Post Number 101: Dedicated to My Three Sons

I notice I've published a hundred posts here, so this one's for and about generations. You have probably heard that we've discovered a living first cousin of mine on my dad's side, my dad's nephew, his brother Jesse's youngest son, Robert. He lives with his wife, Nancy, in Wisconsin, and we hope to drop in and meet him this summer on our trip north. And he has researched and written a wonderful history of the paternal side of the family, and sent us a copy. I hope to get another for each of you to hang onto for that time when people start to wonder where they came from--no, not that way, the geneology way--if they live long enough.

In Cousin Bob's book he talks a lot about your great-grandfather, John Yoder Kauffman, who lived with him in Ann Arbor, Michigan till his passing at age 89 in 1935. Reading about what this man did is astonishing. Son of an Amish-Mennonite minister, he raised his family in a log cabin near Bellefontaine, Ohio on their farm. They had five sons and two daughters from 1880 to 1893. The older children were born in that log cabin, but the younger ones were born in a three-story big farmhouse he built nearby with his own hands.

Together they worked hard and farmed the land. John Yoder and Ida Christine managed to put every one of their children through college. Then they fanned out, some to missionary work and preaching, some to teaching and education, some to engineering, medicine, forestry and other fields. Some, however, stayed and helped with the farm.

But John Yoder wasn't content with just farming after the family was raised. Eventually he sold the farm and started a metal products manufacturing plant in Bellefontaine, making wheels and rims for Detroit carmakers where he moved. Some of the sons helped him till he retired and moved to Ann Arbor with Cousin Bob in his final years. One day in May of 1935 , at age 89, your great-grandfather picked up his golf clubs and walked two miles across the university city to a municipal golf course and played nine holes. On his way back he stopped for ice cream, Bob writes, and by the time he got home he was finally tired. Deep-down tired. He told them that night in bed, "I am very tired. I don't think I will make it through the night." And that night your great-grandfather John Yoder Kauffman died in his sleep.

The things that man did, considering the times that he did those things is, I think, amazing. Reading about my grandfather's enterprising, God-fearing life, progenation of more than twice the number of children your mother and I raised (and we thought we had our hands full with only three!), no special benefit of education or training himself beyond what he learned from his father and from experience, it made me feel like a real slaggard myself, despite my humble achievements. Kind of makes you realize what's maybe possible in one life, doesn't it. And Grandfather Kauffman is just one of many in Cousin Bob's book whose lives, character, and achievements we can be justly proud of.