We lived in Ohio when I was little, so I can remember trips to South Fork, PA, and return visits from my father’s parents. I remember clearly sitting with Grandpa with a “How to draw Disney characters” book that he brought me, drawing the ovals that make up Donald Duck. He also sat me down without the book, and taught me to draw trees with the side of a pencil and how to shade the sides of houses with smoke coming out of the chimney. He showed me that drawing had no edges, that it was only light and shadow, despite Donald’s ovals. Ray was an educator, artist, sign painter/letterer and collector. He was very much like a 19th century gentleman… well read, opinionated, loud, firm, with a wide open fearlessly inquisitive mind and varied interests.
On visits to PA I’d hide among his books and read all kinds of diverse and esoteric things… geology, exploration, various religions. Every year he renewed my subscription to National Geographic Magazine. He and Grandma and Uncle Gene lived in an apartment attached to what was once a gas station and general store, and he put the store area and shelves to good use. Near his library area he had old store cabinets and shelves, filled with things he’d collected or students had given him over the years. Fossils, arrowheads, meteors, skulls, a tarantula… it was a Cabinet of Curiosities and he must have fancied himself somewhat as a Victorian gentleman scientist. He had all the Speedball pen nibs and was a lifelong letterer. His art ranged from oil paintings of primitive rural scenes to very large pencil and chalk pinup girl pictures, in the style of Varga, to small Dali-inspired graphic watercolors with swirls and eyes. I heard him say he wouldn’t mind being stung by a scorpion, just to see what it was like.
After we moved to Florida I remember Grandpa and Grandma visiting us in 1969, and Grandpa sitting in a shady living room and reciting to me from memory the Robert W. Service poem, “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” During that visit he remarked on the moss hanging from the trees, since he had never been south. I turned him on to my breakfast of choice which was hot oatmeal with chocolate syrup and rode with him in the back of my dad’s pick-up truck and followed him around relentlessly.
In August 1972 I was 15, and we had a family reunion of sorts, a lot of us going to South Fork at the same time. The “War and Peace” mini-series was playing on TV and Ray made sure we watched it every night. At this time Ray was in seemingly great health, eyes bad enough that he couldn’t read but was working his way through all the Zane Grey books which were available from the library on phonograph record. The house was full, so I ended up on a cot in the store near the curiosity cabinets and his books. I went to sleep that night watching him sit in his chair “reading” Zane Grey through the headphones. He passed quietly in the night, as I awoke in the morning to the sounds of Grandma trying to wake him up. After the funeral, Grandma had one of my uncles help me pick out some of his art supplies, pen nibs, and watercolor paper since I was the artsy one amongst the grandchildren. I still have it all as well as some arrowheads and fossils. As my life has progressed, I’ve been an artist… drawing and painting, a graphic designer with lettering and images, and a collector of fossils, artifacts and curiosities. I never knew Ray in my adult life, but I wish I had, and consciously or not, he’s always been one of my role models.