John A. Carroll, MD
www.haitianhearts.org

I cannot remember my Grandpa Fred.

You were his favorite. It is too bad you cannot remember him. My mom used to shake her head and tell me this. But I was too young when he went into the living room after supper and fell asleep on the couch never to awaken.

Grandpa worked at the Central Illinois Light Company in Peoria in the early 1900s. And 90 years later one night I had a sweet 90-year-old patient, a man, in the Emergency Room for reasons that I cannot remember. But he told me that he worked at the Light Company which got my interest. I asked him if he knew Fred Carroll–not expecting him to. He smiled and said that Fred hired him when he was 17 years old. I asked him what kind of a guy Fred was and he told me he was a wonderful boss. I told the old man that I was Fred’s grandson and he smiled.

Recently, I stumbled onto this old photo on the internet. A day out for workers at the Light Company in 1917. I scanned the picture for a few seconds and was certain that I would not find my Grandpa Fred. But there he was, sitting in the cab staring at me as a young man.

He has the chin and nose of my father and kind of a sad Irish look on his face. And there is my nephew John also! This has to be Fred I thought. So I sent it to cousin Patty who, as a young girl, used to watch Fred play solitaire at his dining room table on the south side of Peoria. And Patty agreed…this must be Fred.

I feel sad to look back 100 years at a photo I doubt my dad or his siblings ever saw of their young father trying to support a large family. And to see in his face the look that further generations would share.

I don’t feel worthy of knowing all that I do of Grandpa Fred, the man I cannot remember.

John A. Carroll, MD
www.haitianhearts.org