Hat and Banjo

In my boyhood I learned that a man addressed by only his initials was a man to be respected. Only four men come to mind who have been so honored.  Three of them were presidents of the United States: FDR JFK and LBJ.  The fourth man was my great grandfather, Jesse David Hurlbut.

JDH was born in Toledo Ohio in 1871 three years before his fireman father passed away.  Raised as the youngest of three children, he developed a strong personality that carried him through varied careers that included performing in Vaudeville, milling flour, and banking.

I was six years old when he passed away, so his prominence in my mind was generated by my father’s accounts about him. And my father took every opportunity to enhance his children’s expertise on JDH regaling us with tales of his exploits and committing his adages to our memories. My father was well versed in these for his mother, JDH’s only child, passed away when my father was three months old leaving him to be raised by JDH and his wife.

For some years, now, I have been the caretaker of two of JDH’s belongings, a four string banjo and his Panama hat. In the process of determining the disposition of our many possessions for the year and a half we would be out of country, these two items weighed heavy on my mind. I had grown up with these items. They were a physical link back to the world of JDH. But both items had sustained damage over the years.  Was it really worth keeping them?

The disposition of the banjo was easiest managed. I have a son-in-law studying music at Brigham Young University, who in is trained in repairing string instruments as well as in performing on them.  He was glad to take custody of the historical instrument.

As for the hat, I felt it was time to let it go.  I put it on my head, took a photograph and set it on the pile of donations we had assembled. 

But, when it came time to deliver the gathered items, I found I could not let it go. I put it on my head with the determination that if that was going to be worn until it collapsed, it should be done by someone conscientious of its history and bloodline. (Note how classy the inner lining itself is. Talk about pedigree.)

 

Too soon, the last days of November required our departure to Utah to make our last visits with family there and to enter the Missionary Training Center.  All of our belongings were now either placed in storage, or packed in our car and trailer. For me, travelling with both JDH’s hat and banjo, I felt as though I might be taking my great grandfather along for the ride.

JDH’s presence was prominent in my father’s life journey.  Great Grandfather’s strength of character, confidence and outgoing personality passed onto my father during his upbringing.  They held a mutual regard for each other that strengthened through their years together.  It was with the determination he had learned from JDH that my father, when my mother suggested that perhaps the children should get some religious training, resolved that if they were to attend a church it would be a church chosen through concentrated study.  Eventually this led him to baptism into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

As a result of that decision, I developed my own conviction of the truth of my father’s religion. This conviction led me to accept a calling to preach the restored gospel of Jesus Christ for two years in Sweden some forty years ago. Now, still certain of my duty to God, I, with my good wife at my side, have packed up all our belongings and left the home we were renting. We will travel 650 miles north to drop off a few things with my children in Utah before we enter the Missionary Training Center for eight days of instruction. We’ll drop off the banjo with our son-in-law and see how long the hat lasts.

Epilogue: Our training at the Missionary Training center is over now.  Prior to entering the MTC I managed to leave JDH’s panama hat at my son’s home in Ogden.  He was afraid that his children were responsible for the holes in the hat, but I put his mind at rest about them. 

We were able to retrieve the hat during the weekend and take one last shot of it before laying it to rest. One of the walls at the Missionary Training Center features portraits of all the presidents of the church incorporating images representing their contributions.  I chose to take the last picture of JDH’s hat in front of the portrait of David O. McKay.

As JDH passed away during President McKay’s term of office this image seems to allow time to cycle back to the days when the hat was produced, purchased and utilized by JDH. Though the hat has passed beyond utility, I feel that in its last days it drew me closer to a man that I have revered all my life. May I take some of his strength with me on this new adventure.