creek Park in Washington DC and saw President Wilson go past where he was playing. That is how I can remember who was president when Dad was a child in Washington. Dad and part of his family moved to California when he was nine years old. Granddad came to San Diego to work at North Island where he was until he retired. They moved to the house on Third and F in Coronado soon after they came to San Diego. This is the house that I consider the family home as my grandparents were there the rest of their lives. After Grandma died in 1960 the family sold the house and there have been several owners, but I still call it Grandma's house. My Grandfather died early in the 1950s. He would have been in his seventies.

I did not meet all of my father's siblings as not all of them came to California. Many were adults when the family headed west. Some visited in Coronado over the years, but at least one never came so Dad never saw him again after he was nine years old. I knew most of his brothers and one sister though. I also did not know all of my cousins. My sisters and I were the youngest set of cousins of my dad's family. There were one or two cousins Donna's age, but I doubt any as young as my youngest sister Betty. We had cousins almost as old as Dad that we did not ever see or communicate with.

If I remember the story correctly some of Dad's siblings were actually born in the west, but they moved east before my dad was born. So some of the ones who were born in the west ended up staying in the east most of their lives. And Dad who was born in the east ended up living in the west most of his life. I have a niece who knows all the details, much more than I know. She even corrected me on one cousin's name. I always thought grandma called him Luke. I don't really know what his real name is. And my niece said we spell Grandma's maiden name wrong. At least she knows the correct way to spell it.

The reason I wanted to talk about my father, R. Eugene McDonaugh, aka Gene, is because he would be one hundred years old if he were still with us. A century is quite a landmark event in history. I miss my father even more today than I did when he was first gone. The pastor we had when Daddy died visited him in the hospital along with Paul and a friend of ours. Dad was in very bad condition but they said he accepted the Lord. I hope Dad knew what was going on enough to really have accepted Jesus as his Savior. I want to believe that I will see him again someday.

Daddy was young at heart and he looked young too. It seems to be a family trait. He has been gone almost half a century and I can see him clearly in my minds eye. I wish that he had been here longer so my children would have a much clearer memory of him. My boys were too young to remember, but the girls may remember some things. Daddy was the same age as Laura is now when he died. So young.

My sister Donna will celebrate her birthday on October 18th, two days after we remember Dad's birthday. She is younger than me, yet she has passed the seventy milestone. Donna is certainly young at heart. She has always looked younger than she is. That can be a blessing when we are older. When she was younger it was sometimes an inconvenience. Another family trait is that she is a hard worker like Mom and Dad. She was the one that pushed buttons and made Betty and me keep on keeping on when work needed to be done when we were kids. I may have been the mother hen, but Donna was often at the top of the pecking order even though she was the middle child.

Donna has not had an easy time as she had to divorce her first husband and was a single mother for a number of years. Arthur and Debra kept her challenged. Donna kept the home in order and worked very hard at a fabric store too. She also did a lot of sewing for people as well as for herself. It was a blessing when after a number of years she met and married Fred Guapo. Fred had a young son who has since grown to be a fine young man. Donna's son Arthur has been missing since 1994 and we know that something happened to him for him to not be seen all these many years. As soon as he went missing we feared the worst. Nothing has changed since then. It must be hard for Donna to have a missing son. It breaks my heart as his aunt. My prayer is for us to someday find out what happened to Arthur. May we be able to see Arthur and all of our loved ones someday in heaven. Then we can really celebrate.

We have more October birthdays to celebrate. My nephew Matthew Hamilton has an October birthday. He enjoys Halloween so I try to find a cute Halloween card for his birthday. Matthew dresses with quite a flair. He likes to wear black and that is his signature in his attire. Nothing sloppy about him as he puts together his wardrobe. He likes to have a hand in the life of his nephew and niece too. Matthew and at least one of his brothers live in their family home in Billings. Both of their parents are no longer with us. Betty and Sam died much too soon. Thankfully they left a nice home for their kids.

I have several friends with October birthdays. I won't even try to list them as I would feel bad if I left out one of my friends. At least one of my friends does not like having her birthday so close to Halloween. It is a dark day to celebrate. I just remember the fun times we had as children on Halloween. And then when my children were young we enjoyed making up costumes and going trick or treating. But I can understand why someone would not like that day. We do not want to celebrate the bad spirits, ghosts and goblins and witches.

We need to celebrate life. Jesus died to give us life and we need to celebrate the life we have in Him. Darkness and light cannot coexist. Jesus is the light of the world.

So in October we can remember the loved ones whose birthdays we celebrate. We can remember the ones who have gone on before us. This is the time of year we think of autumn leaves and all the pretty colors of fall. Pumpkins and apples and other seasonal fruit remind us of God's many blessings.

family portrait is of Gene and Ida McDonaugh
and their daughters Caroline, Donna and Betty
the day Donna graduated from eighth grade
in Coronado.
The next photo is Donna's senior picture- 1956