space.template.Leah+DeWitt

11/29/10 (the formatting isn't correct here, but it's correct in my word document) Leah: My name is Leah DeWitt, and today I will be interviewing my mother, Sheila DeWitt. She will share memories of the late Arnold James Hobbs, her Daddy. Can you tell me your name, age, the date, and where we are? Sheila: My name is Sheila DeWitt, I am fifty years old, it is November 26, 2010, and we are currently at our home in Auburn, New Hampshire. Leah: Thank you very much. First I would like you to, uh, tell me a little bit about Daddy.

Sheila: So, he, he recently passed away, um, earlier this year… He was 81 years old. He was born in 1929 in the midst of the depression, and he was raised by his great grandparents. Primarily because, when he was a young boy, his father died of scarlet fever and they grandparents needed help on the farm, so he was raised on the farm. He spent his life as a truck driver, driving for a local quarry company. And even after he retired he continued to work, driving truck for local farmers.

Leah: And what was your relationship like, with your daddy?

Sheila: [pause] It was… It wasn’t a real close relationship… but we did a lot of father-daughter stuff together. We, um… I was the oldest, of three children, and… He was 30 years old when I was born, so he was a bit older. And, um, he used to take me everywhere; he used to take me fishing an’ hunting an’ out on the tractor and… um… Would treat me like a boy—like a… as if he had a little boy. So he would teach me how to do things: try to teach me to fix cars, try to teach me to, um, take care of the garden. In fact, I would want to do stuff like him, such as starting the tractor even when he wasn’t home. [laugh] He would, uh, he told me I wasn’t supposed to start the tractor, but I went out an’ turned the crank an’ weeded the garden when he wasn’t at home an’ ca— so that when he came home from work, I would surprise him. I was about… 12 or 13 years old.

Leah: You have any other memories, like that—vivid, er, a best memory of him, even?

Sheila: A best memory… There’s some… real key memories, you remember, growing up. You remember sights and smells. Um… ‘Member going fishing at George’s creek—and it wasn’t named George’s Creek, it was behind George’s house. Um… And whenever we went fishing—it was just him and I, on a Sunday afternoon—we would stop and get Mountain Dew and wintergreen, um, leaves—the little candy leaves—and eat those while we were fishing. Usually didn’t catch anything, but spent the afternoon drinking pop and, um, eating wintergreen leaves. Um… Remember gettin’ up early in the morning to go hunting with him, and also getting up, actually, late at night, an’ go spearing, prob’bly like eleven o’clock at night. On a school night, what I’d do is go to bed like at eight o’clock, sleep for a few hours, get up, we’d get our hip-boots on, an’ go driving to a creek, usually met up with some other friends, and it was really cool. Because the moon would be shining—it’d be a brisk, spring evening an’ we could hear the ripples in the water and see the fish, an’ we would spear the fish. Sometimes we caught stuff, most time we did, but not always. It was just the memory.

Leah: Is there anything about Daddy that you think that no one else knows?

Sheila: There’s sumpin’ I learned about… eight years ago or so that I don’t think many people know. And that is, um… He didn’t write letters, he didn’t write—do much writing at all. Um, when I turned forty-one, um, my husband put together a book of letters from friends an’, um, family through the years. And he asked, um, my family—my mom, my dad, my sister—to write letters, and, um, Daddy wrote a letter and sent it. An’ Joe didn’t even read it—Joe’s my husband—um, until I’d opened the present. And the letter started off, saying, “Skeez—” and by the way, his nickname for me was Skeezix, after the old cartoon character, um, Skeezix. Um, I think it was an old, 1940s cartoon... So he would call me Skeez. He said, “Skeez, Never wrote a letter before. This is the first one. Never was good at it.” And so, I have the only letter my dad ever wrote. Um… And part of that’s because he only went to the eighth grade. Like I told you, he helped with the grandparents, so he dropped out of school in eighth grade to help out on the farm. So, um, I don’t think many people knew he struggled with writing, and spelling, but he read books voraciously. He could read a Western by, um, Louis L’Amour in… two days. So, he had no problem reading—he was very bright. But he just had never learned how to write very well. Um, so I have his only written work of art.

Leah: Well, you sound really proud of him… Uh, are there any other things that you want to tell us? About what makes you so proud of him?

Sheila: Think one of the things, or a thing that stands out—and I had to think about this when, um, we had his memorial service—is… he didn’t have a lot in life… But he would give you the coat off his back. [Pause.] He was a very generous man, and [laugh] he would, he would “borrow” people money. This was a funny saying he had. He would say, if I went to lend you ten dollars, he didn’t say that he //lent// someone ten dollars, he “borrowed” you ten dollars. And… I’m sure he died, and people owed him money… more than we could ever have counted. But to him it didn’t matter. Um, he would give… anything away, before he would take something out of, uh, need. He was very proud himself and would never, um, take something without giving something in return. If, um… And we grew up pretty poor, so if somebody gave… gave us, um, food, um—you know that was left over from a bakery or something—he would give them something from the garden. In exchange for it. He never wanted to take, um, handouts, um, without earning them, working for them, and he actually… often complained about people that didn’t work for, um, what they… deserved. So, he didn’t take welfare, didn’t want welfare, um, didn’t respect people who, um, thought they were entitled to something without working for it. One thing he struggled with, and this—I struggled with it for years—is, he, um… He worked with some people who had college educations, who didn’t always… impress him. So when I wanted to go to college, he didn’t think a college education was… worth much. An’ he figured common sense was worth more than an education any day.

Leah: So, what do you miss most, about Daddy?

