June 2, 2022 • 26 mins
Have you ever dialed a cold call to your cousin? A family member you've never met before? On this episode of The Grandfather Effect, Brian connects with a few of his family members who he has never met before in hopes of gaining more insight about Grandpa Tom.
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Host and Creator: Brian Dahlen
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:01):
We never heard from him again.
S2 (00:02):
No letter, no call, no contact.
S3 (00:04):
That's very possible. I played a leading role in what
happened here. We got to satisfy one. Five seven.
S1 (00:13):
This is it. I think it's an incredible story. I
guess I kept wondering why everybody didn't address the elephant.
S3 (00:20):
In the room. I'm Brian Donlon, and this is the
grandfather effect. Hey there. It's Brian. I want to hit
pause on this episode to ask you for two quick favors. First.
Don't forget to subscribe to and follow this podcast so
you never miss an episode. And second, would you consider
(00:41):
sharing the grandfather effect with a few of your friends?
You know, word of mouth marketing is the best thing
out there. And if you like what you hear, we'd
be so grateful for you to help us spread the
word about the grandfather effect. Tell your friends to find
out more information at Moody Radio Dawgs slash grandfather again.
Moody Radio Dawg slash grandfather. Thanks. Let's get back to
(01:06):
the episode. I'm on my way to visit my grandfather.
It was buried at Fort Snelling National Cemetery just outside
of Minneapolis. I have no idea how I'm going to
find him. It's a vast sea of white gravestones, neatly
(01:32):
organized across 400 acres of flat snow covered Minneapolis landscape.
Over 225,000 veterans and their immediate family members are buried there.
I have been here once before because of my grandpa.
That's what you need to do when a relative is buried, right?
(01:53):
You go to their internment service to honor their life.
To say goodbye. But why do we come back to
a gravesite, usually to interact with fond memories, old stories,
and to feel their impact in the place where they're buried.
And this is exactly why I haven't been back. I
have no memories. I have no stories. I wouldn't even
(02:15):
recognize his impact if it hit me in the face.
I genuinely don't know what I'm doing here. But I
guess I have to find out. The whole property was
essentially empty of the living today. After all, it was
mid-February in Minnesota on a cold and windy day. I
(02:38):
figured the best place to start was the Public Information Center.
I needed a grave number and a map to find Grandpa.
And as I got back in my car to begin
the search. Something popped into my head. The effort I'm
putting forth. To find my grandfather's grave, which I've never visited. Ironically,
(03:03):
is more effort than he ever put toward knowing me.
I knew I wouldn't find any answers here, but maybe
I'd find some peace. Here we go. 2751522753.
S2 (03:19):
4754555657. This is it.
S3 (03:27):
Time to say it's time. What you say. There's only
one more person that could give me any sort of
concrete firsthand information about my grandpa. And he's the oldest
living relative in my family. My dad's only living cousin,
(03:48):
Marshall Jr. Now family trees are cumbersome to explain without visuals.
But I've got to give you some context here to
understand who I'm talking about. So bear with me. My
great grandfather, Oscar Henry Dolin, had two sons, Marshall and Thomas.
Marshall is my great uncle and Thomas is my grandfather. Now,
(04:13):
Grandpa Tom had two sons, Tom Jnr, who you met
last episode, and Bill, my dad, great uncle Marshall, on
the other hand, had two sons, Robert and Marshall Jr. Now, sadly,
Robert passed away a number of years ago, but Marshall
Jr still living. So if you're following me, that makes
(04:36):
him the only other person who would have any intimate
knowledge of my grandfather. Here's the problem. I've never talked
to him. I don't have his phone number or his address.
I don't even know what he looks like. My dad
hasn't spoken to him in at least 20 years and
has no clue where he lives. So what do I
just start calling Marshall Islands? And how do you cold
(05:00):
call a distant relative that you've never met to ask
for a recorded interview about your long dead grandfather who
disowned you? Well, if you me, you don't do that.
I'm way too wimpy for something like that. It's much
more comfortable, you see, to hide behind a keyboard and
randomly send messages to people on Facebook. That might be
(05:21):
your long lost relative. Now, this would have been a
simple strategy if my dad's cousin, Marshall Jr was on Facebook,
but no, he's not. And then by some sort of miracle,
my dad searched the recesses of his mind and found
a fleeting memory that Marshall's son might be named Tim.
So I found a Tim Allen on Facebook and developed
(05:42):
an eloquent, yet brief message that said in part, quote,
Any chance you're the son of Marshall Dolan? Cahill impresses
my wordsmithing must have made an impact. Long story short,
Marshall Jr and Tim agreed to meet with my brother
in me while I was in Minnesota to talk. And
as it turns out, he lives only a few miles
(06:03):
from my brother Jacob's house. So off we went.
