Sam's Legacy

SAM'S LEGACY







He died at the age of one hundred and eight years. On the bone-chilling afternoon of December 17, 1970 they found his body. A belt was cinched around his neck and the other end attached to a light fixture on the ceiling of his bedroom. His feet dangled a mere two inches from the Oriental rug that always guarded the end of his bed. Directly to the right of his body was the stool he had stood on, now toppled on its side, a piece of notebook paper pinned to it.



The bedroom was unremarkable in appearance; it had served as the sleeping chamber of Sam and Delores Conrad for thirty-seven years, since the day the house had been completed and they had moved their belongings into the modest, brick, Depression-era home in north Tacoma. Two dressers, a footlocker, a sewing machine, and a make-up table joined the four poster bed to complete the furnishings. Memories of their lifetime hung from every available space on the walls: a smiling young couple with two small children in hand; a Model T Ford with waving hands sprouting from the windows; fountains and bare legs; a picnic by a seashore; lunch at a lakefront cabin. And many, many more, proof that this family, all now finally departed, had once been vibrant, dynamic and happy.



One hundred and eight years. Sam had been born on October 13th in the year 1862, a year before Henry Ford entered this world and President Lincoln dedicated a cemetery in Pennsylvania. His family had been Iowa corn farmers and had moved west on the Oregon Trail when Sam was six; a brother and sister had died of cholera making that passage, leaving Sam as the only Conrad offspring. Along the path of his life he had been a logger, fisherman, trapper, mill worker, and twenty-five other jobs sprinkled through his life. The last thirty years of employment were spent longshoring on the docks of Tacoma, retiring when he reached sixty-five. A small party, some cards, handshakes and a gold anchor key chain ushered him into the life of retirement. Nothing ostentatious, just like Sam. At his retirement party his handshake had still been firm, for he was a big man, honed by years of physical labor in the weather of the Northwest. At his apex he had been 6'2” and a rock-hard 230 pounds. The body hanging from the ceiling had lost several inches and eighty of those pounds.



But all of that was just background, window-dressing for the larger story, insignificant unless viewed from the perspective of what Sam considered of central importance in his life.



Her name was Delores Fleming and he had first met her in the little town of Morton, Washington, in 1895. He was thirty-three, she twenty-seven. It was late afternoon on a day in May; he was bone-tired from working twelve hours of felling trees and bucking limbs and was trudging along Main Street towards the boarding house where he ate and slept. She, the daughter of the general store owner, was sweeping the wooden steps that led to the store. Not seeing Sam she swept a cloud of dust squarely into his face and their lives together had commenced.



Their courtship slowly flourished....buggy rides along the banks of the Cowlitz River, picnics in the glen at the base of Bald Mountain, dances at Jed Turner's barn, and church socials, though Sam was not  a regular attendee of Sunday services. After a year of leading Delores through the mating ritual he asked her father for her hand in marriage and was promptly refused. No daughter of Peter Fleming would marry a heathen, albeit a likeable and reliable heathen, who did not properly fear and praise the Lord. But true love often shows the way to salvation, and so it was in Morton in 1896. Sam became a regular at Our Church of the Valley, and after six months of Psalms and Deuteronomy he again asked for Delores' hand and was at last granted permission. And for the next fifty-four years Sam and Delores were inseparable.



He was a good husband and he would often tell friends that a day did not pass when he did not thank the Lord for the appearance of Delores in his life. He considered her to be his best friend, his confidant and his equal. Religion had not changed this former hell-raiser into a gentle giant; that transformation was entirely attributable to Delores, who simply told Sam that she could never love a man who considered himself the superior of any other man or woman. She would constantly repeat that only the weak of spirit would try to dominate another, and “weak of spirit” did not describe her Sam.



His best friend was stunning, but it wasn't her physical beauty, which was considerable, that was her defining feature. Rather it was her personality, a veritable ray of sunshine cast upon an otherwise drab and unremarkable landscape. Her smile was of the “first flowers in spring” variety, and never failed to elicit joy in those who witnessed it. She carried herself with charm and grace and yet had the disarming habit of appearing to know a devilish secret that would stir your loins if only you were privy to it. As the years marched by Delores aged remarkably well, so that when I met her in the early summer of 1946, the summer of her seventy-eighth year, she appeared to be twenty years younger.



