THINGS I LEARNED FROM MY GRANDDAD, Phil Ward © 2018

A wonderful thing has happened over the last few years—my wife and I have become grandparents. And not just once, but three times. Seems like the Ward clan is suddenly taking seriously the biblical admonition to “be fruitful and multiply”.

Having grandkids around has gotten me thinking a bit about my own Granddad. He was 97 when he died and has been gone for over a decade, but his influence still looms large in my life.

Granddad grew up on the farm that his folks established on the rich bottomland bordering the Willamette River. My father was born on that farm and my wife and I raised our children on it. Sometimes on a sunny morning I just stand on the front porch and soak it all in—the quiet, the scenery, the heritage. It’s that heritage that I am most thankful for.

I wish everyone could have a granddad like mine. He never really talked about values, but there never was any uncertainty about what his were to those who knew him. He never talked about working hard, but he was the hardest-working man I’ve ever known. He never preached about family loyalty, but every time there was a need, he was the first one there to make sure it was met.

Granddad was not an educated man; he left school after eighth grade graduation to work in the logging camps and help support the family, but his three children hold six college degrees among them. He was not an eloquent man, but the things he said were always consistent with the things he did. He was not a rich man, but even in hard times, he always had enough to care for his own and some to share.

He did many different things in his lifetime. He farmed, he logged, he rafted logs on the Willamette River never knowing how to swim; he drove truck. He did what was necessary. When my father was a boy, Granddad bargained with him that if he didn’t smoke or drink until his 18^th birthday, he would buy him a new car. When that day came, Granddad had to sell several cows to make it happen, but Dad had his new car.

When there was a hard, unpleasant, or dangerous job to do, Granddad was always willing to do it. I clearly remember helping him build a new machine-shed as a 19 –year-old college student. He was in his 70’s and I tried in vain to get him to let me finish up the high parts of that slick metal roof. As he motioned me down to the ground he winked and said: “Son, mine is pretty much behind me; yours is all ahead.”

Though he never thought of it in these terms, he was a good steward of the land. His motivations were more practical than environmental, but he had a good sense of what was needed to keep the farm from washing down the river. He kept a thick buffer of brush and trees between the river and his cropland to ensure that his orchards never got the brunt of the high water.

One of the many things I have appreciated about living and working among rural people is that there are many who remind me of my Granddad. People who hold those values of hard work, loyalty, integrity, and generosity that we all treasure. Good people, engaged in the business of making a living, raising a family, and contributing their values to society in manners small and great.

And society needs those values. It needs the values of those who have had to meet a payroll, bring in a crop before the weather hits, and face creditors after a bad harvest. Society needs the values of those who are found more often doing than saying. Values like those held by my Granddad.

Granddad. It’s not a very sophisticated moniker. But it’s what my grandkids are already learning to call me. I will proudly be Granddad to them in honor of the man I called by that name. I can only hope that someday they will remember me as I remember him.

Author: Phil Ward

Phil Ward is a 5th generation Oregonian who over the course of a 40 year professional career has served as a high school Agriculture Instructor, Executive Vice President of the Oregon Farm Bureau, Director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture and Oregon Department of Water Resources, and State Director of USDA’s Farm Service Agency. He lives with his wife Pam on a piece of the home farm south of Independence, near the Willamette River. View all posts by Phil Ward