S2 (06:11):
Hey, there. You must be Tim. I am Tim.
S3 (06:14):
Yes, I'm Brian. Brian, nice to meet you. I take Jacob,
Jacob and his to meet you as a gay man.
S2 (06:21):
Brian.
S3 (06:22):
Nice to meet you, Marshall.
S2 (06:23):
The pleasure's all mine.
S3 (06:24):
Thanks for having us. I really appreciate it. Even though
none of us have ever met. It didn't take long
for us to get comfortable. I'm guessing that's likely because
of our genetic similarities. You know, dashing good looks, sharp wit,
captivating personalities. You know what I'm talking about? In fact,
as I sat down on the couch in Marshall's living room,
(06:47):
it didn't take long for him to actually start ribbing me.
S2 (06:49):
You know, I'm old.
S3 (06:51):
So here are you 80? Is that correct?
S2 (06:53):
Yeah.
S3 (06:54):
Yeah.
S2 (06:55):
It's okay.
S3 (06:56):
Yeah, I'm. I'm okay with that. Yeah.
S2 (06:58):
Okay.
S3 (06:59):
I think you are the oldest living darling. Is that.
S2 (07:02):
Correct? Yeah. Born in the thirties. Oh, my.
S3 (07:05):
God. Yeah. Wow. It was, like, forever ago. Yeah.
S2 (07:07):
Well, I got to check to see if I got
my feet in the ground or not. No, no.
S3 (07:12):
Okay. Game on. I can't let an 80 year old
just burn me like that. So I gently struck back
with the only memory my dad has of his cousin, Marshall. Yeah.
My dad remembers you showing up to family events in
sports cars with good luck.
S2 (07:31):
Yeah.
S3 (07:32):
That's what he remembers. That sounds about right. Yeah, yeah.
S2 (07:37):
Yeah. Yeah. So, I. I have been blessed with very
attractive women, one of them, which I married through the years.
So I don't know why maybe the $100 bill paid out, right? Yeah.
S3 (08:01):
Another point for Marshall. As you can tell, he's a
very young, spry, sharp 80. And with that, we drove
right in. Marshall turned out to be a family historian
and right away rocked my world with the fact that
my last name isn't really Dolin. The change originated with
(08:23):
my great great grandfather, John Dolin, before he immigrated to America.
S2 (08:29):
John Dawn was in the Swedish army. His name was
John Gustafson, and they said, we have too many justices.
So therefore, your name is going to be Swenson and
your name is going to be Darwin. And apparently Darwin
(08:51):
means something like Peaceful Valley or Happy Valley. And then
they came over here as Darwin and he had Oscar.
Ed word. I think John Junior and maybe a Charles.
(09:12):
I think there were four boys. Oh, my Lord. Swear
to it.
S3 (09:15):
Well, that's okay.
S2 (09:16):
I have met Uncle Ed, and I met a couple
of the other ones, but it was, you know, long
time ago on a planet far away.
S3 (09:26):
I'd never heard this before. I'm confident my dad and
my uncle hadn't either. So he's got to know more
about my great grandfather, Oscar, and therefore my grandpa's childhood.
How much you know about Oscar that I know he
passed away at 37, so you got to meet him.
S2 (09:43):
He was 50 years old when he passed away. He
was very young. He shouldn't have passed away.
S3 (09:51):
So now.
S2 (09:51):
I mean, Eleanor, of course, lived much longer. She lived
in Seattle. And I think in about 78 or so,
he'll move back here to the Masonic Hall in Bloomington.
Your grandfather, my dad got her to move back and
(10:12):
she lived there for a number of years and she
died at the age of 93. We'd had her over
to the house and, you know, a lovely lady, a
stoic German woman. Yeah, she was German.
S3 (10:30):
So not much emotion.
S2 (10:32):
She. She didn't show a lot of emotion. She may
have had it, but she didn't. Oh.
S3 (10:39):
What what do you know about. About Oscar's relationship was
just with your dad, for example, where they were real close.
Was he stoic, like.
S2 (10:49):
Yeah. Oscar, according to what I have in the back
of my mind, the family was close, but Oscar was
busy building a business, and he did succeed in building
a very successful business.
S3 (11:08):
Could that be a clue into my grandfather's personality? Was
he a product of his stoic, non emotive mother? Maybe.
But at the same time, Marshall shared something about my
great grandfather and my family legacy that makes me immensely proud.
S2 (11:25):
His label business became what I have been told to
be the seventh largest label company in the world. No,
I went to work there when I was younger and
I had been taught by people who had worked for
my grandfather, growing older and had worked there since 1928.
(11:52):
And he taught me to run certain kinds of presses.
And we had a foreman there that had been there
for 40 years.
S3 (12:00):
Oh.
