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    Bob . . . to Bob-Daddy
    Bob . . . to Bob-Daddy
    Bob . . . to Bob-Daddy
    Ebook133 pages1 hour

    Bob . . . to Bob-Daddy

    By Robert C. Duncan and Scott R. Duncan

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    About this ebook

    At the request of his son, Bob began writing his story to leave as a memoir of his life for his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Bob shares his childhood experiences growing up in the Depression; life as a newlywed and later a parent; career choices and experiences; family life; his love for Schnauzer dogs; worldwide travels with his wife, family, and grandchildren; and the principles that have guided him throughout life.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAuthorHouse
    Release dateApr 10, 2015
    ISBN9781504902366
    Bob . . . to Bob-Daddy
    Author

    Robert C. Duncan

    Robert C. “Bob” Duncan was born and raised in McAlester, Oklahoma, and married his high school sweetheart, Marjoriee Lee George. He struggled to make ends meet, but through hard work and dedication, he became an agent for New York Life Insurance Company and later became the general manager of the New York Life office in the small market of Oklahoma City, developing the top agency in the company in the mid-eighties. He is the father of three children, Scott, Tracy, and Dru, the grandfather of four, and great-grandfather of four so far. Bob’s love of photography and Schnauzer dogs are an integral part of who he is.

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      Book preview

      Bob . . . to Bob-Daddy - Robert C. Duncan

      Bob …

      to

      Bob-Daddy

      Robert C.

      Bob Duncan

      38381.png

      AuthorHouse™

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.authorhouse.com

      Phone: 1 (800) 839-8640

      © 2015 Robert C. Bob Duncan. All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

      Published by AuthorHouse 04/07/2015

      ISBN: 978-1-5049-0235-9 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-5049-0236-6 (e)

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

      and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

      Acknowledgements

      My son, Scott, encouraged me to share with the family what has guided my life. Once I started, I found the best way to understand what has been important to me is to know my whole story. Special thanks go to my daughter, Dru, who transcribed my dictation. Her help in organizing the material was invaluable. Without her effort, this book would not exist.

      Dedication

      This book is dedicated to Marge, my beloved wife of sixty-four years. We were teenage sweethearts and she was the love of my life until her death on March 11, 2014.

      We had a wonderful life together in our shared love for art, music and travel. She let me arrange and guide her on our travels, sometimes to her chagrin. But she knew how much I enjoyed doing this and allowed me to flourish in this and so many other ways.

      Marge was a great mother, grandmother and in her final years her greatest joy was her great-grandchildren. She underwent treatment that diminished her quality of life for one reason only; she said she wanted to see her great-grandchildren grow up just a little bit more. She missed the birth of Madeline by only a few months but it gave her joy to know she would keep the family growing.

      Image01.jpg

      Here I am holding our newest great-granddaughter, Madeline.

      Be sure to look for Marge in the story I have to tell. She is there as my soul mate and inspiration at every step.

      I was born on July 19, 1931, to Charles F. Duncan and Catherine Lupton Duncan in the middle of the great depression in the town of McAlester, Oklahoma. I had two older sisters, Mary Alice and Francis Louise and a cousin who was like a sister, Jane Cole.

      image%2002.jpg

      Me with my cousin, Jane, and my sister, Louise enjoying a rare Oklahoma snow.

      A story about my mother: in the 1920’s, her mother and father came to Chicago to stay with the Buckley family. Timothy Buckley was a senator. Catherine Duncan’s mother was quite ill and died. They talked about sending the three sisters: my mother, Mary Catherine, and her sisters, Alice and Gladys, to an orphanage because they couldn’t take care of them. My mother chose to run away with her 2 sisters. They made it to McAlester, OK, where they apparently had a friend whom they had communicated with when they lived in York, England. Somehow they made it to the Ringland’s farm. Later, George, my mother’s father, came and worked in McAlester for a while.

      Image03.JPG

      My mother, Catherine Lupton Duncan.

