Sometimes I can’t help but wonder what it would have been like to have known a father and a grandfather – I could not have been much older than 3 or 4 the last time I saw my father; and as for my grandfather, I remember him as a white haired—and— bearded old man, who lived out the years I knew him, as an almost helpless invalid with a brain concussion caused by being hit by a base-ball.
However, after all, what one has in life, if it is all right, seems the proper thing — I had a dependable Big Brother, Jim, and a wonderful mother who made us forget we were fatherless. In fact the fathers of most of the boys I played with made me feel I was lucky not to have one.
Charles E. Burchfield, August 31, 1962
In 1962 Burchfield made comments about his father, William Charles Burchfield (July 11, 1860 – September 7, 1898), who died 115 years ago today. - Nancy Weekly