S2 (12:01):
The girl on the front. She had been there, I
don't know, 35, 40 years. She was 82 when they
decided that she had better retire because her vision was
getting bad. She was doing the book work and stuff,
you know. So the thing that we did there is
(12:23):
treated them like family. My grandfather during the Depression had
all of the employees painting the building, cleaning the building,
and kept him working. And then he bought or put
together a trucking company to have deliveries for McGarvie Atwood
(12:46):
Coffee Company. It was Atwood, I think, at that time,
and they delivered coffee. So he kept all of the
employees going. You know, it was a family business run
for all the employees as a family.
S3 (13:02):
So so was he taken a loss of sorts during
that that season just to keep people working to care
for them?
S2 (13:08):
Yeah, that's what he did. He did all of that
to keep people working, which was kind of nice.
S3 (13:13):
That shows a compassionate heart there.
S2 (13:16):
Well, you know, the thing and my dad did it
and I did it. You treat people like people, not employees,
but like part of the family.
S3 (13:33):
My great grandfather treated his employees like family. They spent
their careers with him. And in an act of overwhelming
generosity and love, he took a financial loss during the
Depression and started another business just to be sure his
employees were cared for. My dad and my uncle just
(13:55):
know his name, but Marshall Jr. Knows my great grandfather.
Oscar Dolan's legacy. And then. For the very first time
in my whole life. I got to see Oscar. Now
is is this. Is this just a random person or
is that.
S2 (14:13):
That's Oscar.
S3 (14:14):
That's Oscar.
S2 (14:15):
Oh, yeah.
S3 (14:16):
I haven't seen any photos.
S2 (14:18):
He's got other pictures of Oscar.
S3 (14:20):
Oh, dear. Oh.
S2 (14:22):
Don't you have other pictures of Oscar? Here's an Oscar.
S3 (14:25):
Oh, you don't mind if I scan on my phone,
do you?
S2 (14:28):
No. I'll send you a bill later.
S3 (14:33):
Honestly, it was just a few bits of information, but
it was a lot to process, particularly in light of
what I know of my grandfather. His dad was a
man of generosity and character. And based upon what I
just learned, those qualities were passed along to his son
Marshall Senior and his grandson, Marshall Jr. Doesn't that make
(14:57):
you wonder? Why didn't my grandpa get those qualities? As
a point of contrast, I wanted to investigate this a
bit further. It's one thing to treat your employees like family,
but what was my grandfather's brother, Marshall, like at home?
So tell me about your. Your dad. What was he like?
(15:19):
His personality.
S2 (15:20):
Well, how do you describe him?
S3 (15:26):
I know it's hard to encapsulate that, but.
S2 (15:28):
He was very sincere and nice individual. Of course, I
grew up during the Second World War, and so he
was an area where you weren't in the business. He
was busy running that and probably was gone, you know,
(15:48):
during the day, every day, but come home at night.
He enjoyed traveling. My mom enjoyed traveling. I can remember
them telling me about going pheasant hunting and driving down
the road, shooting pheasants out of the car, you know? Well,
(16:09):
you know, you're talking about back in the twenties. Yeah.
And so they hunted quite a bit.
S3 (16:15):
It was becoming clear that the brothers were very different people.
As you may recall, my grandpa's yearbook revealed that he
wasn't in any activities. The only hobby I'm aware of
was a passing interest in a model train set. But
not his brother, Marshall Senior. Marshall was also an accomplished
musician prior to his father's death. He actually was a
(16:38):
professional saxophonist in a big band in California. And he
never let go of his love for music.
S2 (16:45):
I can remember he had some of his buddies. They
come over to the house. We had a baby grand
piano in the living room, and they had a drummer
and my dad, somebody else. And he had those guys
get together and they'd jam downstairs. And my brother and
(17:07):
I would go to the top of the stairs and
listen to him, you know, play that because it was
really good.
S3 (17:13):
Was he pretty good, your dad?
S2 (17:15):
Oh, yeah.
S3 (17:16):
And the differences run even deeper. As you may recall
from previous episodes, my grandfather didn't really spend quality time
with his sons. That was in stark contrast to the
relationship my grandpa Tom's brother Marshall had with his sons.
We're going to close to you, Dad.
S2 (17:35):
I, I worked with dad for. I think I started
working there in 63 and a half or thereabouts. We
worked together until 1988.
S3 (17:52):
Oh, wow. So you were together every day with your dad?
S2 (17:55):
Oh, yeah.
S3 (17:56):
Yeah. And it sounds like of lunch together.
S2 (17:59):
Yeah.
S3 (18:00):
And it sounds like he was kind of your mentor
in business as well.
S2 (18:04):
Right? Yeah. Oh, yeah.
S3 (18:05):
So he invested in you quite a bit.
S2 (18:08):
Investment is a good word. I was allowed to start
selling pretty without any existing accounts. He probably was an
inspiration for me because I worked with him for all
of those years and he taught me a lot.
