Neither rich nor poor; but a good father

Happy Father’s Day to my Daddy in heaven. 

I am the first born of his four children. I was born in his thirty-second year.  During his adult life he was a farmer, a bricklayer and a security guard.  For forty-seven years he was my father.   

My dad was born between two world wars and soon after the Great Depression.  He was the fourth child and the only son of Herman and Gertrude; both of German Lutheran descent from Australia’s south.  He was also born left handed. That was soon beaten out of him at school. 

Times were tough for most Australians and especially for my father’s family in the 1930s and 40s. His parents did not own land, although extended family did.  Land would come later when they moved to Queensland in his teens. His father gained work wherever he could and the family moved often.  His most memorable childhood Christmas was when each of the five children received a gift of a new comb and a violet crumble. 

In Dad’s notes for his funeral, he listed his favourite Bible verse as Proverbs 30:8 “Keep me from lying, and let me be neither rich nor poor.” By contemporary standards, Dad did not die a wealthy man.  He was neither rich nor poor.  One of his proudest achievements was purchasing and owning, without debt the family home on acreage.  It mattered a lot to him to bequeath that to his son; something his own father was unable to do for him. 

Dad was always careful with money and budgeted well.  He was a man of modest means with creative and entrepreneurial sidelines.  He was from an era where little was dumped and much was recycled.  This was especially evident in his shed, where old machinery was pulled apart and spare parts stored.  As a child, I would laugh that my father must be the only one who came back from the rubbish dump with as much as he took.

Dad never struck me as an ambitious man, but he did have an optimistic outlook with many personal goals and hobbies.  Right up to the year he died at 79 years of age, he was still planting trees and planning his next holiday.  Only months earlier my sister and I had travelled to China with him. 

As I reflect on his life; a somewhat ordinary life, I remember a loving father (and father in law, grandfather and great grandfather) who always had time for his family. Whilst he did not have much money to spare, he always had home grown produce to share and some ‘treasure’ in his shed that enabled him to create or fix something for one of his family. 

I agree with Billy Graham “A good father is one of the most unsung, unpraised, unnoticed and yet one of the most valuable assets in our society.”  Thanks Dad for being a good father.