My Dad's Story

James Broadus Lawter, my dad, gone six years now.  A friend asked me to tell his story, so here is a small attempt...

My first thought was to write "He was born a poor black child" a la Steve Martin's start to "The Jerk."  But essentially, aside from not being African American, he was born a poor child in Greenville, South Carolina, just before the start of the Depression to John Charles Freemont Lawter and Rosa Magdelana Lawter (John and Maggie).  He had two sisters born and deceased before him, Mary Yvonne and Margaret Irene who both, we are told, died of the measles.  My Grandpa John took work wherever he could find it and was often gone.  

Grandpa John, Jimmy and pup Buddy

On one trip home, he overheard two of his brothers-in-law talking about "giving the boy" to his Grandma to raise which prompted my grandfather to take my then 3 year old dad and leave his wife and South Carolina behind.  He heard from family in the Northwest that there was work to be found in the boat yards of Seattle, Washington.  He and my dad walked and hitchhiked the whole way there.  There was indeed work and Seattle was where my dad was raised, often being left in the care of the woman who ran the boardinghouse they lived in.  We met Mrs. Rice ourselves when we were kids, then an elderly woman who was grateful to see Dad with his own family.

Mom and Dad in the Navy

Dad, with his father's permission joined the Merchant Marines as a teenager, and after a time, lying about his age, joined the Navy at 17.  That's where my parents met some years later, about 1950, Mom being a Wave.  

They married, had 5 kids, then divorced 15 years on.  He retired from the Navy and we were mostly out of touch for almost a decade.  He had married and divorced again, then moved back east from Minnesota and stayed at least in the periphery of our lives for the rest of his life.  He had a stroke or two in his later years, the last one sending him eventually to the same Veteran's home  in which my mother now resides.  He was living with COPD and kidney issues which plagued him in the final few months before he passed away in 2010.  We inured his ashes in the very traditional ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.  We had this all planned ahead of time, and I will always have the memory of his reaction to my asking him "How would you like being buried at Arlington Cemetery?"  The look that came over his face was a combination of surprise and intrigue.  He liked the idea.

Dad's honor guard at Arlington

That's a thumbnail sketch of some basic details, there's so much more to his spirit, some of which we offspring have inherited.  He was a survivor, had an appetite to enjoy what he could of life and always some need, I think, to make up for his difficult childhood.  Never a church goer, he called himself an agnostic - "just in case."  I would tease him that he'd better get used to the idea of heaven because I was gonna get him there, even it was by dragging him, kicking and screaming.  A curmudgeon and a hermit, he never quite got the handle on how to do family.  I got to help him with a lot of life's minutia in his last years, for which I am grateful.  I would call myself his "beck and call girl," which amused him no end.  I remember at one point, when he was still in the hospital and we were arranging for which rehab facility he should go to, he paused a moment, got a wee bit misty and said to me, "What would I do without you? Why are you doing all of this?"  I looked at him and said "This is what familes do, Dad."  Silly wabbit.  

Friend Aaron visiting Dad in Arlington

Until his final stroke, he always smoked cigarettes.  I remember Camels and Bel Air, then in later years he bought them from Native American reservations because of the bargain prices and convenient mail order feature.  He once tried a pipe for a time.  He was passionate about his coffee.  Gotta fuel that curmudgeon spirit!  Ending up in the NYS Veterans Home in Montrose, it took him a while to settle in.  But ever the survivor, he did just that.  He made a lot of friends with the nurses and attendants, who all called him "Jimmy."  Each time I came to see him at the Vet home, he'd be watching one of two things on TV - NCIS or Fox News.  Every single time it was Fox, I always, always said "Dad, you know that's not the news."  He'd occasionally say to me, "You know I'm Republican, don't you?"  To which I'd reply, "Well, nobody's perfect," a favorite line from the end of "Some Like It Hot."  

Jimmy at Six

Dad was always a fair wit, enjoyed a saucy and great sense of humor, a flair for the dramatic, he loved radio shows, music and movies.  Using a photo as a model, I once did a scratchboard of him reading at the age of six.  He said that it "classed up" his childhood.  I have him reading a big old book when in reality, it was the funny papers. He was a news announcer on the radio in Minnesota and an actor, mostly in college and regional theater productions.  He did a lot of theater, and made attempts to pursue acting professionally in NYC where he moved in the late 70's to the Village.   

JB Lawter  actor

He and my Mom both acted in the Sangley Point Theater Guild in the Navy while in the Philippines.  They also had a children's radio program which they wrote and performed weekly to a live audience of kids on the Navy base. Dad was Farmer MacDonald and my Mom was Mother Goose, playing her as a dotty old lady based on wonderful character actress Edna May Oliver.  I know this is my Dad's story, but I love thinking of my mother in Ms. Oliver's persona.  If you are not familiar with Ms. Oliver, this is a TCM tribute to Edna May, enjoy.

My favorite story from this era was that one morning on a radio broadcast day, my parents overslept and in order to be on time, threw on their costumes at home, then sped off to the studio on Dad's motor scooter.  I love the thought of seeing Mother Goose, one hand hanging onto her hat while hanging tight onto Farmer MacDonald as they go whooshing down the road....!  It just tickles the whimsy!

So, Dad, Papa-san, Daddio, JB Lawter was born in December 1928 and scootered off this mortal coil in March of 2010.  I think of him often enough and always will. Despite the huge absences we encountered in our lives, he taught me how to thread a needle, how to wire a lamp, the basics of riding a bike and how to look things up in the set of encyclopedias he "paid good money for."  And, as my brother Jim recently said to me, "There's a lot of him in our DNA."  Yes indeedy do, life goes on.