My Grandpa

It’s not often a person turns 40 years old and can say she still has a living grandparent. But I did. I could also say my grandfather had met both of my children, something they may not remember but I am certainly glad they did. I think he was glad to meet them, too.

My grandfather, Joseph John Sturm, Jr., was born on August 1, 1933 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His father carved burial stones (and quite beautifully) and his mother was a homemaker. When he was seven-and-a-half, he would finally have a sibling, his brother David. (Although, I’m not sure if anyone saw them in a crowd they would pick them out as brothers. They don’t look very similar.) The one time we were in Milwaukee, we drove around a tour of his life and he told stories of growing up there. Just as he was as an old man, he was a child and a teenager: mischievous. Not the rob-a-bank kind of trouble, but the twinkle-in-your-eye kind of mischief. Rather like my son…

I’m not sure he was done with high school when he met my grandmother. She had come to Milwaukee (from upper peninsula Michigan) to attend a Catholic girl’s college there, the town where one of her elder sisters lived. The college would allow boys from the local Catholic churches to come for dances there, and my grandfather attended them. They would marry shortly after meeting in June of 1953, when my grandmother was just turned 23 and my grandfather not quite 20. Just over a year later they would become parents when my dad was born.

My dad was four when they moved to Tennessee, a surge of Catholic Yankees moving to the Southern Bible-belt for jobs with Heil Quaker. They would live there until the late 70s, raising my dad and his five sisters (one who died as an infant) until they moved to Iowa, near family, in an attempt to start their own business. By then, my dad had married my mom and would announce in 1979 that I was on my way, prompting my grandfather to respond, “But I’m too young to be a grandfather.” He was only 46 when I was born (which would be like Ed becoming a grandfather this year instead of having a third child). Despite his youth, I think he took to being a grandpa pretty well.

This past weekend, I spent some time finding pictures of my grandfather with his grandkids (fifteen of them) or great-kids (going on twelve of them). It was both fun and bittersweet to remember past times with him. I can’t say we saw my grandparents very often as I grew up, for we didn’t live near them until I was sixteen and then for only three years. (In Texas where they had moved in 1985 just as we left Texas and went to Tennessee, so they bought the house my parents had built down there.) But the times we did see them were always fun. Even if my grandfather was never in good enough health to play around with us, he liked to tease and enjoy our company. As I got older, it was more fun to watch him tease my grandmother. (Who was Polish, so 95% of the jokes and teasing went completely over her head. Which was the truly funny part.) 

I have been very blessed to have a grandfather for forty years of my life. And while I’m sad that he is now gone, I am glad he is now with his Savior in Heaven. As Emry said when the tears came the week he died, “Don’t cry, Mama. You’ll see him in Heaven when you die.” And I will.

 My first meeting with Grandpa and Grandma Sturm. He had a head full of dark hair then – something I have no memory of. (The mustache would come and go over the years.)

Grandpa and Grandma with their grandkids in 1986. (From left to right, my sister Katey, brother Daniel, me, cousin Candace, and cousin Lauren.)

The Sturm men in 1998: (L to R), my brother Daniel, Grandpa’s brother David, Grandpa, my brother Caleb, and my dad. 

 Me and Grandpa in 2008, the summer after my grandmother died.

Grandpa meets Emry, Thanksgiving 2015.

And now Grandpa meets Ethan, summer 2017.