He was raised near Manchester, New Hampshire. His father died when he was a toddler and he was obliged to quit school when he was 13 or so in order to work full time in the local mill. He wanted to continue his education so he would go to the local library in his precious free time and taught himself as much as he could, eventually putting himself through business school. He learned to be a plumber and started a business with his best friend ("Eckhardt and Johnson, Heating and Plumbing"). His Swedish friend, Jimmy Johnson, had a beautiful sister who worked as a telephone operator. They got married and had one child, my grandmother. As he earned money, he began to buy apartments and rent them out. Little by little he lifted his small family out of poverty and into a comfortable middle class lifestyle. My grandmother can remember fresh milk being delivered by a horse drawn carriage in an actual ice box. When the Great Depression hit and his tenants couldn't make rent, he lost everything to the banks. He started back over from zero afterwards and built up new properties all over again until he could afford a second home in Florida and he and my great-grandmother would spend half the year in New Hampshire and half in Florida.
He was my Dad's favorite relative growing up. He loved to go and spend time visiting his grandparents and to this day can recite limericks and funny aphorisms he learned from his grandfather. My grandmother adored and worshiped her father for his humor and warmth. If I had a penny for every time I heard her tell the tale of how he wouldn't just knock on a door but would rap out a melody with his knuckles, I'd be a rich man. I regret never getting to know him, but, despite only having one child himself, now he has five great grandchildren and (as of this writing) four great-great grandchildren.
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