Tell Me Why

"But why, Murray, why?"

As a kid, I dreaded those words--usually because they had been preceded by some sort of failure on my part (whether moral or otherwise). The variation on that particular theme, of course, was "Why not, Murray, why not?" That query was often made when I steadfastly proclaimed a lack of desire to move or act in a certain manner or direction. Kids don't have logical, thought-out arguments as to the why of their lives. My father could never get his head wrapped around that. That really bugged me. So you can imagine my horror today when I find myself wondering why my parents, grandparents and others did certain things years ago. At least as a kid my reasons were apparent to the casual adult observer. I'm racking my brain today trying to figure out who did what and why concerning events that took place between 75 and 100 years ago.

Perhaps it's the complexity of why that challenges me the most. Kids are fairly straightforward. For them, why usually boils down to boredom, hunger, fatigue or a perverse delight in being downright evil while maintaining the look of an angel. Adults, on the other hand, are duplicitous, conniving, subtle scoundrels who have the ability to act with multiple motives to achieve exponential goals. Selfish or magnanimous, their motivations run much deeper and their aspirations aim much higher.

So what's the why? As Hamlet (the king of why) would say, "Aye, there's the rub."

Kate, Ira and family on the farm.

In 1930, the Great Depression made a significant impact on my mother's family, specifically my grandparents Kate and Ira. In fact, it separated them--not emotionally, but physically. Ira sent Kate and their four children south to the family farm outside McLeansboro while he remained up north in Elgin where he worked at "The Old People's Home" (now Oak Crest Residence). Kate's brother, Perry, went with them to work the land. Ira, in turn, stayed with Kate's parents and their family. This arrangement lasted about four years during which Kate and Ira probably saw one another maybe a half dozen times at the most.

The magnitude of that particular sacrifice is, to me, staggering. I think I am too selfish, too focused on my own needs and wants to match it. Perhaps that's why I admire a relationship so solid in its foundations that its participants could be apart for that long and, when reunited, continue to flourish and grow in one another like Kate and Ira did. Not only did their relationship survive the Great Depression, it also rose over the deaths of their first child (Burt Eugene died in infancy) and their last (Robert Ira was killed by a drunk driver at 18) and endured for over 50 years. Look around today and you'll be hard pressed to find a similar relationship. It seems like everywhere you look, marriages--and families--are in pieces because one partner, the other or both reached outside themselves and their commitment to grasp at something they perceived would fill a need.

So, bewildered (and extremely impressed), I have to ask, "Why?" Or, more importantly, "How?" Why did Kate and Ira risk everything--their relationship, their family and themselves--and how did they make it work?

The why is, I suppose, the most obvious riddle to solve. Put simply, their family was under threat and action was necessary. Removing the family to the farm would (and did) remove their children from the more obvious signs of their economic need. They would have a secure home, a pastoral routine, steady meals--a dull, normal life such as any rural child enjoyed. They wouldn't see the bread lines or the homeless on the street. They wouldn't walk past the soup kitchens with the endless rows of empty faces devoid of hope and future. They wouldn't be inadvertent witnesses to whispered, midnight conversations regarding financial need at the kitchen table.

There were other reasons for the move. It would allow Ira to focus on his job and on making sure that Kate's parents--Alex and Hannah--and her younger brothers and sister--Lee, Lyman and Della--were equally secure, provided for and well fed. Perhaps most of all, they made the move because prayer led them both to the conclusion that it was what God wanted them to do, for Kate and Ira did nothing without prayer.

I have to believe that prayer answers the "how" as well. As a devout Christian, Kate had two powerful allies: the Word and prayer. She used the Bible like a tool--the hammer of God--to tear down what wasn't needed and build what was. She used prayer to claim the promises she found within its pages along with guidance, solace and instruction. She was bold in her choices, plans and stratagems, and she was confident that, as long as she walked as God led, she had nothing to fear. To his credit, Ira supported and followed her every step of the way. He, too, knew he had nothing to fear. Their faith and their conviction were exemplary, and I admire them for the quality and example of their lives which, lived so fully and so openly, leave little question as to how and why.

Note: if you haven't already done so, please visit my cousin Daniel Robbins' genealogy site which contains a wealth of exceptional stories, anecdotes and information regarding the family.

Browsing Through Time--100 Years With Dad

If you've been a regular reader, you know that today is an important day for my family. It's my father's 100th birthday. And while it's true that Dad has been gone for a long time (in fact, he died 21 years ago tomorrow), I find the date no less significant and no less worth celebrating.

Arthur Macdonald Ferreira

The relationship between parent and child is probably the most important, iconic and lifechanging relationship any of us will ever have. We look to our parents as role models, protectors, heros and teachers. They provide for us, turn our eyes to God and set the tone for the course of our natural lives. Sometimes the relationship is smooth, sometimes it's not; but regardless of its quality, it's the fact of its existence that forms the central axis of our lives.

