Here he is. My grandmother's younger brother. According to my family records he was born in Michigan. I have no idea why his family was up there. His father was a minister and served Lutheran congregations in Illinois and Ohio. And perhaps, when Gus was born his father might have been serving a church in Michigan.
When he was just a kid, he and his mother and the other four children went to live with their maternal grandparents. The farm was bisected by the railroad. According to family lore, when Opa...or Grandfather...went to take his afternoon nap the boys were sent to the barn to stay for a few hours. I imagine this was done to keep the noise level down in the house. My great- great-grandparents were stern people...or so I gather from what I have heard. And I can imagine taking on a young family when you have already raised eleven of your own was quite a chore.
Gus would listen to the train coming down the track near the barn. He loved to hear the whistle, the wheels as they clacked along the rails, the thundering power that blew across the cornfield near where he stood. Every boy's dream. The railroad.
Gus had a sweetheart. Her name was Emma. They made plans to marry one day. After he came back from chasing his dream. They promised to write each other as often as they could. And he would come back and they would start their life together.
Alas, as is true in many of these stories, it was not to be. Family lore has it that Oma..grandmother..and her daughter, Gus's mom, had other plans. Somehow they managed to stop the letters coming from Gus to Emma. I have no idea how this happened. What was their plan? Well of course, they had decided that Gus's younger brother Fred was a more suitable husband for Emma. And so they encouraged that romance.
Gus was in California and Nevada working on the railroad.. Meanwhile back home, Fred and Emma were becoming "sweet on each other". Can't blame Emma. No letters from Gus meant that he had forgotten her.
Gus came home for a visit. He brought Emma a beautiful fur coat. I can imagine how he felt when he found out that she would not be his girlfriend nor future wife . He gave her the coat. And headed west on the next train out of town.
He succeeded in his life as a railroad man. I have a picture of him in a Stetson hat, a nice suit, smoking a cigar. He didn't come home much. When he retired he stayed out west until his health started to fail. Then he came home to live with his younger sister, my Aunt Nettie.
I loved my Uncle Gus. He had a soft way of speaking. He was a quiet man with good manners and a quick smile. I liked to sit on his lap and listen to him talk to my grandmother and my aunts and uncles. No one ever mentioned Emma. In fact, I didn't hear the story of their romance until I was an adult.
I visited Uncle Fred and Aunt Emma once or twice when I was small. They lived in a town near my other aunts and uncles. They had no children. And as long as I knew her, Aunt Emma was an invalid, in bed most of the time.
I share this story because we never know just how our lives might turn out. Gus had plans. He was disappointed. He probably grieved for awhile. But I know that he enjoyed his life out there, riding the train from town to town.
When he passed away my Aunt Nettie gave his railroad watch to my mom. Mom gave it to my brother Paul. And when Paul passed away, it came to me.
Now we have a grandson named Gus. An excellent name for an excellent person. I hope my Gus grows up to be a man like Uncle Gus....honest and dependable. A man able to weather life's storms and come out a winner in the end.
