Thinking about Dad

My genealogy quest for info on the Seibles has been most interesting. Tonight I spent time (hours actually) scanning pictures of my dad, his brothers/sister, and additional pics of our immediate family to share with Uncle D and cousin Sandy, Seibles I've recently made contact with (see previous post). I also received an email from cousin Sandy containing two pictures of my grandmother (Marie) and grandfather (George) together. I was so amazed!  I'd begun seeing pictures of him from Uncle D, but I hadn't seen any of her, let alone him and her in the same pic! Here is a picture of them in 1938.

I'm really hoping to learn more about Marie as I've been able to find so little. I hoping Sandy can shed more light on her. She did say she has more pictures, so that's a good sign!

When I was scanning pictures from my mom's photo albums, I was primarily looking for pics of my dad that I could share with his half-brother so he could see what dad looked like. More than anything, as I looked through some of the albums, I tried to see the images of my dad as a stranger would -- not a daughter who knew him. I was trying to see him as a half-brother might see him for the first time.

When I saw was my dad, a loving father. I mean, I always knew he was a loving father. He always told us how proud he was of us and he was always playing games and spending time with us. In the pictures, I saw, however, I saw dad -- Dave -- the attentive, patient father. In picture after picture, he's with his kids, putting gifts together at Christmas time, carrying someone around, etc. Here you see dad putting a baby Melissa on a pogo stick one of the kids got for Christmas. Corrina and Connie are also in the pic. It was probably their pogo stick.

I continue to be surprised at what a good father he turned out to be. His parents divorced when he was about 4 or 5, he went to live with his maternal grandmother, had little to no contact or rearing with his mother or father, went to live in a juvenile home in his early teens, and lived/worked in a county home his his late teens/early twenties. He was really pretty much on his own. How did a man with so little family become such a big family man?

Here is one of my favorite pictures of him. It's Christmas, probably around 1981 or 1982 when I was around 4-5 years old. I'd made him a present in Sunday School and he was opening it. You can tell from my expression that he obviously said something nice about it. I wish I could remember what that was. But my expression tells me all I need to know. He liked it and I was glad that I made my dad happy. I miss my dad.