12/1/10 Sheila: I th—oh. There’s a lot of things I miss. [Pause] Prob’bly miss the phone calls, every other Sunday… Miss his… Miss his, uh, sayings. He would say, “I can’t do anything right!” Or he’d say, “Don’t know—Don’t wanna tell you what to do, BUT.” [Laugh] So he’d always have some advice. Um… I guess it’s the small things you re—that you miss about someone when they’re gone. Leah: The little things. What’s been the hardest thing about losing him? Sheila: Hm… That’s a tough question. The hardest thing… about losing him. [Sigh] I guess… You always regret… not talking more, not seeing each other more. In the last year he was alive, you know, we saw him like five times, so I don’t regret that. Mean there’s always you wanna see him more, but… You know, the thing I miss the most, is that what you said? Leah: Or what’s the hardest thing? Sheila: The hardest thing… I guess just… realizing he’s not… there. He’s not, he’s not out in the garden when we go to visit, he’s not laying down on the couch, he’s not reading a book, he’s… he’s not there. Leah: Well, if you’re comftorable with it, do you wanna talk about Daddy’s death? Sheila: Well that one’s a tough one! [Laugh] Um… Well, medically, I’ll explain that part. …Grab my tissue! He, um… My father smoked for… more than sixty years. He prob’bly started smoking when he was… fourteen or so. And, um, he got—he was diagnosed with lung cancer in… in April, 2010. Um… He wasn’t… Last time we saw him was at New Year’s, 2010, and he wasn’t feeling well. He had a cold, or so it seemed. And he went to the doctor, earlier than his appointment at the end of April. He went April ninth. Was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, which is terminal. And, um, he didn’t want any treatment. At all. And he’d already, um, made his wishes known. No heroic measures. On April 21st, he was hospitalized, because he could no longer walk at home, and he wasn’t eating. And we tried to rehydrate him, thinking it was dehydration. And that didn’t work, because the cancer had grown so fast and so big… And, um… The family decided, as Daddy wanted, to go off life support, um, the last week of April. And, um, I was there, before that. Um, the week before. We went out and visited with Leah and Dad, Joe. And, um… We though that was the last time we’d see him. I thought I’d say goodbye. And, um… We prayed for him and said we loved him. And a week later when, um, we decided to take him off life support, um, we knew it was a matter of time… But because he’d been rehydrated, um, it could take a while for his organs to shut down. Um, the one thing that… he didn’t want was to die in the hospital. But there was no way that we could take care of him at home—Grandma, my mother, couldn’t take care of him at home. Um… That’s one thing I guess we regret, is finding a way for him to die at home… In fact he tried, [Laugh] He tried to walk out of the hospital [Laugh] when we were there! And he got us to help him walk out, with his nightie coming open, and three of us helping him walk, he walked out into the hallway and had to stop. And he was gettin’ out of the hospital. He was lookin’ for his boots. Couldn’t find his boots. So he was going barefoot. And he was goin’ home. And he got as far as the hallway. And he couldn’t make it anymore. And I’ll never forget… He put his head down, and he said, “I’m done.” He knew he was done with life. He was ready to die. And when… When I said goodbye to him there, we had the nurses come and help us take him back into the room. We got in trouble. We weren’t supposed to let him walk out into that hallway. But he was a stubborn man, and he was going! So, it was too late—they couldn’t change it anyway. We just got in trouble and apologized. And, um… I’ll never forget the look on his face… It was like… he was looking at me… and he was done. He was… saying goodbye. I thought that was the last time I’d see him, alive. But, within a week, on a Friday, I got a phone call, saying his organs were shutting down, and… He could go at any time. So I drove from New Hampshire back to Buffalo, New York. By myself on a Friday. Um… They live outside—between Buffalo and Rochester. Drove straight to the hospital. And was able to, um… go in, and be with him. No one was with him, except for me. And I actually asked him if… Asked him if he wanted to go to heaven. And if he wanted to pray to go to heaven. And at first I thought—I asked him to squeeze my hand—I was holding his hand—I realized he couldn’t hold his hand! He couldn’t squeeze my hand. He was on oxygen, he was breathing heavy, he couldn’t talk. But his eyes could focus. And, um… I said, “Blink your eyes, if you wanna pray, so that you can go to heaven,” and he blinked his eyes. And so um… We prayed. And about ten minutes later, my sister came in, and then about a half hour later, my mom came in, but the rest of… For the next hour or so, we stood and told stories—and actually I was tellin’ stories when my sister came in—I was tellin’ stories—mem’ries—that he’d shared with us. And I guess, coming back to whaddya regret, I regret… not holding more of those stories that he told us, and writing them down. We told stories like when him and his friends stole someone’s outhouse and put it in the middle of the road. Or when they tricked the cops an’ put a dummy in a car—it was, you know, in the middle of nowhere. Or when they would set somebody’s corn stalks on fire in the middle of a field. Um… And so I stood there by his bed, telling stories, and he was following the stories. He was moving his head, he was moving his eyes. And I’m sure he was laughing along with me. And so um… We left that night, about eight o’clock. And um… Went home. The next morning we got a call saying any minute now he would pass. We got there at… Went with my mom, and brother. My sister was already there, an’ …and, um… We got there at about nine o’clock in the morning. And, um… We turned on some country music from my computer. And held his hand. And talked to him. And when I was holding his hand, when my sister and everyone else was sitting down… all of a sudden he took his last breath. I called my brother and sister over, and we stood next to the bed. Held his hands and watched as he had his last heartbeat. And he passed away. So, I was there. Which was a blessing. And then, um… I stayed out there for a whole week. We had the memorial service, and, um… My family came out, um, a few day—the next week, for the service. We, um… And in my mind, I kept questioning, did he really pray? Did he really accept Christ? Was he really going to heaven? Was I gonna see him again?