My Grandfather

I never met him.

He was born in 1905 and died in 1952.

I don’t think I saw a picture of him until I was in my 40s.

He was involved in the deaths of at least two women. The first one during a traffic accident near Norman, Oklahoma in the 1920s and the last one involving a drunken episode with his young secretary and shots fired from a .38 caliber pistol inside of a federal government vehicle on an unpaved Oklahoma road back in 1947.

From my relatively recent research, I’ve determined that he apparently died of TB inside of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, though I am not certain.

This is his federal government photograph.

He looks to be quite the handsome man.

I see the resemblance to my own father.

Grandfather (or whatever he would have been called) was 1/2 Cherokee. My own Dad, his son, is 1/4 Cherokee.

There are a million stories out there. And each man lives a life of quiet desperation.