S3 (18:29):
I decided it was time to start finding out what
Marshall Junior remembers about my Grandpa Tom. I didn't really
know my grandfather and Jacob didn't know him well either. So.
How would you describe him? I mean, like compare him
to your dad, where they were similar guys and personality.
Very different ones, loud ones, quiet.
S2 (18:49):
I would describe my dad as being flamboyant and your
grandfather as being more quiet and methodical. And I don't
think plodding is the proper word, but I think that's
why he was doing the estimating because he was a
(19:10):
little more methodical. I you know, it just is I
want to say, like my brother and myself, he was
one way. The other one was the other way. And
the two of them complemented each other.
S3 (19:23):
So perhaps like your dad was the extrovert, so he
was in sales?
S2 (19:27):
Yeah.
S3 (19:28):
And my grandfather was more of an introvert.
S2 (19:30):
Yeah.
S3 (19:31):
But it sounds like he was like his brother and
his dad, where they cared about people and took care
of them. And you have you have good memories of
working with him, and I do.
S2 (19:42):
I have a different approach to life than he had.
S3 (19:46):
What do you mean by that?
S2 (19:48):
Basically what the difference between Uncle Tom and I myself was.
I always shot from the hip. He never really. He
shot from the calculator.
S3 (19:59):
Quiet, methodical, introverted, focused on detail. Never shot from the hip. Okay.
It's a hazy snapshot of a person. But it brings
the mystery of my grandfather just a little more clearly
into focus. However. My dad's cousin, Marshall Junior, added a
(20:20):
brand new layer to the discernment mystery. I shared a
recording of my grandmother, Betty's voice from the early 1970s.
When I discovered it and heard her words of love
and affection for my dad. I assumed her death must
have contributed in some way to the eventual birthday card incident.
I was right.
S2 (20:41):
You know, the two families didn't meet a lot together.
When your grandmother, Betty, died, it became a different kind
of a situation for some reason.
S3 (20:52):
What do you mean by that? Explain that.
S2 (20:55):
My mother didn't like to associate with a lot of people,
and she was not anxious to get into family get
togethers and stuff. So and I think that his passing
was kind of the end of the family get togethers.
So they kind of.
S3 (21:15):
Forced the get togethers and initiated them.
S2 (21:19):
Yeah. Betty was very nice, young lady.
S3 (21:23):
Yeah. What was she like?
S2 (21:24):
I just remember Betty and her red hair, and she
had a great personality. She was a lovely lady. I
think she was just the opposite of town. I think
the two of them complemented each other in that respect,
that that's how they get along, I'm sure. But yeah,
(21:47):
Betty was just the nicest lady I can remember.
S3 (21:52):
So when you were at that family get together, she
was the one who was boisterous and laughing and was
just more quiet.
S2 (21:59):
That time was a lot quieter. Yeah, I can remember
your grandfather changed a lot when Betty passed away.
S3 (22:09):
Tell me more about that. What do you mean by that?
S2 (22:12):
Well, he just became very quiet. I thought, you know,
and I'm thinking of this as a young individual, but
I just thought he was very quiet. Hmm.
S3 (22:25):
The next step was going to be uncomfortable. Remember, this
is the first time I've ever met my dad's cousin,
Marshall Jr. And he's honorably doing his very best to
share respectful comments and memories about my Grandpa Tom. But
I had to ask about the discernment. I did my
best to explain what transpired, and as I wrapped up,
(22:47):
I gently asked for his take. And I'm hoping you
can help me figure out how this could happen.
S2 (22:54):
I hear your grandfather was going out with a lady,
and I can remember that she had the financial wherewithal
that they could travel all over the world. I remember
somebody saying that they'd gone to Egypt and they'd come
(23:18):
back and they were in Dulles Airport and neither one
of them knew where they were. Apparently, Tom was getting
into the old timers disease. Yeah, apparently she had also. And.
But it was just unusual that both of them were
(23:40):
at Dulles and did not remember where they were. You know,
and I think that may have been part of what
was going through as this change that I hope I
never go through.
S3 (23:53):
Yeah. Yeah. And that was one of my suspicions as well.
Tom Jr is indicated he thought it all came on
pretty quickly and if I do my math right, there
was still a couple of years unless he had early
onset Alzheimer's in like 83 and couldn't remember dates. There
probably was a few lucid years where it just seems
(24:13):
odd to me that both my dad and my grandfather
just kind of moved on. Hmm. Does it surprise you
that your uncle kind of. Was that the kind of
guy he was? Where you go? Yeah. I'm not too
surprised that he was like that.
S2 (24:25):
And. It. It doesn't surprise me that people get all
the time, Richard sees. But I can I can remember
my cousin Tom saying, well, you know, he meets new
people every day, the same people, but they're new to him.
