Today I had a nice long telephone conversation with my dad, who had a heart attack last November and turned 76 last June. We talked about the weather, rainy for both of us, and our health, good for both of us at this time thank God. We talked about family, including his brother who was recently diagnosed with leukemia, and my mother who died last year.
The conversation came around to my mother's family, and specifically my maternal grandfather whom I never had an opportunity to meet. He died at the age of 50 which I believe was seven years before I was born. I speculated how so many things would be different if he had lived. I sure wish I had had the opportunity to meet this man who went by the name of Huff.
I grew up seeing him in tiny photograph my mother's dresser and hearing a bit about him from my mom. She called him Daddy, and I'm guessing that I would have called him Grandpa. My mom always said that her mother favored her sons, while her father favored her. He was a city bus driver and a part-time farmer who worked hard to take care of his family.
Mom often recalled that her mother's mother did not think that Huff was a good choice for a husband, and walked out of the church when their bans of marriage were announced. Hopefully she changed her mind in later years when he and my grandmother took her into their home and cared for her.
Today, Dad related to me how much he enjoyed my grandfather's company and how highly he thought of him. He was good, good man and his children worshiped the ground he walked on, my dad told me. He was outgoing and funny and my father always enjoyed visiting my grandparents home on the weekends.
They were visiting, in fact, when my grandfather died suddenly of a heart attack in his home. It was a devistating time for all I'm sure. He left behind a wife and five children, two of whom were still youngsters living at home. At that time I believe only 2 or 3 of his now 13 grandchildren were born.
Huff's wife, Margaret, died in 2008 at the age of 102, having been a widow for over half of her life. Prior to her death she related some stories of her husband. I asked her how she met him, and she told me that he was her bus driver. She had a job in a factory, I believe, and he took her to work every day.
He also did some tour bus driving, and she fondly recalled a trip to Niagara Falls with him. On the occasion of her 100th birthday, she told a newspaper reporter that they went to the Canadian side, and planned to go back to the American side the following year, but never got to it because Huff died.
Both of my grandfathers converted to Catholocism after their marriage to my grandmothers. This one would not have married him if he had not agreed. His previous religion was Dunkard.
Huff was the oldest of 12 children growing up in Wrightsville, PA just across the river from my grandmother's hometown of Marietta, PA. His given name was Hoffman, but he took the name John when he became Catholic, and after that time he went by John Hoffman.
One of his brothers, Ralph, died in France during World War II and one died as an infant. One of his brothers was younger than my mom and is still living as far as I know, and he actually attended my mother's funeral. My grandmother and her mother-in-law, Mattie, had been pregnant at the same time.
Two or three of his sisters are still living, and I met one of them on my last real visit with my mom in 2007. She and her sister, brother and sister-in-law attended my mother's funeral as well. In 2007 we met at a pub for lunch and a beer, and she was 90 years old. 
Here's a picture outside afterward.
