CARL BAILEY PASSED AWAY!

And The World Went About Its Business!

As a prologue to the story of my grandfather's service in the Spanish-American and the Philippine Insurrection, The Wars of Young Carl Bailey, an Ordinary Soldier of His Time, I wrote of his death as the starting point. It is the primary memory I have of him, but after researching his record and the wars themselves, I felt I knew him well.

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I knew my Grandpa Bailey, but I guess I didn’t really know him. I knew my middle name was the same as his first name because my name carries the names of both of my grandfathers. I knew he was in the Spanish-American War because as a child I played with his old army campaign hat, and I knew that he made his living as a bricklayer. But I guess I never knew him as an ordinary person who led a life with stories to tell. He was just my grandpa.

Grandpa Bailey was the first person I ever knew who died. He died of inoperable cancer on August 7, 1948, a week before his sixty-eighth birthday. His last words to my mother, as they wheeled him into the operating room were, “See you in church.” I don’t think my grandfather was a very religious man, but perhaps he was making his peace with God. I heard my mother tell the story of those last words many times over the years. You don’t forget the memories and the last words of a dying father.

I was ten years old when he died, to young to understand my feelings about death very well, but I did know that I felt a sadness that I had never known before. His casket was placed before the brick fireplace he had built with his own hands in the living room of the house he and my grandmother shared on West Ninth Street in Jonesboro, Indiana.

Sometimes I moved around the room, sometimes I went outside and sat quietly on the porch, and sometimes I sat on the periphery, watching his friends and neighbors pay their last respects in muffled tones. When there was nobody around, I stood next to his casket and just looked at him with a hurt in my stomach. He was dressed in his best double-breasted pin-striped suit, and his rimless glasses rested on his nose. His eyes were closed, just as I had seen them many times before as he was dozing off in his easy chair. His callused hands from forty years of bricklaying were folded at his waist. On the fourth finger of his right hand was his 32d degree Masonic ring. I cried that he was gone, and I knew I would miss him.

I remember my mother telling my younger brother and me that we would be going to our house with Dad for the night, but she would be staying with grandma. I was glad we didn’t have to stay overnight at Grandma’s house because I wasn’t sure about sleeping in the same house with a dead person, even if that dead person was my grandpa. There seemed something odd about a dead person resting in a living room. “That’s why they have funeral homes,” I thought to myself.

The funeral service was conducted in his living room, and his pall bearers were friends from the organizations that meant the most to him throughout his life -- Masons, Spanish-American War veterans and members of the brick masons’ union. After the service and the hymns, the casket was placed in the long black hearse of the Jay and Swift Funeral Home and a solemn parade of cars, with little blue flags fluttering from the bumpers signifying our special place that day, slowly proceeded up Main Street and across the Mississinewa River to the Riverside Cemetery in Gas City. Small stones pinged under the fenders like hail on a tin roof as the procession rolled through the gates of the cemetery and up the white crushed stone road toward his burial site next to his father, mother and younger sister, who had gone before. A soft summer breeze ruffled the fringes of the tent and the American flag covering the casket as the mourners gathered under the green open-aired tent set against the blue of the Indiana summer sky. The family took their seats on the folding chairs beside the casket. The pastor said a few words, “dust to dust”, and that sort of thing, the sad and lonely notes of Taps echoed across the cemetery and then it was over. Friends and family said a few quiet words to each other and began to go their separate ways.

As we walked back to our car in silence, I took a quick glance over my shoulder to catch a final glimpse of where my grandfather would be buried forever. Dad started the engine, and we eased our way out of the cemetery and on to the road back to Grandma’s house. The silence was broken when my father reached over and turned on the radio. As the music began to play, I can clearly remember feeling the great burden of grief being lifted from me. Suddenly, I felt better. The program on the radio was normal. The traffic was normal. The sunshine was normal. The green of the trees and grass was normal. Everything was normal, and the world was indeed going on as usual. I guess it was then that I first realized that death’s rituals pass and the world, as it had done while I was away, goes on about its daily business.

Have a nice day!

Sam