S3 (24:44):
Alzheimer's. Even after I pressed. Marshall Junior stuck with that theory.
All these years. My parents and I were under the
impression that his symptoms arrived suddenly. But my uncle revealed
many more incidents of dementia than we ever knew existed.
I needed clarity. Now that our communication gap had been bridged,
(25:08):
I sent my uncle a text. If anyone would know
when my grandpa Tom's Alzheimer's symptoms first appeared, it would
be him. And I obviously forgot to ask that question.
The response. Took my breath away. Remember that story he
shared about my grandfather getting lost, driving to a holiday
gathering in his own neighborhood? In his text response, my
(25:31):
uncle said this incident transpired in the late 1970s. I
was stunned. So am I understanding you correctly that you
were likely noticing memory lapses and dementia from your dad
in the late 1970s? He answered with one word. Yes.
(25:53):
I had no idea. But how could this be? Is
it even medically possible for someone to show signs of
dementia in the late 1970s and then live all the
way until 1992? Gratefully. My friend Dr. David Fisher is
a family physician and geriatrician in Durham, North Carolina. He
(26:15):
works regularly with Alzheimer's patients in his practice, so I
figured I'd reach out to him for some answers. Hear
our conversation on the next episode of The Grandfather Effect.
We never heard from him again.
S2 (00:02):
No letter, no call, no contact.
S3 (00:04):
That's very possible. I played a leading role in what
happened here. We got to satisfy one. Five seven.
S1 (00:13):
This is it. I think it's an incredible story. I
guess I kept wondering why everybody didn't address the elephant.
S3 (00:20):
In the room. I'm Brian Donlon, and this is the
grandfather effect. Hey there. It's Brian. I want to hit
pause on this episode to ask you for two quick favors. First.
Don't forget to subscribe to and follow this podcast so
you never miss an episode. And second, would you consider
(00:41):
sharing the grandfather effect with a few of your friends?
You know, word of mouth marketing is the best thing
out there. And if you like what you hear, we'd
be so grateful for you to help us spread the
word about the grandfather effect. Tell your friends to find
out more information at Moody Radio Dawgs slash grandfather again.
Moody Radio Dawg slash grandfather. Thanks. Let's get back to
(01:06):
the episode. I'm on my way to visit my grandfather.
It was buried at Fort Snelling National Cemetery just outside
of Minneapolis. I have no idea how I'm going to
find him. It's a vast sea of white gravestones, neatly
(01:32):
organized across 400 acres of flat snow covered Minneapolis landscape.
Over 225,000 veterans and their immediate family members are buried there.
I have been here once before because of my grandpa.
That's what you need to do when a relative is buried, right?
(01:53):
You go to their internment service to honor their life.
To say goodbye. But why do we come back to
a gravesite, usually to interact with fond memories, old stories,
and to feel their impact in the place where they're buried.
And this is exactly why I haven't been back. I
have no memories. I have no stories. I wouldn't even
(02:15):
recognize his impact if it hit me in the face.
I genuinely don't know what I'm doing here. But I
guess I have to find out. The whole property was
essentially empty of the living today. After all, it was
mid-February in Minnesota on a cold and windy day. I
(02:38):
figured the best place to start was the Public Information Center.
I needed a grave number and a map to find Grandpa.
And as I got back in my car to begin
the search. Something popped into my head. The effort I'm
putting forth. To find my grandfather's grave, which I've never visited. Ironically,
(03:03):
is more effort than he ever put toward knowing me.
I knew I wouldn't find any answers here, but maybe
I'd find some peace. Here we go. 2751522753.
S2 (03:19):
4754555657. This is it.
S3 (03:27):
Time to say it's time. What you say. There's only
one more person that could give me any sort of
concrete firsthand information about my grandpa. And he's the oldest
living relative in my family. My dad's only living cousin,
(03:48):
Marshall Jr. Now family trees are cumbersome to explain without visuals.
But I've got to give you some context here to
understand who I'm talking about. So bear with me. My
great grandfather, Oscar Henry Dolin, had two sons, Marshall and Thomas.
Marshall is my great uncle and Thomas is my grandfather. Now,
(04:13):
Grandpa Tom had two sons, Tom Jnr, who you met
last episode, and Bill, my dad, great uncle Marshall, on
the other hand, had two sons, Robert and Marshall Jr. Now, sadly,
Robert passed away a number of years ago, but Marshall
Jr still living. So if you're following me, that makes
(04:36):
him the only other person who would have any intimate
knowledge of my grandfather. Here's the problem. I've never talked
to him. I don't have his phone number or his address.
I don't even know what he looks like. My dad
hasn't spoken to him in at least 20 years and
has no clue where he lives. So what do I
just start calling Marshall Islands? And how do you cold
(05:00):
call a distant relative that you've never met to ask
for a recorded interview about your long dead grandfather who
disowned you? Well, if you me, you don't do that.
