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- The following is per Mary Jane PIPES Frank: I didn't meet grandpa, that I remember until I was or was almost a teenager. When I met him he was selling vegetables on the roadside. Janice and I used to sit with him at St. Mary's Hospital when he first had his stroke. Eventually, he went to live with Aunt Kate and then with us for a short time. He stayed in my bedroom and I bunked with Janice. Since he was paralyzed he couldn't do for himself. He would wake daddy up to go to the bathroom and daddy would fuss and cuss him out. One night grandpa tried to do it for himself and fell out of bed. Daddy went in and cussed him out. Told him he got there he could stay there. I was unable to do anything. Another time, mama and daddy and their visitors were drinking. I went in to be with grandpa to get away from the drunks and was reading to him. He stopped me and told me, 'maybe I should go out of his room, because they might accuse him of doing something to me'. That night he was shipped to a nursing home, not because he was accused of doing anything to me. Eventually, he moved back to his house in Trinity. He would get up at 4AM every morning and push a plow and made a huge garden. He had peanuts, watermelons, cantaloupes, beans and I don't know what all. One day he told me to go out and see if there were any peanuts out there. I went and looked and didn't see any. When I told him no, he got such a kick out of that and told me they grew underground. He loved to play jokes on us. He always claimed he had a Money Tree. Well, one day we cleaned his house and he gave us each (me and Janice) a dollar. When he wasn't looking we went and pinned it to his tree in the front yard and told him we had found his money tree. He got a kick out of that! When we would go up there in the summer (Janice said we only went twice) he used to have a jar of coins, whoever guessed closest to how much was in the jar got it! Either way, he gave us something like $20 and we would go to town and buy something. One summer, I expected a boyfriend that I had met up there to come back and see me while I was there.We went to town and I bought new clothes. When we got home we were washing clothes in a wringer type washer but I told grandpa that all I needed was somewhere to go to wear them. When we finished washing clothes Janice went over to Aunt Bessie's and I was cleaning the washer. Grandpa called me and said to find out what was playing at the show when I went to Bessie's and we could go. That is, if we weren't ashamed to be seen with a crippled old man. Of course, I told him we weren't ashamed of him but forgot to see about the movie because of the boyfriend. I never thought of what grandpa thought when we didn't mention the show. Instead, we had a weiner roast and the boy didn't show up. I felt real bad about that! Especially since he(grandpa) got real sick right after that. In my memory, it was Aunt Kate that wouldn't let me go in to see him, though she let Margaret, her daughter, go in. Janice says it was Aunt Burlie. Anyway, when he died, I was very upset! That night, after burying him, I was asleep and something woke me up. I didn't see anything but like telepathically, I could feel grandpa there and he told me it was ok, he understood. I have never had that feeling before so I believe he came back to see me. I do know that he wanted to be laid out in his home his last night on earth. Aunt Kate didn't make sure that his wish was carried out. He was brought home about an hour before we buried him. I loved him very much! Discrepancy between tombstone date of birth and death certificate date. Death certificate has him born on February 3, 1889. Information given by Minnie Tullos. Cause of Death: Cerebral Vascular Accident. Medical Information: Hypertension.
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