Last night, my dad and I went to Hollywood to meet a friend of my grandfather's (my dad's dad). My grandpa, "Popo," died when I was only 11 in 1995, but I still have fairly strong memories of him because we saw him so frequently when I was a child, especially during the several year period that he lived right around the corner from us.
About seven or eight years ago when I was in college I was taking a class on the history of the American West, and I decided to do a paper on the cowboys of Hollywood who became stuntmen known as the Gower Gulch men. The leading expert on these men is a woman named Diana Carey. She was "Baby Peggy" in the early 1920s (kind of like the Shirley Temple of westerns). Well, anyways, her father, Jack Montgomery (also known as "Poncho") was my grandfather's friend even though he was a lot older than my grandfather. Popo was acutally just a few years older than Diana (he was born in 1913 and she was born in 1918).
So I found Diana Carey online and emailed her explaining that I was the granddaughter of her old friend, Leo McMahon. She was delighted to speak with me, and I was amazed at how lucid this 80-some year old woman was. We have kept in touch through email (and now facebook) correspondance (yes, a 93 year old woman facebooks!), and yesterday she was in town for an event in Hollywood. My dad and I drove down to meet with her and had a lovely time discussing my grandfather.
It was like stepping out of time for a second. My dad's parents have been gone for so long. His mom died when I was three and it's been nearly 16 years since his father passed away. To see and speak a woman who is my grandfather's contemporary and friend amazed me because if my granfather was still alive he'd be 98 years old.
At the end of our conversation my dad presented Diana with a gift. Just before her father died in the 1970s, he had given my grandfather his lucky silver dollar that was so worn down you couldn't really see the impressions on it anymore. Just before my grandfather died in 1995, he passed that lucky silver dollar on to my dad. So my dad decided to give it back to the rightful owner, Jack Montgomery's daughter. We didn't know if she'd know what it was when he pulled it out, but this 93 year old woman's eyes grew wide and tearful and she exclaimed, "That's dad's lucky silver dollar!" She was so astonished and pleased that it warmed my heart to see my dad making this friend of my grandfather so happy. She hadn't seen that silver dollar since the 70s but she remembered it instantly.
I hope I have that kind of memory when I'm her age (if I make it that long). What an amazing thing to have lived through an entire century, to remember the Great Depression, WWII, and so many life changing moments in history. And she is one of the most self-reflective people I have ever met. I wish my grandparents could have been there with us last night. I miss them.
Btw, the photograph is of Diana Carey when she was playing "Baby Peggy" in the early 1920s.
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