Valentine's Day makes people think of the word 'love'. A special man was born on Valentine's Day, February 14, 1893. When this man was 43 years old, to his surprise, a baby girl entered his life when he thought his family was complete as it was. This little girl loved her hard working Daddy very much.
Times were hard and it was during the "Great Depression". This man was a farmer and money was very scarce.
As tired as he was when he would come in from the fields for lunch, he still took the time to play a few minutes with a lonesome little girl. The little girl never had to be spanked but a time or two in her life. You see, this Daddy had 'that look' that he could get and the little girl knew she had better behave. The Daddy was not a very demonstrative man but the little girl knew he loved her.
The little girl grew up and the Daddy grew old. One of the most special times for the little girl was this one.
The grown up little girl and her husband had this Daddy for only six short years after their marriage. The grown up little girl had never lost a close loved one in her life. She will never forget watching the funeral home director close the lid on the casket and know she wouldn't see her Daddy again.
The grown up little girl had dreams every night of her Daddy for six months after his death. She felt if she didn't stop dreaming of her Daddy so much that her nerves would completely unravel. She asked the Lord to help her with this problem.
One night in her sleep she had yet another dream. In the dream there was a knock on her front door. Upon opening the door she saw her Daddy standing there dressed in his overalls like he always wore on the farm. When the door was opened he looked at his little girl and said, "Gal, I've come back to be with you for a little while". (The Daddy always called his little girl "gal".) They sit together on her couch in her living room and talked. The dream ended. The grown up little girl stopped dreaming about her Daddy every night after that dream. She felt that the Lord knew how much she was hurting and He sent her Daddy to her in a dream to comfort her.
This special man was my Daddy. He was a good man who loved people and never met a stranger. He was not a person who categorized people into different classes. For him, he was just as comfortable around what other people would call 'low class' people as he was around the 'upper crust' of society. He loved to talk, joke and laugh. I can still hear that infectious laughter over a good joke or prank.
He taught me that a person's character was about the most important thing you could have. We may have been poor and not had much in the way of worldly goods but we were rich because Daddy passed down to me his 'good' name. I was rich as a child simply because of the fact that I may have been poor but I was happy. I had a Daddy who portrayed more actions of happiness to his little girl in those hard years than he did worry.
I remember one incident that when I think back on it now it must have hurt Daddy very much. I was a very young child. He was getting ready to go to town. I went to him and asked him if he would buy me a stick of peppermint candy. He sadly looked at me and said, "Gal, I can't. I've got to buy a sack of flour today". Oh how it must have hurt Daddy to know he could not even buy his little girl a penny stick of candy!
Daddy taught me to be independent. Once in our early married days we were having a rough time financially. The plant where my husband worked started shutting down one week out of every month which meant we were one pay check short each month. We had a little boy two years old and another child on the way. This took a great toll on my husband's health. He wound up in the hospital for two weeks with a kidney infection and almost not being able to breathe because of nerves. After several days my parents came over to visit him. I had driven them to the hospital. On the way back to our house Daddy asked, "Gal, do you need any money?" My hands gripped the steering wheel of the car and very quickly I said, "No Sir". I stared straight ahead and suddenly I felt something drop in my lap. I looked and there lay $100.00! He taught me to be independent but I'm telling you, at that moment that $100.00 looked like a gold mine and I accepted it very gratefully!! We paid every penny back, gradually I will have to admit because of our financial situation. I remember my husband giving Daddy the last $10.00 but instead of two fives we had included an extra five because we had appreciated Daddy so much. But Daddy looked at the bills and calmly handed one back to my husband saying, "You have given me $5.00 too much".
He didn't have much but he wanted to help his children. Before we bought our first home we had seen one that we were excited about but knowing we couldn't afford it. Daddy heard us talking about it and later he came to me and said, "Gal, if y'all need a little money to get that house I'll help you". I had to tell him that we loved him for offering but it was a house we could not afford. HE JUST WANTED TO HELP HIS LITTLE GIRL.
This special Daddy was born on Valentine's Day, February 14, 1893 and passed away September 28, 1961. This is dedicated to the memory of my Father, Julius Rex Hall.