A few years ago, there was a book published about birth order that caught wide attention. The premise of the book was that first born children tend to have certain characteristics not readily as found in other children of the same family.
I thought of this book when I read the biographies of my Dad's two brothers. Their lives were completely different than the baby of his family - my Dad. And the same is very true for me - my child and teenage years were very different than for my siblings.
I remember my Dad telling me about his frustrations trying to convince his sister that his childhood was completely different than her. My aunt did have set ideas about her childhood and wasn't about to change them for any reason. But of course his childhood was different -- he was home alone, his mother would stay several days a week at the school house to teach. And most importantly, how the same events were seen differently from different ages. That makes it all different.
For all practical purposes, Dad was the outsider in his family among siblings. Four or five years of separation as the baby of the family might as well be twenty years among siblings. I think any baby of the family with a few years of separation feels that way; I know I did. The last one at home. The isolation that comes with that. The parents become different. Cousins marry or move away. Relatives die. Fewer large family gatherings.
For example, Dad's eldest brother knew both of his grandfathers. Dad was only two when the last of their grandfathers was alive. For Dad, he was only 8 years old when 1941 came around; yet, both of his brothers were drafted -- one sent to the Azores and the other to Europe in a communications group. His brothers came home different men. But Dad must have emulated his eldest brother a lot. Instead of going to high school where buses would take him and the school provide hot lunch, he chose to hitchhike to another high school just like his eldest brother did. It just dawned on me that his brother probably was living in the same town as this high school.
I wonder how Dad felt in his sister's biography of one of his brothers that she wrote that Dad went to her school. When she wrote the biography, Dad had already graduated from a different school.
I wrote this for another blog post on a family history blog:
My last 12 months being an everyday resident and livin’ on the Hunter farm was – different, way different. I was by myself – a lot. Both of my sisters by this time were graduated from high school and starting their own journeys in life. Dad was in the midst of converting his career from a farmer to a minister. Mom and I would travel to the different churches he would preach at each Sunday. Occasionally, we would attend our church in town, but more often than not on any given Sunday, we were at the Mt. Pleasant church or the Baptist church.
I was the only child still going to K-12 school. The first day of 8th grade was memorable – the school bus never came for me. Mom had to take me into school. After school, I tried to get on my old bus with Mr. Bedore but was told I was no longer a rider and that another school bus was picking me up. I don’t know how many times, I had to run down to the bus in the mornings as the new driver conveniently forgot about me. And being the last person picked up, trying to find a seat. The same thing repeated on the way home, being dropped off way past the driveway to the house and having to hike back. So, yeah, 8th grade was not that great of a year as a bus rider. Thankfully, Dad was creating a path for all of us to exit the farm.
After Bible Study, sometimes, I was the only one left of the students as I waited on Mom to arrive to pick me up. A year earlier, her lateness would have been no problem – I could have easily walked the half of a block from my 8th grade teacher’s house to where my Aunt Kathy’s house was and waited there for Mom, or my sister Vick could have picked me up. But alas, my life during the 1975-76 school year was very different. There were no Arbogast families in Stockton. Plus, cousin Billy had moved from Woodston to Cawker before 8th grade and was even further removed from seeing him. Billy and I would have been in 8th grade together at Stockton as the Woodston 6-8 school had merged with Stockton that year. Not having any cousins around in town/school made life much more isolated.
And it wasn’t just relatives moved away from town. I recall mom and me leaving Webster’s supermarket and her Aunt Violet turning her head to avoid seeing us. Mom was so disappointed saying aloud – she ignored us! I often wondered if that was the price to be paid for planning to leave Stockton – being ignored and isolated.
As you can read - even my 8th grade year in the same place where my siblings grew up - was way different for me. And at the age where things are remembered.
Dad's mom died during his senior year in high school. That had to be a tough thing to overcome alone when everyone returned back to their lives and he was still in school.
A friend of mine on Twitter recently tweeted that feeling when your 21 months younger sibling lives on another planet. For me and my Dad, it was several years difference - might as well be a different galaxy.