      My mother was a saint; that’s a pretty good beginning. I remember my mother as a person who was so good about taking care of others. She told me, Bobby, if you get in trouble, you just pray about it. It was the depression and people were very hungry. There were frequently people sitting on our back porch having a plate of beans or something mother had fixed for them to eat. They were what we used to call hobo’s who got off the train from about a mile away; they must have had our house spotted.

      Mother was a member of the Baptist Church where I went to Sunday School and so did Marjoriee Lee George. My mother rocked babies for more than 50 years. The rumor was that she rocked Marge and me at the same time. We don’t know that for sure.

      There were many babies in the nursery and my mother was popular with all the parents. As the children became adults, they begged mother to babysit their children until they were teenagers. Kids just loved her. Many rocking chairs in the nursery area were donated on mother’s behalf.

      She could take care of anything that was wrong with you: a simple cold, a cut, or something in your eye. She seemed to always understand. She was a fantastic cook. We had three meals a day. How she could do it on the little money we had, I don’t know.

      If mom happened to have a can of beans and needed a can of tomatoes, she would give me the can and have me run up to Pasco’s, the neighborhood grocery store, to exchange them. Pasco’s was a very small store, but it had anything and everything we needed. Mrs. Pasco would say, Well, there are a couple of pennies extra here, so I can give you some candy. I didn’t mind that errand when she did that. Sometimes she’d say, You tell your mother to quit doing this; I don’t need that stuff anyway.

      We could charge there also, that kept us from having to go downtown to shop. We’d spend about $3.00 for a week’s worth of groceries; enough to feed a family of 5. Mother was a good cook and made sure we always had 3 meals a day.

      One time mom and I went to Kress’s 5¢ and 10¢ store and somehow I came out with a paper clip. I don’t know how but mother saw the paper clip and asked me where I got it. I said, I found it. She said, You took it out of the store, didn’t you? I said, No, I just found it. She made me go and hand it to the manager. I never thought about taking anything after that. I don’t know how old I was, but I was really embarrassed.

      Dad’s family was from West Virginia. They were miners in the early 1900’s. They worked in a mine west of McAlester. An underground stream filled the mine so they had to close it. I tried to find it once; I found a pool there so I guess that’s where the mine was.

      Dad’s family went to New Mexico and homesteaded. His family road in a covered wagon because there were no cars back then, and it took about 3 months to get to New Mexico and about 3 months to get back. I understand they lived in a dug out; there were no homes and no building materials. They did a little farming, but it was very dry land; eventually they had to return to McAlester. Dad used to tell me about how they would trade chicken eggs for meat from someone else in the area that had cattle and pigs.

      I remember my father loved the outdoors. He had a garden and was a fabulous gardener. He plowed an acre by himself and grew everything you can imagine. We would buy sacks of potatoes and big baskets of tomatoes to bring home for Mother to can. We had lots of canned food; no one was ever hungry.

      Dad also loved to fish; he was a skilled fisherman. His hobby was fixing fishing rods, reels, and tying flies. He always took me fishing. If it was a Sunday, I had to be home by 9:30 a.m. to go to Sunday School. We used to go fishing at the lakes and sometimes on the streams. I learned to use a fly rod and always caught something. Dad showed me how to clean fish and, of course, we ate them.

      We hunted together too, primarily for rabbits. We shot them from the car before the sun was up so we could keep them frozen in the headlights. The squirrels would sit on the logs then run around so we also shot squirrels. I’d come home and mother would pick the ticks off me. I never ate much of our catch, but dad absolutely loved wild game.

      My father was a barber. His story is that he and his buddies one Saturday night went to town to get their haircut for 25¢. They were told, We don’t have another barber, one is ill, and it’s going to be a long wait. Dad said to his friend, Get up in that chair and I’ll see if I can cut your hair. As he was cutting his friend’s hair he cut the lower lip of his ear off and it took over an hour to get the blood flow to stop. The owner of the shop said, "You know, I

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