Traits Carried to Family Members

My granddaughter has a year-long project focusing on family history, family development, and family traits. That means I'm receiving periodic emails regarding questions about our family. I decided to post today's response to the following question:

"now that I have a enough information on family history, do you have any child life stories that have molded your personality, and have carried on to your children?"

I’m not so sure it is as much as a single story as it is an approach my mother and father took with us as we were growing up. It was a “do it now” approach to getting things/tasks done and a process of doing it right.

We usually lived on a military base (you know all about that) and in the military there are lots of inspections. Our lawns at base housing had to meet strict standards. They had to be cut every 2 weeks, they could not get long and shaggy, and the sidewalks and curbs had to be trimmed. In other words, we could not let grass grow over the edge of the sidewalk or the curb. When we were finished mowing the and trimming the lawn my father, your great-grandfather, would come out and inspect it.

Your uncle and I did the dinner dishes (no dishwashers) almost every day from the time we were in the 4th grade until we graduated from high school. Great-grandma McLean taught us how to do the dishes, early on inspected our work, and then left us alone to do it. Uncle Dennis and I would have a lot of fun doing the dishes and usually made a lot of noise (which occasionally got us in trouble), but the dishes were ALWAYS done correctly. After we boys left home our sisters had to do the dishes and all they heard from Great-grandma was, “Your brothers always did the dishes much better than you do.” They still don’t like it when we talk about doing the dishes.

We were taught to learn how to do a job, do it right, and do it right the first time. As a boy (you know how slow boys can be) I didn’t always apply that principle in everything I did. The lawn, the dishes, painting, cleaning the house when we were moving, but keeping my bedroom clean was a lot tougher and great-grandma pretty much gave up on me - just as Grandma and I did on our sons and daughters.

Your great-great-grandpa Merriam owned his own candy company. It was a vending machine company. It required that he know how to fix broken machines, work with companies so he could put the machines in their offices and factories, and then had to go out every day and refill the candy machines. He and great-great-grandma Merriam worked very hard at this for many years. Your uncle and I would ride along some times and get a chance to see how hard they worked. Again, it was the principle of hard work.

Your mother, aunts, and uncles all believe in (1) do it now, (2) do it right, and (3) move on to the next task. They are also a little outspoken and I’m afraid I have to take credit for that also. I got that from my mother, who was not afraid to share her opinion, as well as my father who frequently was required to share his opinion, especially as a first-sergeant in the Air Force.

I hope this helps.