The last post card

The handwriting is cramped and occasionally difficult to read. It's addressed to the family of his daughter Emma. They live in the Chicago suburb of Evergreen Park, where her husband, Marinus, is a pastor, like Grandpa.

A note below the address, penciled in, documents this post card is the "Last card from Grandpa." It's dated October 29, 1955, and returned-addressed to a "J C Schaap" of Oostburg, Wisconsin. That's my grandpa. He was living at our house at the time. I was in first grade.

Two months would pass before Grandpa died. The newsprint clipping I have announcing his death says he passed away on Thursday, January 5. While it's fair to say that this postcard, despite its cramped hand, wasn't written from his death bed, the provenance of the additional line is likely true: this was the last card the Goote family received from Grandpa Schaap. He was 75 years old.

And what's the news? "Dear Ones in Evergreen Park."

Well, it's a bit jumbled. In typical Depression-era style and, I'd guess, without much thought, he loads the page, fills the card. The lines don't wiggle, but neither are they flat nor jumbled. When he was younger, Grandpa Schaap likely had quite commendable handwriting--"penmanship" we called it long ago. The exact nature of the good news he claims he received from his daughter's card to him is not revealed--perhaps Emma was, once again, with child. 

He says he's spent a few days at his son's house ("Gerard & Jeanette"). "When I was home..." and then there's a scramble that makes reading and meaning difficult, but the sentence concludes clearly: "feel as I did." But he goes on to explain, "Pain in my chest and in my arms," which suggests the criminal heart attack that two months later would take him. 

There's a news story here: "I sent for the doctor and he gave me some pills," and the immediate outcome: "I feel much relieved. I hope it will not bother me again." About that he was likely wrong. 

The weather gets a word or two--"not very nice, cold and rainy. It's signed "Pa + Grandpa," expecting the kids to want to be in on the news. 

It's a bit portentous, at least when read so many years later. That pain in his arm and chest, the doctor's being called--and, of course, his descendants knowing the date of his death all suggest his being fairly oblivious to death's stalking just outside his door.

Then, whether as an afterthought or in an effort to use all of the page, Grandpa tells a quick, gossipy news story from "home." "A certain Ramaker," he says, "brother of Mrs. Lennooye wanted to commit suicide," he says, then turns the post card on its side to fill up the last open space, and adds, "but he didn't die." 

That's it. That the Gootes knew this man is unlikely. His daughter Emma was college age and out of the house when Rev. Schaap moved his family to Oostburg. Her husband, a big city boy from Grand Rapids, was notorious for mocking goofy small towns. There is no really good excuse for his telling the dark story of a botched suicide attempt by someone the "ones in Evergreen Park" never knew, except for one--the story is amazing. Get this: "he didn't die." End of story.

It's not that you wouldn't expect a preacher to tell a story like that, but shouldn't there be at least a bit of a homily right there alongside, a one-sentence sermon about suicide maybe, or some mention of the Lord giving this poor man a second chance? That there's no sermon is surprising. Maybe he just ran out of white space.

The word on my grandfather--at least one of the descriptions that I ran into early in my adulthood, when people remembered him--was, oddly enough, that Rev. Schaap was maybe a scotch better at a banquet than he was from the pulpit, a better story-teller than preacher. 

I sort of like that. 

An old man's last post card is scant proof of anything, but I can't help thinking that this one suggests an assessment of the old man's ways that's not far afield. What's amazing about the suicide story is "he didn't die." 

Quirky. Unexpected. A surprise, even a shock. Wow. 

Amazing story--don't you think, Gootes?