Karl Lucker--October 3, 1881-March 31, 1976

So, it has been 40 years today since my grandfather, who we called Grandpop, passed away.  Grandpop was my father's father, and he died when he was 95 years old.  I was 14.


My grandfather, Karl Lucker, had been a pretty steady influence in my life.  He lived with us (so there were 9 of us in a very small house), when I was very young, and I remember he used to take us for walks, and show us how to pare a potato, and how to put butter  on bread--life skills.   He would take us for walks to the local A&P, and he always insisted we pick out and use a walking stick on these trips.   I now realize that these walks were never more than 1/2 mile away from our house, but it seemed far to us.  How funny we must have looked....6 children under the age of 10, and an old man of 85 walking down the street with walking sticks.....to go to the store!

He was a huge advocate of physical exercise.  It seems funny now, but back then, he seemed odd because he was such an advocate of physical activity....He was always telling me and my family about the importance of physical activity.   Years before it became popular to exercise.    And for a person in the 1960's, he was violently opposed to drinking and smoking.  Not because of religious reasons, but because he thought it was bad for you the way we know now it is bad for you.  But no one thought smoking was bad for anyone in the late 1960's.

 He had been born in what became Germany in 1881, and came to the United States when he was a teenager.    He taught us all how to say the Our Father in German. He spoke 13 languages very well.  He and a group of old men used to come to our house to play Pinochle, and they all spoke different native languages to each other.     He was proud to be from Germany, and said (thousands of times), that we should always do not as hard as we could do, but harder.  He said German soldiers didn't walk as long as they could, they walked longer.   You get it...do a little more than you can do.    He made a big deal about never kissing anyone on the lips except for family members because of germs.  Of course, we all thought he was nuts. Now I think he was brilliant.

He got married when he was older, and had his children older.  He was 48 when my father was born, which when I realized that in my early teens, it seemed incredibly old to become a father at age 48 for the last time, and for the first time at age 40.   He was older than my grandmother, who was born in 1893, and died in 1953, of breast cancer.   I never met my grandmother, but my Aunt Lucille always talked about how wonderful she was.

My grandparents had four children.  Ottilie (1920?), Lucille (1922), then Helen (1924), then later, my father was born.  My Aunt Ottilie, who my grandfather loved dearly, died at age 16 of Ewing's Sarcoma.   I remember feeling bad that he seemed so sad about it after 40 years, and I vaguely remember thinking it was time for him not to feel so bad about it.  Now I understand why he got sad talking about her, even 40 years later.  It must have ripped out his heart, even 40 years later, thinking of his little girl who had been the first in her class at Holy Angels, but who then got sick, and had a leg amputated, and then she died.   But he frequently talked about her.

My grandfather was "rich" by the rest of my family's standards.  He was a hairdresser.  He was not a barber, he would tell me, because he did both men and women's hair.   He had a shop in the Bellevue, and did the rich people's hair.  I think he must have done okay, considering it was during the Depression, because I guess people always need to get their hair cut.    He loved his children, but especially my father.  And I would have to say that he especially loved me, because I was good, and respectful, and did what I was told to do.  

When he died, he was 95.   I don't know that I ever thought he would actually die, because he had always been so old to me.     He had been living in New Bern, North Carolina with a caretaker, who we called Miss Lucinda.  Miss Lucinda was a little bit eccentric, and she had never been married, and although she took care of my very elderly grandfather, she herself was around 70 years old.  She had a dog named Calpernia who she spoke of as if she were a sister...."Calpernia did this", or "Calpernia did this."

Anyway, it has been 40 years today that my Grandfather died, and I think of him, and do things he would have done, all the time.  Thinking of you today, Grandpop!