My memories about of my Grandpa Bare are vague and assisted by old home movies (That I seem to have misplaced).
I remember once or possibly twenty times going to the old home place to visit. Once Dad was taking some movies with his old 8mm. There I am running up and down the little hill in front of the house. At least once Grandma Bare tries to hold me and Anita to pose for the picture. Vaguely it seems that Grandpa Bare told us to hold still all the while Dad tried to explain that he was taking moving pictures. In that old movie you can see Grandpa Bare already walking in the shuffling steps I remember from the short time he lived with us. I look to be about 6 years old (1958?) in that old movie. I paused here to look up Grandpa Bare’s birth date And behold I have placed my copy of the family history in some secure place I can’t find.
I remember the day that the grandparents Bare came for a meal. Anita and I did something. (I deny being the instigator, though I probably was). But when Dad threatened to spank me Grandma Bare interceded. “You won’t spank him; he didn’t do anything.” Dad responded that I was his child and he would give me a spanking if he decided to. I don’t recall a spanking or the argument going further. My mom years later related that this was the first time my dad had stood up to his mother. I don’t remember Grandpa Bare saying anything. Though he might have.
The last year or so of his life he lived with us. Anita has already told of her sitting on his lap eating ice cream. I remember her on his lap with the Sunday comics, I think she was reading them to him.
The day he had one of his spells, they called it hardening of the arteries, I think they were what we would call mini strokes. He had walked out of the house arguing with dad about the need to go unhitch the horses. The boys had left them all hitched up. After a brief argument he asked dad where was the barn? Dad pointed out an old shed across the pasture north of our house about half a block away. Grandpa Bare then told him “That quite a ways, I think the boys can take care of those horses.”
Those times were rare. Most of the time he shuffled around the house or quietly sat. I remember mom being worried about him carrying my baby sister Patti around. Afraid he might stumble and fall. Yet she wouldn’t deny him the pleasure.
One day shortly after Patti was born, she had been talking to someone at the door, holding patti in her arms. When she came in and shut the door, he was concerned at first. He thought someone had left the baby behind.
During meals he would butter his bread. Seemed he couldn’t eat with out some bread. And when we had peas, he would eat them with his knife.
