My Grandpa Cecil—Zeke to his friends—was born on Halloween 1897, and today would be his 125^th birthday.  A true American success story, Cecil Calvert Senseman was the eldest child of Ohio farmer Ed Senseman and his wife Bertha, who died in 1912 when Cecil was 15.  Their mother’s death separated Bertha’s children; Cecil, his younger brother Vercil, and little sister Ruby were sent to be raised by relatives in three different homes.  Cecil, the eldest, was apprenticed to a toolmaker by day, finishing his high school education at night, and learning his trade (and business practice) so well that ultimately he owned Dayton Tool and Die, the company he once worked for.

Encouraged by the business success of his younger brother Vercil, who did well in the Florida land boom of the 1920’s and came to own a fine home in Ft. Myers, Florida flanked by neighbors Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, Cecil and his wife Clara Florence Beaver sold the tool business and moved south, like Vercil, to invest in Florida real estate.

Starting with a fishing camp business in Bonita Springs, Cecil, like his little brother, finally bought a fine house at 3005 Broadway in Ft. Myers, the Senseman home I came to know on weekend visits from the Murphy home in St. Petersburg.  In fact, it’s unlikely I would have been born in Florida if not for Grandpa Cecil’s move there from Ohio.

I found any house that was not, like our home, a slab ranch, exotic, so the two-story Tudor revival Senseman home with its porches, fish ponds, high ceilings, and maid’s apartment just up the steep staircase off the kitchen was magical.

Grandpa Cecil was a natural whiz at math (a talent my mother Virginia inherited), and today the dining table where he would help me with my algebra homework continues his tradition of hospitality in my New Hampshire home.  As soon as I could read, Grandpa gave me a subscription to the National Geographic along with a savings bond, gifts renewed each birthday, and encouraged me to collect silver dollars as an investment.

Cecil was a good grandpa and a good husband to his wife, my Grandma Clara.  My dad George always admired his father-in-law’s devoted care of Clara, who had suffered a paralyzing stroke on hearing that her youngest son Calvin, a Marine gunner on the New Mexico, had been mortally wounded by a kamikaze pilot, another young man who died for his country.  That was on Mother’s Day 1945, so very close to the War’s end. Clara was a good grandparent, too, and picked out for me and my little sister new matching fancy dresses as we outgrew them. Once she gave me pretty pillowcases she’d embroidered with her left hand, her right hand permanently disabled by that stroke.  A fine, strong woman.

Grandma Clara died in the spring of 1970, my senior year of high school, the first significant, and therefore terrible, loss of my young life.  Grandpa Cecil died five years later in 1975, but not before living up to his promise to buy me my first car when I graduated from college in 1974, a two-tone, tan-and-ivory AMC Hornet with cloth houndstooth seats that I drove until I finished grad school and got my tenure-track job in 1984.  My namesake Grandpa George Anthony Murphy died in 1977, and Grandma Mel (Imelda) Murphy in 1982.  Only years later did I realize how lucky I was to have had all four adoring grandparents in my life for my first seventeen years.

So, on this All Hallow’s Eve, I fondly remember, miss, and honor all of those who loved and cared for me, now gone before.  For me, they are ALL hallowed.

And I think Zeke would like entering cyberspace on this blog; he was ever an enthusiastic early adopter of new technology, and had the very first Xerox machine (nearly the size of a VW Beetle) I ever saw. He would clip articles from the newspaper just to Xerox them and send the copies to me.

Happy Birthday 125, Grandpa Cecil!

Happy Halloween, All!