Cherished
Memories to Last a Lifetime
Last Family Picture before My Dad,
William Harry Eden Died on June 13, 1953. Back Left to Right: Willam Harry Eden, Grace Lucille Brady Eden, Judy Eden, and Ronald Dean Eden |
By Judy Allen - Jan 19, 2000
Just was thinking how everyone felt about sharing a special moment in their life that they cherish as they grow older...
I often think about my father and how he was able to generate so many friends without even trying. He was always there to help anyone who needed that extra hand.
It is sad that I only had him for a very short period of time before his life was cut short by a sudden heart attack. But it is a good thing for me that I had the opportunity to feel the true love and caring of a father that some children never get to experience.
Please let us share your cherished moment also...
Winters Years Ago
By Judy Allen - Dec 14, 1999
I can remember when I was a little girl growing up that winter time was a happy time. Especially when it would snow. and we could go outside and play in it. My brother, Ron Eden, and I would go outside and build a fort in the yard. The next door neighbor would build one too. We used to bombard each other with snowballs. That was the fun years. When we had little to no worries.
Also when the snow would stick to the roads and make the roads icy. We would ride our sleds up and down the street. Back then our roads were gravel and we had no paved roads.
When the roads would become slick, in order for us to get up the road without sliding in a ditch or getting stuck in the driveway, they would put ashes from the furnace, on the road and driveway for traction.
As I said before, THOSE WERE THE GOOD OLE DAYS!
My Dad, William Harry Eden - Son of John Fredrick Eden
By Judy Allen - Oct. 4, 1999
My dad was a wonderful person. He was always there to give the shirt off his back to anyone in need. I had the opportunity of only having him until my 10th birthday but I was very close to him. You could say I was his right arm kid. He built the basement house we lived in with my mother Grace Lucille Brady Eden, making every concrete block by hand that went into the foundation. He started to construct a house on top of the basement house a year before he died unexpectedly. I would help him, and I can remember holding 2x4's at an angle to help him build the framework of the house.
My dad also was the one who got the family get-togethers going at my grandmother's Mary Wagner and James Garfield Brady, house at 2323 W. Antoinette Street, Peoria, Illinois every holiday. He would get everyone together to clean grandma's wallpaper - young and old alike
and make sure my grandparents never went without whether it was in repairs, cleaning, mowing
the grass, whatever, it got done thanks to him. When he died unexpectly, everything we always did ceased to be. You can say he was the foundation of the family unit/ Brady & Eden alike. He died June 13,1953
Here is another memory of Dad that I just added to my notes on Family Tree Maker Note: When employed by Central Illinois Light Company, my dad started out as a manual post hole digger for telephone poles and when he died was a mechanic for the Cilco trucks on Water Street down by the Illinois River. Mom used to take us to where Dad was a mechanic and Dad used to put me on the work bench so I could look out the window and watch the barges go down the Illinois River. Dad also had a work area in our garage at home that he would do mechanic work and oil changes on other peoples cars. He had made a pit in the garage that he could get under a car to do this. When he died, Mom had that pit area filled in with concrete to make a solid floor for our garage.
My father and mother built our homestead from digging the basement to making their own concrete blocks to lay the foundation to what was to be our basement home. Dad was in the process of building us a home on top of the basement home that we lived in when he had his heart attack at the age of 41.
Dad was a carpenter, plumbing expert, and electrician. He was a jack of all trades. He could do almost anything.
I can remember helping Dad with the new home he was building on top of the basement home. He would give me a hammer and nails and let me help him put up the lumber to mark off all the rooms. He explained and showed me how to miter the wood, and measure for doorways, etc.
Here is a few more. Have a great day
Dad was well liked by all the kids in the neighborhood. We had a Jeep and Dad would take my friends and me for rides in the Jeep. In and out of the ditches, as they were, acting as a kid himself. Even to this day, as we have grown old ourselves, these friends of mine during childhood, still relate to those fun times my father provided for all of us.