| On December 7, Papa was tying his necktie
before going down to breakfast, when he had his final stroke. He lingered
a little while, but none of us could get there before he died. Uncle Hugh
Green went at once and brought Papa's body back to Pierre. Grandpa Green insisted on bearing all the expenses of the funeral. He said that not even his wife's death had hit him as hard as Will's. He and Papa were more like brothers than like father and son. Papa was the first child to survive, after three older brothers had died, and Grandpa Green almost idolized him. After a church services at Grandpa’s Baptist church in Pierre and a Masonic service at our home in Okobojo, Papa had a military burial at the family cemetery near the old homestead. The first occupant of that cemetery had been Great –grandfather McGannon, Grandmother Green’s father. It was a desolate family and heartbroken wife that left Papa to sleep under the deep snow that twelfth day of December 1922. The thought of Christmas just around the corner--the first one we children had ever known without him--only emphasized our sorrow. - Francis Catherine Green from Cathie's Manuscript |