Gigi loved Gigipa! A few years ago, she wrote a tribute for Gigipa, for his 75th birthday/Father's Day...
A Father’s Day Tribute
I’d like to share some data not yet recorded in a modern-day computer, but just in my God-given computer about yours truly, Roy Elmer Wester.
He was born on June 3, 1922 in a private maternity room in an Iowa farm home near Cleghorn. His parents, Elmer and Mabel Wester were both descendants of Swedish immigrants. Events of his childhood have only been mentally recorded as bits and pieces of information were shared by his parents and seven siblings. No doubt much information has been lost or forgotten through the years, but we all know about his lifetime ability to figure out how things work and to fix them if they didn’t.
School was not his first love, but farming was. He just couldn’t wait for those eighth grade county exams and freedom. His skill at milking cows, pitching manure, harnessing horses, slopping pigs, stacking bundles and straw at threshing time, bailing hay and picking corn by hand was not to be outdone by anyone.
At age 21 Uncle Sam had other plans for him. This physically fit young man was a choice inductee in the U.S. Army’s First Cavalry Division in November of 1943. He “marched in the infantry, shot the artillery”, was shot by the enemy and is still “in the Lord’s army”. He was rewarded with a Purple Heart, Bronze Arrowhead, Presidential Citation and four battle stars after serving 19 month in the Asiatic Pacific theater during World War II. He was on board the Missouri battleship off the shores of Japan when the peace treaty was signed and a short time later he received an honorable discharge after two years and 2 months of military service.
After returning home, he recovered from a number of bouts of malaria and tried to adjust to life on the farm after the war. He batched and farmed and waited for me to decide to be a farmer’s wife. That took awhile!
But after the I do’s on February 14, 1953 and a honeymoon trip to Florida, life really began. We had four kids in the next six years and wonder now how we ever made it. His patience, my management, and help from the grandparents were all necessary those early child rearing years. It took some changes to become a farm homemaker and mother of four after almost thirteen years of being a college student, teacher and career woman with paid vacations. Maybe now by this time Roy was thinking bachelorhood wasn’t so bad after all—at least he was his own boss then!
What busy years the 70’s were! We were FCYF sponsors, had countless parties, four high school graduations, built a new home, helped Loren start farming, Colleen and Paul, Loren and Darla and Carol and Gerald were married and Lowell was off to college and a teaching career. Lots of fun and excitement have been added to our lives since the eight grandchildren arrived. There were birthday parties,
swimming parties at the pond and now we’ve seen half of them graduated from high school.
Roy bought his first car, a Model T Ford, for 5 dollars so he could drive his siblings and neighborhood kids to school. Roy owned a black Ford Coupe, a Chevrolet, ’51 Crown Victoria Ford, Mercury, Buick Le Sabre, Roadmaster Buick (with electric windows), a maroon Wildcat, a blue ’70 Buick, three Shaklee cars (Monte Carlo, Buick Le Sabre, and a Buick Regal coupes) and is presently driving a ’98 Oldsmobile and a Ford conversion van both ’86 models. He’s determined to make 200,000 plus miles on both of them so don’t look for a new car in his garage just yet.
In case you are interested in more data, Roy has also driven horses, mules, ponies, cars, tractors, trucks, combines, bicycles, and spends a lot of time now driving lawn mowers (since I’ve retired from that job).
He’s ridden on ponies and horses, cattle train cabooses, troop trains, El and subway trains, street cars, buses and roller coasters. He did remark that after riding five one evening at Sandusky, Ohio in ’95 and the last the highest in the world at the time, that he was retiring from roller coaster riding at the age of 73.
He’s sailed on a rowboat, speedboat, sailboat, schooner, the Queen, a river paddle wheeler, a troop ship, LST boat, ferry, and a dug-out canoe. He’s flown on a seaplane in Canada, Jesse Schlicting’s private plane to Minneapolis, 747s to San
Francisco, Toronto, Hawaii, Austria and Zaire, an MAF plane over the grasslands and jungles of Africa and in a hot air balloon in Colorado.
He has driven in all 50 states and 8 provinces of Canada, been in Mexico, the Admiralty Islands, New Guinea, the Philippines, Japan, Holland, Germany, Austria, France, Central African Republic and Zaire. He’s crossed the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Arctic Circle and Equator, the Continental Divide, Rockies, Cascades, Sierras and Appalachians and traveled in the Alps of Europe. He has driven to Alaska and visited over 50 of our national parks.
Throughout his lifetime he has farmed, raised cattle, hogs and chickens, cut down and planted trees, dug ditches and bull thistles, tore down, moved and built buildings, and done lots of electric wiring and fencing. He has had no fear of heights, but has little love for swimming, golf or other sports. He excels at all kinds of puzzles, 3-D and jig saw puzzles and table games that challenge his strategic mental skills. He has not mastered the typewriter or computer but can do mental calculating that the younger generation can’t do.
Roy still has the first tractors that he bought as a young farmer…International Harvester B and M Farmall, and a lot of junk that he sees as treasures that could be used sometime. The challenge now is knowing where to find it. He has spent his retirement years on the farm helping Loren with machinery and tractor repair work, traveling, and if we can’t find him we know he’s probably playing with his acetylene torch in the grove. The iron pile is getting higher and I’m looking forward to the day when it gets moved!
Although he has not been an avid reader in the past, he finds time for that each day and has read the Bible through twice in the past two years. He served on the church board at Oakdale as missionary financial secretary and trustee for many years. His hearing and eyesight are failing, he’s missing some hair, tonsils and gallbladder, knees are wearing out, but he still has a HEART OF GOLD and is NUMBER ONE in my book at age 75!
Written in 1997 by His Wife of 44 years,
Elsie J Wester