I'm way too wimpy for something like that. It's much
more comfortable, you see, to hide behind a keyboard and
randomly send messages to people on Facebook. That might be
(05:21):
your long lost relative. Now, this would have been a
simple strategy if my dad's cousin, Marshall Jr was on Facebook,
but no, he's not. And then by some sort of miracle,
my dad searched the recesses of his mind and found
a fleeting memory that Marshall's son might be named Tim.
So I found a Tim Allen on Facebook and developed
(05:42):
an eloquent, yet brief message that said in part, quote,
Any chance you're the son of Marshall Dolan? Cahill impresses
my wordsmithing must have made an impact. Long story short,
Marshall Jr and Tim agreed to meet with my brother
in me while I was in Minnesota to talk. And
as it turns out, he lives only a few miles
(06:03):
from my brother Jacob's house. So off we went.
S2 (06:11):
Hey, there. You must be Tim. I am Tim.
S3 (06:14):
Yes, I'm Brian. Brian, nice to meet you. I take Jacob,
Jacob and his to meet you as a gay man.
S2 (06:21):
Brian.
S3 (06:22):
Nice to meet you, Marshall.
S2 (06:23):
The pleasure's all mine.
S3 (06:24):
Thanks for having us. I really appreciate it. Even though
none of us have ever met. It didn't take long
for us to get comfortable. I'm guessing that's likely because
of our genetic similarities. You know, dashing good looks, sharp wit,
captivating personalities. You know what I'm talking about? In fact,
as I sat down on the couch in Marshall's living room,
(06:47):
it didn't take long for him to actually start ribbing me.
S2 (06:49):
You know, I'm old.
S3 (06:51):
So here are you 80? Is that correct?
S2 (06:53):
Yeah.
S3 (06:54):
Yeah.
S2 (06:55):
It's okay.
S3 (06:56):
Yeah, I'm. I'm okay with that. Yeah.
S2 (06:58):
Okay.
S3 (06:59):
I think you are the oldest living darling. Is that.
S2 (07:02):
Correct? Yeah. Born in the thirties. Oh, my.
S3 (07:05):
God. Yeah. Wow. It was, like, forever ago. Yeah.
S2 (07:07):
Well, I got to check to see if I got
my feet in the ground or not. No, no.
S3 (07:12):
Okay. Game on. I can't let an 80 year old
just burn me like that. So I gently struck back
with the only memory my dad has of his cousin, Marshall. Yeah.
My dad remembers you showing up to family events in
sports cars with good luck.
S2 (07:31):
Yeah.
S3 (07:32):
That's what he remembers. That sounds about right. Yeah, yeah.
S2 (07:37):
Yeah. Yeah. So, I. I have been blessed with very
attractive women, one of them, which I married through the years.
So I don't know why maybe the $100 bill paid out, right? Yeah.
S3 (08:01):
Another point for Marshall. As you can tell, he's a
very young, spry, sharp 80. And with that, we drove
right in. Marshall turned out to be a family historian
and right away rocked my world with the fact that
my last name isn't really Dolin. The change originated with
(08:23):
my great great grandfather, John Dolin, before he immigrated to America.
S2 (08:29):
John Dawn was in the Swedish army. His name was
John Gustafson, and they said, we have too many justices.
So therefore, your name is going to be Swenson and
your name is going to be Darwin. And apparently Darwin
(08:51):
means something like Peaceful Valley or Happy Valley. And then
they came over here as Darwin and he had Oscar.
Ed word. I think John Junior and maybe a Charles.
(09:12):
I think there were four boys. Oh, my Lord. Swear
to it.
S3 (09:15):
Well, that's okay.
S2 (09:16):
I have met Uncle Ed, and I met a couple
of the other ones, but it was, you know, long
time ago on a planet far away.
S3 (09:26):
I'd never heard this before. I'm confident my dad and
my uncle hadn't either. So he's got to know more
about my great grandfather, Oscar, and therefore my grandpa's childhood.
How much you know about Oscar that I know he
passed away at 37, so you got to meet him.
S2 (09:43):
He was 50 years old when he passed away. He
was very young. He shouldn't have passed away.
S3 (09:51):
So now.
S2 (09:51):
I mean, Eleanor, of course, lived much longer. She lived
in Seattle. And I think in about 78 or so,
he'll move back here to the Masonic Hall in Bloomington.
Your grandfather, my dad got her to move back and
(10:12):
she lived there for a number of years and she
died at the age of 93. We'd had her over
to the house and, you know, a lovely lady, a
stoic German woman. Yeah, she was German.
S3 (10:30):
So not much emotion.
S2 (10:32):
She. She didn't show a lot of emotion. She may
have had it, but she didn't. Oh.