My father is an enigma to me. Not because I didn't know him, but because I am constantly learning new things about him. His continuing presence is very real, and he continues to influence my life and decisions through the history of his own. I believe that every father is his son's conscience and that my father is no less mine.

It is my joy and privilege today to celebrate the best aspects of my father--those attributes he expressed through his ties to his children. My father loved kids. Sure, we drove him crazy. We made him nervous. We even frightened him, but that's because he saw our wayward feet and, from his own past experience, had a very real sense of the sad and dangerous places those feet could and would lead us.

Dad loved to laugh, and he loved to play. He could be a bit of an extrovert, singing to Sinatra or maybe Tony Orlando and Dawn on the hi-fi (whoa TIE a yella ribbon round the old whoak tree!), but he was also a private person who--like a child on his first day of school--would shyly share a small fact or hobby with each of us in hopes of building a connection.

I can laugh about it today, but sometimes our efforts at bonding went horribly astray. He took me fishing once. I was used to walking off through the empty fields behind our house to Tyler Creek where I would just sit on the bank with friends catching (and tossing back) bluegills. Fishing--in and of itself--was not the point. It was the camaraderie and fellowship we sought. Dad, on the other hand, took me to what I can only describe as a "fish park." No trees, no gently flowing creek. Just small ponds--like submerged tanks--that, after two hours, proved to be devoid of fish. We struggled to talk with one another but could only commiserate over what was clearly a disappointment. I think that, over the years, the only thing we ever truly bonded over was our failure to bond!

Swimming with Dad in "the Dells," 1968.

Like my siblings, my best memories--the bittersweet ones--are from my early childhood where he would romp and roughhouse with us. I loved summer vacations in the Wisconsin Dells where he taught all of us to swim in motel pools where he would pick us up and launch us into the air--so high it seemed!--and throw us into deep water. We had no fear at all because he was always right there, ready to pull us out of danger and keep us safe. It is a time I greatly miss and will always cherish.

In honor of Dad's 100th birthday, I've invited my brothers and sisters to share their memories of Dad, too. It is my honor and my privilege to share them here with you. If you knew our Dad and would like to share a memory of your own, please feel free to use the comments field below. Please be aware that your comment may take up to an hour to appear.

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My Thoughts of Dad
By Donna Ferreira McNutt


When I think of my father, I think of so many things.

Jay-Jay and Dad, Christmas 1963.

On Christmas mornings, he would sit in his desk chair with a yellow legal pad and Cross pen and scribble down the gifts, the givers, and the receivers in his distinct handwriting to ensure that we gave proper thanks later.

Every day, after work, he would sit at his desk with his propped up mirror and tweezers, looking for those pesky whiskers that had to come out.

In my mind, I can hear him at the piano playing and singing, "I love coffee, I love tea, I love the girls and the girls love me."

Watching football with him on the couch, my view would be obstructed because, as an exciting play was unfolding, he would slowly raise his crossed leg and shout, "Go boy, go all the way!"

I remember being embarrassed when he would go back into the bakery at Gromer's like he owned the place because there were no sugar cookies on the shelf, or take his meal back to the kitchen at the Milk Pail, or stop traffic on Lyle Avenue so I could pull out of the driveway. And I recall running away from him as he chased us around the ping pong table with his belt in hand ready to whip us.

An insurance salesman, a car salesman, an accountant for a friend, a night school student, a banker, a soap dispenser assembler for a friend, he was also a perfectionist who had the most beautiful lawn on the block.

I was so glad that he was 69 when I graduated from high school and not 70!

We took trips to Wisconsin in the summer months to find his dream house. How I hated it then! But now, driving around the countryside is one of my favorite things to do.

I can see him kneeling on the ground trying to show my 3-year-old Johnny the art of pulling a weed, reading him an entire fairy tale book and then honoring Johnny's request to "show him everything downstairs."

I was at a loss for words when he bought me a bicycle at age 19 when I wanted him to co-sign a loan for me so I could buy a car. And I was equally speechless on the day he was forced to retire when he stood in our kitchen holding a television set and said, "This is all I have to show for 50 years of hard work."

I remember his love for eggnog, his love for golf, his work ethic, the provisions he made for his family and--above all--his love for all of us.

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Echoes of Dad
By Robert Ferreira


Rob and Dad, 1940s.

