Rediscovering home: My eldest brother

We were a perfect 10, and now we are nine.

My eldest brother Guy died Jan. 2, 2026, in Seattle, Washington.  He had just celebrated his 84th birthday on December 26, 2025. 

No, we were not perfect, just the number.  I confess that I liked it, even reveled in it, when people would exclaim, “Your family had ten kids, nine boys and finally a girl!” 

Son No. 2, Barry, remembers that the family would “make quite a splash” when six, seven, eight boys would pile out of the old red station wagon.  He and Guy, as teenagers, felt a little awkward about the attention it would bring.  Our beloved Aunt Marguerite saw their embarrassment and chewed them out for not being proud of their family.   

Guy loved his hometown, returning to it twice to build a second career aimed at rejuvenating this place after the closure of the sawmill.  After retiring early from Boeing, he came home and started two businesses – MC Computers and Howlin’ Wolf Music.  He bought half of the old Pike’s Drug Store building.   He basically spent his retirement before closing both businesses and returning to work at Boeing.  He came back to Superior once again after retiring a second time.  He would say, “As long as I can wake up in the morning and see the mountains, I’m happy.”   

Guy was among those with former Mayor Gordon Hendrick that travelled to Japan in an attempt to bring jobs to the county. He petitioned the Montana Department of Transportation for a second exit east of town. The purpose was two-fold: 1. Travelers would go through town from exit to exit instead of just popping off the exit and back onto the highway, and 2. Allow golfers to exit where the ill-fated golf course was planned.  Guy was on the ad hoc committee planning the course.   

The original plan called for constructing part of the course on our property, allowing for enough land for a regulation course. The negotiations broke down and I am not exactly clear why. Anyway, it was decided to construct a 3-par course, which Guy thought a bad idea.  The course soon failed.  

Guy was 14 when I was born, the No. 8 son.  He was 20 when No. 10, Melody was born. Dad and mom were so proud at his graduation from Montana State College with a degree in electronic engineering. He recounted stories of fighting with the Boeing “bean counters” over costs required to keep the planes safe.  Boeing has since experienced what happens when those counting beans win the day. 

Guy sat in the baby chair, as my family liked to call it, for only about a year and one half until Barry showed up. Then came Steve, Charlie, Mark, Curtis, Brett, Bruce, Rex and Melody.   

“The babies came quick,” Barry said.  “Mother was doing everything with a baby on her left hip,” freeing her right arm to cook, clean etc. Guy was not much interested in being a babysitter. He would rather read or do some science project. 

Guy read “a great amount of science fiction,” Barry remembered, leading to his interest in science. He was president of the unofficial science club at Superior High. The club met in the basement of the home of Clyde Field, the science teacher. Guy joined friends Dick Wilkinson, Doug Tower and Rick Niel in building a rocket launching pad in our old potato field. The pad had four rods to hold the rocket in place. Launch control was a small cement block building dug about three feet into the ground and extending about 4 feet above ground, with railroad ties composing the roof and two small openings to observe the launches.   

Guy and Barry set the standard for the rest of us as far as school goes, but neither participated in sports. 

“We couldn’t get into sports because we had to milk cows every morning. We were the economic engine of the farm.” They milked three cows, separating the cream from the milk, and loaded the cream in 5-gallon cans, and took them to the Milwaukee depot, where they were shipped to a creamery in Spokane. (“The milk was for us boys.”) The cans would fetch $22 to $25 each, a good sum in the late 1950s. “It was a big thing to get that check from the creamery,” Barry recalled. (They also sold corn for 10 cents an ear and angle worms for ten cents a dozen.) As the importance of the cream money faded, and “Horns” became the lone milk cow, all of the rest of us were free to participate in sports. 

Guy was “not a robust farmhand,” as Barry put it, despite dad’s yelling efforts to instill a love of physical labor in him. He was a geek, who preferred tinkering with things rather than stacking hay.  

Guy never had a girlfriend or a date in high school, but romance bloomed one college summer when he was working for the Forest Service. Guy manned lookouts during his college summers. One summer, he and Dick Wilkinson spent quite a bit of time at the Thompson Peak lookout when two ladies were stationed there. Apparently, both got in a bit of trouble with the bosses. 

Guy was never your “touchy-feely” type. My brothers and I were not big on showing affection. But we all felt a strong, underlying bond.   

Guy could put on a crusty exterior, but it only barely hid his big heart. A neighbor, who got to know Guy later in life, saw exactly that.  “He was special. I liked him and I don’t know why,” she joked, referring to his crusty demeanor. “I think I liked him more than he liked me. He would look at me with a side glance like he couldn’t figure me out. . . He was an oldest child and I was an oldest child.  So, I got him.” 

Guy loved to play the guitar and sing to his children -- Ivie, Michelle and Richard – as well as the rest of us.  He never wanted to play publicly.  

When each of us visited over the years, mom would always follow us out to the car and wave as we traveled down the road. After her death, Guy took over mom’s role. Well, Guy, you never fooled us. That heart was there all along.  

Guy’s memory largely failed him in his last years. But he would, on occasion, say, “I was somebody once.” Yes, Guy, you certainly were.