Titus Henry Drake, Jr
August 2, 1929 - April 6, 2016
My father’s father, Titus Henry Drake (from whom
my dad & I got our formal names) was part of an established American family
that traced their lineage on this continent to 1640 – when Francis Drake moved
from the family seat in Colchester, England to New England – when this land was
still a British possession. My father’s
mother’s name was Helen Harvey. Until
recently, I didn’t know much about her family except that her father was a state
senator in the Michigan legislature.
Titus Senior married Helen Harvey and my dad was
born on August 2, 1929, in Three Rivers, Michigan. From an early age, my father was referred to
as “Junior” by my dad, and “Ty” by everyone else. Ten weeks after his birth, the stock market crashed and
the Great Depression began. In early
1932, my father’s brother, Jim, was born.
This is the earliest photo I have of my father -
he’s standing in the middle in the light colored suit. Note how skinny he was. There’s a story behind that. When my father and uncle were very young,
their parents bitterly divorced. In
those days, the mother was automatically granted custody, so they went to live
with my grandmother - where my father was forced to answer to the name "David". I will confess to
you, I never knew my grandmother very well - because after spending time with
her during my youth, I decided to keep my distance. She was a troubled woman who married five
times. I learned decades later that her
mother died when giving birth to my grandmother and her father blamed her for
her mother’s death – and she never grew up experiencing parental love. She was unable to take adequate care of my
father and uncle, and the United States was in the midst of the Great
Depression. The kids lived on onion sandwiches and were malnourished to
the extent that they had sores on their skin.
And my grandmother and her new husband would beat them with an electric
cord for the slightest infraction.
Eventually, their situation became so dire that my father secretly wrote
and mailed a letter to my grandfather, begging for help. My grandfather showed the letter to the
judge, the court intervened, and my dad and uncle were sent to live with my
grandfather and his second wife, Florence Cylka. Flo was of Polish heritage, loved to cook
and really knew how to do it. My dad
& Jim filled out from good nutrition and from working on my grandfather’s
farm. My dad applied himself in school -
especially in mathematics and sports. He
graduated from Constantine High School, President of the class of 1947.
After graduating from high school, Dad entered
Michigan State University and centered his studies on Civil Engineering and
Architecture. While there, he met Joanne
Dewey and they married, resulting in a son, Robert. Around that time, my father enlisted in the
Navy and became a draftsman 2nd class. He was stationed at the San Diego Naval
Base. The United States was involved in
the Korean War at the time, but the Navy was impressed with my dad’s
organizational skills and he remained in San Diego. My dad, who loved ships all his life, was
disappointed but applied himself to his duties.
By the time he was discharged he had been awarded the National Defense
Service Medal. It’s a testament to my
father’s modesty that he never told me any of this. Instead, he was fond of regaling me with
stories going to the beach and bar hopping with his buddies. One time, he and his best buddy got quite
drunk. On the way back to base, as my
dad was dozing in the passenger seat, his buddy passed out behind the
wheel. The subsequent crash awakened my
father from his slumber, and when he pulled himself out of the car, he thought
he stepped into a puddle - his shoes were soaked through with his own blood and
his knees bore the scars from that incident from the rest of his life. It was during this period that my Uncle Jim snapped pictures at the beach where my father was a volunteer lifeguard.
By the time my dad had been discharged from the
Navy and returned to Michigan, things were not working out between he and
Joanne, and they divorced. On November 22, 1956, Dad - now living in Cleveland - married my mother, Verna Pritchard Stevens, resulting in my sisters Verna (“Pixie”),
Sarah, and me. By that time, his brother
Jim had moved out to Los Angeles and was working as a Hollywood extra.
My father was badly shaken up when his brother
died in 1976. My Uncle Jim shot himself
– an accidental death brought about by cleaning his gun while inebriated. When my parents came home from Uncle Jim’s
funeral, my father was a changed man.
Whatever the merits of my father and my mother as
individuals, the truth is that they were not well suited for each other – and
at the deepest level, whatever their love for each other, they never truly
understood each other. When my father
was in my parents’ basement, building ship models, playing trumpet, or lifting
weights,he was giving expression to his
creative and physical energies - rather than venting his frustration as my mother often said. And there were times my father, a stoic, was relatively uncommunicative. But the
sounds of my parents’ arguments still ring in my ears, and their marriage
formally ended in 1980.
I’m not going to belabor the particulars of my
parents’ divorce. Those of us in the
family have discussed it in private and have our various opinions, although we
all agree my mother’s situation was tragic almost from birth. But let me make it plain that my father’s
marriage to Hiede has proven itself through time - it has been a happy,
enduring, and productive partnership.
Truly, the third time is the charm.
Hiede took excellent care of my father, in health and sickness. She knew when to give him focus, and when to
give him his own space. What I think
most people don’t grasp about my father is that he was a tremendously creative
person (as are all the Drake men I’ve known), and creative people sometimes need their
own space. That creativity lives on in their son, Sean - born in 1982.
One thing I will always admire about my father is
his adaptability. When he was laid off from
his job in 1983 - after working with that company for many years - he didn’t
pout, he didn’t sulk. He got involved in
a new industry called cellular communications and traveled the country putting
up cell towers. Twenty years later, at
an age when most of us would be long retired, he designed an ecologically sensitive, carbon neutral house in Hawaii.
From the time he graduated college, my father’s work emphasized the
principles of structural integrity, clean lines, and holistic layout – whether
he was designing a corporate headquarters, a home, or a highway exit. His standards were very high, he refused to
compromise on safety, and he once told me how an argument between he and a bean-counter nearly descended into fisticuffs.
Dad was working on his final masterpiece, the renovation of his own home
in Half Moon Bay, when his health began to decline in 2010 – first due to a
heart attack, then from an aortic valve replacement from which he never fully
recovered. The project remained unfinished when he died.
Dad was a conservative and a traditionalist. But he was flexible enough to accept his gay
son’s partner with open arms. In fact,
he was nicer in his first meeting with Daniel than he was with his two future
sons-in-law when he met them! He also
had a temper in his younger years which we learned not to cross. But age mellowed him. My father, like his brother, enjoyed the
occasional tipple. But there were two
differences: my father knew his limits, Jim did not; and when Jim drank, he could become bitter and nasty, my father simply became more convivial. One of my fondest memories of my dad was when
I surprised him for his 80th birthday in 2009. While Hiede was out of town working, we
grilled hamburgers, mixed some very potent drinks, and swapped stories which,
frankly, are not repeatable here. There
was a lot of laughter that night.
No comments:
Post a Comment