My family moved next door to Sam and Delores when I was a bumbling, fumbling, stumbling tot of five, and few days had passed before I was invited to their backyard for lemonade and chocolate-chip cookies. The scene was to be repeated many times over the ensuing years. They were marvelous hosts, making a five year old feel as though he were grand royalty. I was the center of attention during my visits and I soaked in the glory of it all. Every repast with them was accompanied with a mini history lesson as I was treated to tales of covered wagons, Indians in tee-pees, spar poles and flumes. My love for history, no doubt, was born from these visits and eventually led to my becoming a history teacher.



As the years slid by, and I became older and found other interests to occupy my time, I saw less and less of Sam and Delores. Our contact consisted of occasional waves as I sped past their home on my bike, hellos as I searched for my dog in their backyard and words of thanks when I shoveled their sidewalk on snowy winter days. Always when I saw them they were hand in hand, and it would be hard for me to forget the look of love on their faces, a look that said they had found that elusive prize that all we humans seek, a love so true that time and hardships could not threaten. I remember thinking as a teen how wonderful it must be to love another in such a manner, to be connected to another human being in every way.



The ambulance arrived on an April afternoon in 1957. I was sixteen and had just arrived home from school. The sound of the siren pulled me away from my snack, and I stared in disbelief as the siren fell silent next door and two white-clad workers walked somberly up to the Conrad's door. I would learn later that Delores had died in her sleep the night before and Sam, overcome with grief, had rocked her in his lap throughout the night and the following morning, whispering “Don't leave me” over and over again. The days that followed were days of sadness for all of us in our neighborhood. When you are sixteen you just assume that those you care about are going to live forever. They are there when you go to bed, they are there when you wake up, and they are there at all the times they are supposed to be there, part of the landscape of life. I wasn't ready for Delores to die; it wasn't part of my scripted life. I pictured me and my wife and kids living in that same house twenty years later, complete with Sam and Delores inviting my kids over for lemonade and stories, just as they had done for me. And now Delores was gone, and if it could happen to Delores, well then, what about my mom and dad, or Sam, or anyone else I cared deeply about? My secure world was shaken to its foundation by the sight of my neighbor being carried out of her house on a stretcher, covered from life by a white sheet.



Sam was rarely seen after that day, choosing to spend his time in front of the television. I would go over occasionally to see how he was doing, and his answer remains in my memory to this day. He would tell me that each morning when he awoke he would ask God to take him that day so he could be with Delores, that life had no meaning for him without his beloved. Whenever I saw him he would be holding a picture of his wife, clutched in his hand, a constant reminder of the purpose of his life. It was sad to see him; he seemed to lose weight before my very eyes, and his sadness was palpable and omnipresent. But still I was touched by his devotion to Delores, a love so strong that death could not remove it from Sam's daily routines.



The years marched on; new neighbors came to our neighborhood, and anxious parents would tell their children to stay away from the house of the strange old man who never smiled. The stories of wagon trains and lumberjacks were told no more as Sam retreated further into his memories, always holding the picture that represented a love everlasting, always praying to God for finality. And so it continued for years until Sam could no longer wait for God's intervention and decided he had waited long enough for Delores.



I wasn't there on December 17, 1970. I didn't see Sam move the stool under the light fixture, ever so slowly, making sure that it was properly aligned. I didn't witness him tightening the belt around his neck, never saw him attach the other end to the fixture, nor did I see him step up on the stool or step off. I don't know what he saw that moment his brittle neck snapped, whether he glimpsed at the pictures on the wall or some imaginary vision of Delores filled his mind at that moment. I do know, because I was told by those who found the body, that the photograph of Delores was on the floor directly underneath his body, having fallen from his hand as he died.



I have thought of Sam often in the years since his death. The search for happiness has always been a subject of interest for me, as I'm sure it is for many humans. Basing one's happiness on another person is always a risky business. The philosophers tell us that true happiness can only be found within us, that serenity is born from within and not from outside stimuli. I understand that and accept it to be true intellectually. But we humans are not made of intellect alone. The heart tends to have its say more often than not, and I continue to marvel to this day at the quality of love Sam had for his Delores. By most standards in our world death brings is a rather decisive final chapter to a love affair, but to Sam it was only something he had to endure in order to be reunited eventually with his wife and best friend. His love never died. Death did not rob Sam of his wife; it was of no more importance to him than if Delores had gone on a trip when viewed from the overriding belief that he would once again be with her. And if God wouldn't aid him in that reunion then Sam decided he needed to do the work of God.



Sam's family knew me and shortly after the funeral they asked me if there was anything of Sam's I would like as a keepsake. I never hesitated. Today in my wallet I have the picture of Delores that Sam carried around with him every day after her death, and I have a note, written by Sam and pinned to the stool he stepped off of that December night. The note simply says....”Delores, now and forever, love Sam.”