S3 (10:39):
What what do you know about. About Oscar's relationship was
just with your dad, for example, where they were real close.
Was he stoic, like.
S2 (10:49):
Yeah. Oscar, according to what I have in the back
of my mind, the family was close, but Oscar was
busy building a business, and he did succeed in building
a very successful business.
S3 (11:08):
Could that be a clue into my grandfather's personality? Was
he a product of his stoic, non emotive mother? Maybe.
But at the same time, Marshall shared something about my
great grandfather and my family legacy that makes me immensely proud.
S2 (11:25):
His label business became what I have been told to
be the seventh largest label company in the world. No,
I went to work there when I was younger and
I had been taught by people who had worked for
my grandfather, growing older and had worked there since 1928.
(11:52):
And he taught me to run certain kinds of presses.
And we had a foreman there that had been there
for 40 years.
S3 (12:00):
Oh.
S2 (12:01):
The girl on the front. She had been there, I
don't know, 35, 40 years. She was 82 when they
decided that she had better retire because her vision was
getting bad. She was doing the book work and stuff,
you know. So the thing that we did there is
(12:23):
treated them like family. My grandfather during the Depression had
all of the employees painting the building, cleaning the building,
and kept him working. And then he bought or put
together a trucking company to have deliveries for McGarvie Atwood
(12:46):
Coffee Company. It was Atwood, I think, at that time,
and they delivered coffee. So he kept all of the
employees going. You know, it was a family business run
for all the employees as a family.
S3 (13:02):
So so was he taken a loss of sorts during
that that season just to keep people working to care
for them?
S2 (13:08):
Yeah, that's what he did. He did all of that
to keep people working, which was kind of nice.
S3 (13:13):
That shows a compassionate heart there.
S2 (13:16):
Well, you know, the thing and my dad did it
and I did it. You treat people like people, not employees,
but like part of the family.
S3 (13:33):
My great grandfather treated his employees like family. They spent
their careers with him. And in an act of overwhelming
generosity and love, he took a financial loss during the
Depression and started another business just to be sure his
employees were cared for. My dad and my uncle just
(13:55):
know his name, but Marshall Jr. Knows my great grandfather.
Oscar Dolan's legacy. And then. For the very first time
in my whole life. I got to see Oscar. Now
is is this. Is this just a random person or
is that.
S2 (14:13):
That's Oscar.
S3 (14:14):
That's Oscar.
S2 (14:15):
Oh, yeah.
S3 (14:16):
I haven't seen any photos.
S2 (14:18):
He's got other pictures of Oscar.
S3 (14:20):
Oh, dear. Oh.
S2 (14:22):
Don't you have other pictures of Oscar? Here's an Oscar.
S3 (14:25):
Oh, you don't mind if I scan on my phone,
do you?
S2 (14:28):
No. I'll send you a bill later.
S3 (14:33):
Honestly, it was just a few bits of information, but
it was a lot to process, particularly in light of
what I know of my grandfather. His dad was a
man of generosity and character. And based upon what I
just learned, those qualities were passed along to his son
Marshall Senior and his grandson, Marshall Jr. Doesn't that make
(14:57):
you wonder? Why didn't my grandpa get those qualities? As
a point of contrast, I wanted to investigate this a
bit further. It's one thing to treat your employees like family,
but what was my grandfather's brother, Marshall, like at home?
So tell me about your. Your dad. What was he like?
(15:19):
His personality.
S2 (15:20):
Well, how do you describe him?
S3 (15:26):
I know it's hard to encapsulate that, but.
S2 (15:28):
He was very sincere and nice individual. Of course, I
grew up during the Second World War, and so he
was an area where you weren't in the business. He
was busy running that and probably was gone, you know,
(15:48):
during the day, every day, but come home at night.
He enjoyed traveling. My mom enjoyed traveling. I can remember
them telling me about going pheasant hunting and driving down
the road, shooting pheasants out of the car, you know? Well,
(16:09):
you know, you're talking about back in the twenties. Yeah.
And so they hunted quite a bit.
S3 (16:15):
It was becoming clear that the brothers were very different people.
As you may recall, my grandpa's yearbook revealed that he
wasn't in any activities. The only hobby I'm aware of
was a passing interest in a model train set. But
not his brother, Marshall Senior. Marshall was also an accomplished
musician prior to his father's death. He actually was a
(16:38):
professional saxophonist in a big band in California. And he
never let go of his love for music.
S2 (16:45):
I can remember he had some of his buddies. They
come over to the house. We had a baby grand
piano in the living room, and they had a drummer
and my dad, somebody else. And he had those guys
get together and they'd jam downstairs. And my brother and
(17:07):
I would go to the top of the stairs and
listen to him, you know, play that because it was
really good.
S3 (17:13):
Was he pretty good, your dad?
