Daddy "Brady" 1899-1979

Okay, this could be hard. I'm going to relay the history that I remember Mother, Grandma McClain & Grandma Brady told me. I have very mixed feelings about the whole thing, really, but also I did love my Dad and he was good to me even if it took him years to be good to Mother.
I guess that's how it is when you finally grow up and understand that people do things that change the whole course of their lives because of a single act...or a habit, brought about by the first single act.

I probably need to start with the hard part. Daddy 'Brady' was a product of a split marriage. When Grandma Brady & Grandpa McClain got divorced, Dad went to live with his Dad and his step-mother. He wasn't very old then, about 12. He didn't get along with Ethel very well and eventually ran away from home to join the circus. His dad & Ethel had a little baby boy, Milton. The way I heard it from Mother, Milton turned out to be a very handsome young man. He was quite tall with black hair, piercing blue eyes and a winning personality. Daddy never liked him and resented him terribly. Daddy took on his step-father's name "Brady" to spite his dad and never had much to do with either set of his parents or families after he left home.

He eventually learned to play several instruments but really liked the Saxophone. He started a band and actually did quite well with it. He had that going for him for many years.

When WWII broke out he joined the Army and went to war. He actually earned a Purple Heart in that war. I never heard any stories about his time in the services, but that wasn't uncommon for many of the young men who served in that war. It was just too painful to talk about. Mother said that when he came home he started to drink. I'm not real clear on how they met but I just know it was somewhere in Santa Cruz. Mother had Larry who needed a father figure, but I don't think she knew what she was getting into when she married my Dad. "Brady" eventually bought The Yacht Club in Santa Cruz, at the Harbor. He had quite a bunch of friends there. They would play poker, and sometimes gamble for pretty high stakes. Mother tells of a time where he gambled away the family car one night. He did have some serious vices. He became an alcoholic, and that was the one that seemed to do the most harm to everyone.

Evidently, when he came home from the war and Milton was still out to sea in the Navy. Mom & Dad had been married about 4 years when Mother was about to deliver me. Her sister-in-law, Milton's wife, came to tell them that Milton had been burned to death on the "Nashville" ship while he was taking care of a patient. She was emotionally lost and found refuge in their home. By then, they had Larry & Darlene. Mother always was willing to take people in and feeling the heart-ache of this young woman, she welcomed her and invited her to stay as long as she needed to.

The true heart-ache came when Larry reported that he was locked out of the only bathroom in the house because he had to go through the master bedroom to get to it. While Mother was in the hospital having her baby, Daddy was 'consoling' his sister-in-law, Virginia. Mother gave him a year to decide what he wanted to do. He chose Virginia. Maybe it was the war, maybe it was because he could finally get back at Milton by taking his wife...I guess we'll never know. I met her on several occasions growing up and Mother was, by far, the most beautiful and alive between the two. My Dad & Virginia were basically drunk nearly any time you saw them. I remember one time when he came to visit us and he hit mother. I realized then, that he had made the right choice after all.

I vaguely remember Virgina passing away when I was in elementary school. He had a few years of dating some pretty big fluzzies. I remember being so happy when I met "Pan". She was a classy lady who really seemed to love him. She took care of him until he died when he was 80. There's stories here that I don't need to share, but let it suffice, he was a very lucky and blessed man to have Pan. She was a Princess in my book.

Dad would often say when I was in college and come to visit that "Your Mother wasn't ALWAYS a Mormon, ya know!" That would somehow make me mad, but I didn't think that was any of my business, so I never questioned him as to why he would make a statement like that...after all, neither was I.

One lesson I will never forget that he did teach me, when I was a teenager. I was having a rough time getting along with Mom and decided it would be a great idea if I could just go live with him and Pan and not have to have someone watching me day and night to follow "the rules". I knew that my Dad was an alcoholic and when I stayed there he really didn't watch what I did, he just let me hang out with my friends. He didn't care what time I came in or anything. He would hand me $20 and tell me to have a good time. Sometimes he would say, "Here's the keys to my yacht, take your friends for a ride!" Although I was scared to death of that huge boat, the idea of that kind of freedom can look pretty appealing to a teenager, and I fell into that category quite readily. I really liked "Pan" and she was gone all week to 'the city' (San Francisco) working at a big department store and was only home on the weekend. That also sounded good to me.
I just knew he'd be okay with it. When I told him my plan he sat me down for the first 'Father Daughter' talk I'd ever had or ever would have with him. He was even sober for this one. He said, "You know Sheri, your Mom and I haven't always seen eye to eye. We've spent a whole lot of years mad at each other over one thing or another. I wasn't a good father for you, but your mother has done a good job. We have finally got a good relationship and I'm not going to let you drive a wedge in it with this. You are going to have to know that IF you decide to come and live with us, you can. But, neither Nellie or I are going to let you flit back and forth whenever you get mad at one of us. You are going to have to decide where you're going to be and stick with it. So, what's it gunna be?" -----Wow! I was shocked! But somehow it made me feel really secure; like I had parents that loved me and wanted me to do a solid thing...to be grounded in a decision and stick to it...to take responsibility. It really made me proud of him. He was willing to take me in. I decided I was in the best place for me over-all, and I never regretted it. Mom was the one I wanted to be with. She only was hard on me because she knew I needed rules to survive in this world, and this was the time in my life that I needed them most.