I have two very vivid memories of my father when I was quite young. The first, which was when I must have been two or three in New York although I can't remember if it was the Plandome or Manhasset house. I was laying down in my crib in my bedroom upstairs. The bedroom door was, from my point of view, on the right side of the room with the narrower end of my crib closest to it along the same wall. I think Dad had been traveling and had just gotten home or perhaps it was that he and my mother had just gotten back from shopping. They were both standing in my doorway, smiling with love and affection, and Dad was holding a little rubber squeaky toy. Memory seems to dictate that it was Bugs Bunny, but it's likely best you don't hold me to this. Dad was squeezing the rabbit in and out, making it squeal and squeak, and I remember standing up in my crib so I could reach it when he brought it to me. I still can hear that squeaky noise clearly in my mind.

The second memory is my favorite because it was an ongoing ritual that lasted until my father separated from my mother. I was somewhat older, attending local elementary school, and we lived in Hinsdale, Illinois in a grand, old, two-story house built in the late 1860s. Dad would be relaxing on the striped sofa in the living room that faced the door, and I would be coming in from outside through the kitchen door. I would see him, he would see me, and we would both break out in a joyous smile. I would then hurriedly run over to him and hop on the portion of his leg between his knee and his ankle. Dad always had his legs crossed--right over left, usually--and once I landed on the top leg and held onto his knee with my hands, he would jiggle me up and down while I hollered "Horsie!" over and over again. My exclamations still echo in the chambers of my memory to this very day.

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My Life With Father
By Susan Ferreira Rodgers

My earliest memories of Dad are musical, recalling our large living room hi-fi playing his collection of Sinatra, Jackie Gleason, Broadway musicals and, of course, my favorites, Rock-A-Bye Your Baby and Mack the Knife. Many a Saturday or Sunday afternoon was spent loading the spindle with those classics. I never saw him dance with Mom, but I do remember him picking me or Donna up and dancing with us as toddlers. Dad also loved watching the musical variety shows: Bob Hope, Dean Martin and, especially, the tap dancing on Lawrence Welk.


Susan and Dad, 1961.

Dad also influenced my television habits. He always loved detective shows: Perry Mason, 77 Sunset Strip, The FBI, Mannix, Hawaii 5-0, Cannon, Barnaby Jones, etc. How else can I account for knowing the theme song from Peter Gunn at the age of two?

My interest in sports was fostered by him as well. He worked on swimming and diving with us kids on our summer vacations, securing us a pool membership at the local Howard Johnson's. Dad bought me my first tennis racquet--a Pancho Gonzalez--and spent time instructing me on the courts. When one of my friends introduced me to skiing at Buffalo Park in Algonquin, Dad insisted that we go out and buy all the equipment after that solo venture so that I could become proficient. Since then, I've enjoyed skiing the Wasatch Mountains and even introduced the sport to my own family. And of course he bought me a baseball mitt and played endless hours of catch and batting practice in the front yard with all of us neighbor kids and the cousins (yes, I took the "hit" for Rebecca in those days!).

Dad also taught me about hard work and perseverance. His own father's early death must have made a great impression on him about the importance of providing for your family, and that became his main focus with us. He liked to work hard and keep busy, whether at a desk job or working in our yard, and he wasn't afraid to reinvent himself for a new venture.

I guess my favorite aspect of my father is his New England and Scottish heritage. Dad was quite the alien in the Midwest. He cut a unique figure with his Brooks Brothers attire and East Coast manners. None of my friends' fathers were like him. I loved listening to his Bostonian accent and pronunciation of certain words--"Mah-mer" for mama, calling Mom "mummy" and, every time I walked into a room, his salutation to his "Susan Van Doozen".

Dad unwittingly transferred to me his love for all things Scottish. His predilections for butterscotch, oatmeal, orange marmalade, black angus cattle, and golf went largely unnoticed by me until my first visit to Scotland in 1997. I immediately felt at home in that wonderful country and fell in love with its landscape, people, customs and food. It was then that I realized how much the MacDonalds had won out over the Ferreira side of the family.

I appreciate Dad's centennial as the opportunity to think back on his legacy, sanguine that our family is all for the better by virtue of his enduring influence on all of us.

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Donald the "Divil"
Excerpted from a letter written August 14, 1916 from my grandfather Arthur Ferreira to his brother-in-law Isaac Murray MacDonald.


Nettie has said every day that she must write to you, but you know how it is with four kids to take care of. The baby is fine now, and Donald is a holy terror. I must tell you a stunt he pulled the other night. 

Nettie and her children: Catherine Louise,
Robert Alexander (with tie), George Stuart
(in Nettie's lap) and the divil himself,
Arthur Macdonald, 1916.

We had a fire in the fireplace as it was a little chilly and we were all at supper except Donald who was in the den. After supper we went into the den and I noticed that the front of the fireplace was wet. I immediately asked Donald if he had peed in the fire and he denied it, but after a long while he admitted it. He did it again the next day and Nettie took him down in the coal cellar and locked him in the coal bin. Your mother says we're too hard on him, but he certainly is a divil.