Dad

        My father, John Conrad Lechman, was born on the Volga River in Rothammel, Russia, July 20, 1896. He came to the U.S. by himself by ship in 1912 when he was 15. His sister and brother  preceded him to America; his parents tried to come but died on the way. My father eventually made his way to relatives in Kansas where he met and married my mother, Monica Caroline Schlitter, also a German of Russian descent.

          I never knew much about my father’s early life. Taciturn , silent, uncommunicative would start to describe him. He was also big and beefy with an unparalleled appetite for work and food. He was stocky but a nice-looking man, who reminded me of football great Mike Ditka. He had a sense of humor, which he mostly showed to my mother, he loved softball and sunflower seeds on warm summer nights, he adored playing checkers and cards, he liked his beer but was not an abuser of alcohol, he loved his family, and he was dedicated to his religion – Roman Catholicism. His demeanor and his threats were enough to make me cower in his presence, but I don’t ever remember him hitting me. The fear of it was enough.

   Dad was also was very sensitive. When he grew older and a birthday approached, this quiet, burly, barrel-chested man would wait for a card to arrive from every single one of his 11 children who were away from home. (I was the youngest and still in the nest). He was not happy until he had cards from them all. Of course, he never voiced this to anyone except my mother. 

      After we sold the farm and moved to town in 1956, we bought a house for $6,000 and fixed it up. He spent his days puttering at home, going to church and doing handy work for the priests and nuns.  At 4:30 p.m., he slumped in his recliner to watch the TV news. If boxing or wrestling followed, he would watch that. He never missed the “Lawrence Welk Show” and “Gunsmoke.” But he usually fell asleep in his chair by 8 p.m. At 8:30, he would get up and go to bed, rise at 5 a.m. and start all over again. He was a man who lived and died by his word. He never cheated anyone, and, was seldom cheated in return. The only person who got the better of him and told him what to do was his wife.     .

      I never remember having a private conversation with my father. I never remember him giving me any words of wisdom or advice. All I remember is  him telling us boys what we had to do on the farm that day. Once, when I was about 12 and my mother went away from a few days leaving my father and me alone, we never exchanged three words. But we were comfortable in our silence with each other. In the fall of 1959 when I was going away for my second semester at the University of Colorado, he gave me a car. This was not unusual for farmers to give their children cars. It was a gift for working from dawn to sundown all our lives . It was the best present I had ever received.
    I don’t know that I learned much from my father except for the importance of hard work, religion,  honesty, trustworthiness, thriftiness and duty to God, country and family. Hmm. We really had nothing in common. I was a bookworm, and he was a man’s man. I think he liked the fact that I was smart in school and never caused him any trouble. I can still feel his essence; he is a part of me. I know he is still looking down on me today and wouldn’t it be something if he is almost as proud of me as I am of him?  Happy Father’s Day, Daddy.

            Some of this was excerpted from an upcoming book, Boyhood on the Plains, by Don Lechman, former reporter critic and editor for the Daily Breeze.