May 14

Bertha and Harold Motte with Betty and Harold Jr., Spring 1947.

Daddy died May 14, 1960. It was the night of my Junior-Senior dance at McClenaghan High School. I was a junior, only 16 years old. Daddy died of a heart attack in the night, after I had come home from the dance, told him goodnight and went to bed.

I still miss him, but these days I picture him working on some piece of machinery, a motor or engine, but something far more high-tech than the Singer sewing machines he worked on at home and at Sears, or the airplane engines he worked on in WWII. He was in the Army Air Corps, before the Air Force was made a separate branch.

I can just see my daddy Harold and Tim’s daddy T.C. head to head, collaborating on something or other in a workshop in heaven. T.C. Cox also worked on airplane engines during the war, as a member of the National Guard or Reserves. That home service was mandatory in the war, not voluntary as it is today. They didn’t know each other here on earth, but somehow I’m sure they know each other now.

It has been sixty years now since daddy was transferred from earth to heaven but sometimes it seems like just the other day. I love you, daddy.