Doing a little family tree research this afternoon I stumbled on a couple of mentions of my grandfather in old newspapers. In the first, he made national coverage when he testified before the House Select Committee on Small Business on August 23, 1947. As a resident of Greenbelt, one of the federal government's planned, low-income housing communities, he was called to offer his opinion on whether the government should allow competition to the community owned co-op which ran the grocery, gas station, theater, and drug store.
According to the AP my grandfather got a big laugh when he quipped, "There are three sides to the question, Ploeser's, Patman's, and the truth." Ploeser and Patman were the ranking Republican and Democrat on the committee.
In response to his remark, Chairman Ploeser reportedly declared, "Sir, if I could, I would give you a congressional medal of honor for that remark."
(The entire transcript of the hearing can be found on pp 257-260 of this book.)
The second mention came eight years later, almost to the day, when on August 27, 1955, a couple of Vermont newspapers reported that my grandfather was suing David Locke, of St. Johnsbury for 15,000 dollars (which would be the equivalent of ten times that much today). According to the suit, Granddaddy was driving on Rte 2 just west of the town, and when he swung out to pass from behind, Locke veered to the left and ran him off the road and into a tree, totaling his car.
I don't know how the suit was settled, but I do know that 66 years later, we drove that very stretch of Rte 2 this summer on our way to St. Johnsbury, home of Dog Mountain, a remarkable coincidence, indeed.
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