March 29, 1936 — June 6, 2003

For what seem nearly unaccountable reasons, Dad really seemed to like us. Four very out-looking and alive sons and a daughter in the middle with a sweetly implacable world-view; it must've been terribly hard sometimes and I know it was. He was naturally philosophical about it all though, when he could take the time. Reflecting on a real terror of one of our cousins when I was about twelve, he said, "Give me five more like that one and I could destroy the world." He was grateful for his own blessings when he could count them.

Sitting around after breakfast one Sunday morning, the man had nothing going on in his life but his five brats and the woman who was the love of his life. He might have gone off for a round of golf, but he didn't play -- except on pressing invitation from the parish priest and and Mr. Miller up the the hill. There must have been any number of things that would have occupied that kind of time in many mens' lives, but he sat there sipping a cup of coffee, smoking Pall-Malls (the fresh-lit aroma of which is an enduring treasure in my memories), and drawing for us diagrams of a V-8 internal combustion engine. Valves, lifters, camshaft, crankshaft, electrics, fueling, piston cycles, variations on design details; he sat there with us for hours, giving Michael and I our first real understanding of these machines in an unforgettable expense of his time.

"The Little Kids" (Agnes, Bryan, and Stephen, in order) were out playing in the yard or something as this impromptu session ran its length for hours. It just happened that the three of us had caught a spark of mutual interest, and Dad was naturally interested in the fact that our minds were now big enough to see these things. He made all the most of it for us.

His way was with a sharp outlook for each of his childrens' interests. He was keen to understand us as individuals. Sometimes that was very difficult: to the end of his life, he referred to his third son as "Bryan, Son of Mine", which would seem odd considering that he had three others, but it signified his long, long struggle to get Bryan at all. He loved every revelation as they came to him as the boy grew up (and on Bryan's own time), and it was a beautiful thing to watch because the principles reached all of us: he loved us for what we were and he knew how to do that. His guiding principles had everything to do with that. In large part he made us what we are, but only in the general strokes. He put up with all the disappointments that all parents must endure, and then he kept an eye on the best in each of us, took his satisfactions in what he had to do with that much of the project, and then he seemed to enjoy us as adults as much as he did when we were kids.


It's only in looking back six years on his death that I can possibly think that I didn't have enough of him. That's how that goes. As we lived it, though, that's not true, and what I got from him is priceless.

William J. Beck, Jr. -- c. 1993, with grand-daughter Hillary Claire Beck