Remembering Grandpa

Milton D. Stewart
March 5, 1922--November 4, 2004

One or two of you asked to read the comments I made at Grandpa's funeral, which took place yesterday in Stockton, Illinois. Here they are.

I think Grandpa was the most patriotic American I've ever known. He didn't romanticize this country's past or ignore its flaws, but I think he did understand what is really remarkable about it. He thought everyone had a duty to serve, to better society, and in this task, he did much more than his share.

Grandpa loved history, and he encouraged my own interest in history. I'm going to tell two brief stories about history.

I remember visiting Grandma and Grandpa once in Phoenix, and asking Grandpa about his experience working as the chief staff person for President Truman's civil rights commission, which was something of which I knew my mother, and many other people, were very proud. Grandpa said that when the commission had finished its work, each member in turn made a prediction of how long it would take for all of their recommendations to be implemented. Grandpa was the youngest one in the room, and he predicted one year - maybe two. The most pessimistic people there said five to ten years. "Well," Grandpa said to me, "it took fifty." The last recommendation to be implemented was reparations for Americans of Japanese descent who were interned during World War II, and it happened under President Reagan. Grandpa didn't shy away from the fact that it took far too long; in fact, he drew attention to that fact. But I think he also understood - and was proud - that eventually the recommendations were all implemented. And I think he wanted me to know that part of the story, too.

This weekend, I reread an oral history that Grandpa did with my mother almost ten years ago, and I want to quote for you something that he said, in that interview, about his own mother and father:

It took a long time, I think, before Jews who came to this country were willing to admit that it was gonna be somewhat different here. When they came here, they would not have been surprised to have to move. Because the unspoken predicate of their whole lives was that nothing is necessarily stable. You're in a permanent minority; they may decide to boot you out any day, [or] make your life impossible.

Grandpa lived in a time and a place where a kid from Brooklyn really could grow up to be the first one in his family to go to college; could grow up to advise Presidents, and have expert advice to give them; and could give his grandson better advice on his 10th grade paper about Thomas Jefferson, I'm quite sure, than any of his classmates had. Grandpa's life story is a testament to the fact that things were - in his words - "different here."