Family
Perspectives on Parenting©
by Nancy Lambert Davenport
Nancy Davenport's Column:
For Richardson News 06-20-99
Copyright Nancy Lambert Davenport 1999
"Father"
When I bring my father to mind, I picture him reading. He was not one of these people who lounged around and made reading look like a waste of time. No, he sat with his back ramrod straight in a chair. He made it seem as if he was clearly getting something constructive done.
And he was. He devoured history, especially that of Texas and the military. As a result History reports for school were easy for me. I simply interviewed my father. The bibliography was sometimes tricky. I was never sure how to give credit to some obscure book which my father simply discussed.
Daddy even met my mother in a library where he was researching a book he was writing on the history of the Second Cavalry. My mother was the librarian. Legend has it that when she asked him if he would like to check out a book, he said no, that instead he would like to check out the librarian. My mother was 24. My father was 42, a career cavalry officer, deeply attached to history and his horse in that order. He fell hard.
His love of reading was possibly spawned when he was a little boy working as a printer's devil on a small newspaper in central Texas. He had a brief soirée as a reporter with The Austin American as a college student before World War I. During that time he was lured into the National Guard and went to the Texas/Mexico border to keep an eye on Pancho Villa and his buddies. There he stayed for the duration of World War I with a brief time away for Officer Training School. He wrote of boredom and dust and mud while he was there. My guess is that he was bored because he had little opportunity to read.
In spite of the great difference in our ages, (he was 50 when I was born) we had a good relationship as far as it went. He was always very formal and polite with me. He held doors for me even when I was a child. When I was a teenager I remember he had the habit of his generation of guiding me by taking my elbow when we walked together. I hated that, but it never occurred to me to tell him. It would hurt his feelings.
He often spoke fondly of his mother whom he supported until she died not long after I was born. I remember him trying to tell me about her and her hard life. I wish I had listened because she was born before the War Between the States. She was well into her 40's when she had Daddy. I don't think she was a reader and learner as my father was, but it was clear she did not discourage it in him.
I am grateful for that. Because of the example he and my mother set for enjoyment of reading, I can look three generations beyond them now and see readers at every turn of the genealogical chart. As a result, I see more clearly that the standards and values we help set in our children don't just affect them. We are also affecting their children and grandchildren and beyond. At the very least, it makes me want to weigh my words and actions a bit more carefully. And this is all thanks to my father just sitting reading - and clearly loving it. Happy Fathers' Day!
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Nancy Lambert Davenport
EMAIL: nancdave@swbell.net
URL: http://www.nancyldavenport.com