The Start of Don Huth

Don Huth (circa 1938)
Myfather will turn 75 in a couple of months, so I've begun typing out a littlebiography of him, maybe 100 pages or so. This is not really appropriate contentfor this weblog, but I've been working on it for a couple of hours, and Ithought this rough draft of the opening might entertain at least me. I don'tknow where I'm going with this story, even though I know everything thathappens, so I'll just keep typing until I find the right voice for it. Rightnow, my tone is informal and a little jovial, but it still seems wrong for theupcoming event, if not for the story itself.
From my father, Ilearned the meaning of the "obtain" when it didn't mean to acquire. When welived in Bolivia, you see, I asked him who his favorite philosopher was, and hechose Marcus Aurelius, desiring possibly to be associated with that rare breedof philosopher who was also a general.
My father, Donald Edward Huth, was at 2:22 pm on the23rd of March 1937, weighing seven pounds and seven ounces and 21inches long, at Saint Anthony Hospital, 10010 Kennerley Road, St Louis,Missouri. My father is a genealogist, so he has handy detailed data on hislife, though, as is common with genealogies, these bits of information abouthis life do not add up to a man. They allow us to know everything about him andyet know nothing at all. So the only way to find out something about him is tounderstand what someone who knows him knows. And that is my role, as the writerin the family, as the only person likely to be able to write a book in a fewmonths, as his eldest son. And in anticipation of his seventy-fifth birthday.
As would eventually become common for people in ourfamily, my father was born in a place his family wasn't really from. The Huthsimmigrated to New Orleans and stayed there for a couple of generations, but theLehrs on his mother's side were from a place near St Louis, from the stateright across the Mississippi from his city of birth, from western Illinois. Butnot quite St Louis. He was born among family but not truly in a place offamily. He exhibited the homelessness that became the defining characteristicof his children's lives. Even today, when all of his children are in theforties and fifties, I at least am uncomfortable when I say I am fromsomewhere. I have never felt as if I were of any place at all.
My father's parents were George John Huth andCatherine Ann Lehr, whose ethnic backgrounds were primarily German. The Lehrswere primarily German, with French and German varieties of Swiss mixed in. TheHuths were more mixed. My grandfather (Grandpa to us) was one half Alsatian,one quarter Irish, and one quarter Corsican. I could say that he was threequarters French, but that would give no indication of his real ethnicity.
Donald was George and Catherine's first child andonly surviving child. They had one stillborn daughter (whom they named MaryAnn) a few years later, and then no others, so my father was a special child,firstborn, male, and only, all of which characteristics made him something tobe treasured. These facts may explain why three baby books survive describinghim and his early life, and these also made him an important part to the continuationof the family, actually the essential part. This need to continue the familywas something I felt growing up, as my brothers probably also did, for my fatherwas the last of his line.
His father George and Uncle Edward were orphaned aschildren, their parents having succumbed to the prevalent and virulent diseasesof New Orleans and then dying in the twenties. Edward himself did marry butnever had children, maybe because he and his wife could not. This last myfather as the only pioneer left to multiply the family after the firstimmigrant (another George) arrived in New Orleans in 1855. Just a little morethan a century after his great-grandfather had arrived in the United States, myfather began, with the help of my mother, to build a family of six children,three of them boys.
I like to imagine that my father was named after afamous Duck, and I'm sure his name led to some teasing while growing up, but hewas named if he were named for anyone after his uncle Edward, receiving hisuncle's name as his middle name. Later, my brother Rick also received this as amiddle name: Erick Edward. This avuncular transmission of middle names is evenmore exaggerated, and regular, in my case. My great-uncle Joseph Anthony Reilly'smiddle name was transferred to his nephew, Paul Anthony Tanner. And Uncle Paul'smiddle name was transferred to me, Geoffrey Anthony Huth. Finally, at least fornow, my middle name has been given to my nephew, Nicholas Anthony Huth.
(to be continued)
ecr. l'inf.