S2 (17:15):
Oh, yeah.
S3 (17:16):
And the differences run even deeper. As you may recall
from previous episodes, my grandfather didn't really spend quality time
with his sons. That was in stark contrast to the
relationship my grandpa Tom's brother Marshall had with his sons.
We're going to close to you, Dad.
S2 (17:35):
I, I worked with dad for. I think I started
working there in 63 and a half or thereabouts. We
worked together until 1988.
S3 (17:52):
Oh, wow. So you were together every day with your dad?
S2 (17:55):
Oh, yeah.
S3 (17:56):
Yeah. And it sounds like of lunch together.
S2 (17:59):
Yeah.
S3 (18:00):
And it sounds like he was kind of your mentor
in business as well.
S2 (18:04):
Right? Yeah. Oh, yeah.
S3 (18:05):
So he invested in you quite a bit.
S2 (18:08):
Investment is a good word. I was allowed to start
selling pretty without any existing accounts. He probably was an
inspiration for me because I worked with him for all
of those years and he taught me a lot.
S3 (18:29):
I decided it was time to start finding out what
Marshall Junior remembers about my Grandpa Tom. I didn't really
know my grandfather and Jacob didn't know him well either. So.
How would you describe him? I mean, like compare him
to your dad, where they were similar guys and personality.
Very different ones, loud ones, quiet.
S2 (18:49):
I would describe my dad as being flamboyant and your
grandfather as being more quiet and methodical. And I don't
think plodding is the proper word, but I think that's
why he was doing the estimating because he was a
(19:10):
little more methodical. I you know, it just is I
want to say, like my brother and myself, he was
one way. The other one was the other way. And
the two of them complemented each other.
S3 (19:23):
So perhaps like your dad was the extrovert, so he
was in sales?
S2 (19:27):
Yeah.
S3 (19:28):
And my grandfather was more of an introvert.
S2 (19:30):
Yeah.
S3 (19:31):
But it sounds like he was like his brother and
his dad, where they cared about people and took care
of them. And you have you have good memories of
working with him, and I do.
S2 (19:42):
I have a different approach to life than he had.
S3 (19:46):
What do you mean by that?
S2 (19:48):
Basically what the difference between Uncle Tom and I myself was.
I always shot from the hip. He never really. He
shot from the calculator.
S3 (19:59):
Quiet, methodical, introverted, focused on detail. Never shot from the hip. Okay.
It's a hazy snapshot of a person. But it brings
the mystery of my grandfather just a little more clearly
into focus. However. My dad's cousin, Marshall Junior, added a
(20:20):
brand new layer to the discernment mystery. I shared a
recording of my grandmother, Betty's voice from the early 1970s.
When I discovered it and heard her words of love
and affection for my dad. I assumed her death must
have contributed in some way to the eventual birthday card incident.
I was right.
S2 (20:41):
You know, the two families didn't meet a lot together.
When your grandmother, Betty, died, it became a different kind
of a situation for some reason.
S3 (20:52):
What do you mean by that? Explain that.
S2 (20:55):
My mother didn't like to associate with a lot of people,
and she was not anxious to get into family get
togethers and stuff. So and I think that his passing
was kind of the end of the family get togethers.
So they kind of.
S3 (21:15):
Forced the get togethers and initiated them.
S2 (21:19):
Yeah. Betty was very nice, young lady.
S3 (21:23):
Yeah. What was she like?
S2 (21:24):
I just remember Betty and her red hair, and she
had a great personality. She was a lovely lady. I
think she was just the opposite of town. I think
the two of them complemented each other in that respect,
that that's how they get along, I'm sure. But yeah,
(21:47):
Betty was just the nicest lady I can remember.
S3 (21:52):
So when you were at that family get together, she
was the one who was boisterous and laughing and was
just more quiet.
S2 (21:59):
That time was a lot quieter. Yeah, I can remember
your grandfather changed a lot when Betty passed away.
S3 (22:09):
Tell me more about that. What do you mean by that?
S2 (22:12):
Well, he just became very quiet. I thought, you know,
and I'm thinking of this as a young individual, but
I just thought he was very quiet. Hmm.
S3 (22:25):
The next step was going to be uncomfortable. Remember, this
is the first time I've ever met my dad's cousin,
Marshall Jr. And he's honorably doing his very best to
share respectful comments and memories about my Grandpa Tom. But
I had to ask about the discernment. I did my
best to explain what transpired, and as I wrapped up,
(22:47):
I gently asked for his take. And I'm hoping you
can help me figure out how this could happen.
S2 (22:54):
I hear your grandfather was going out with a lady,
and I can remember that she had the financial wherewithal
that they could travel all over the world. I remember
somebody saying that they'd gone to Egypt and they'd come
(23:18):
back and they were in Dulles Airport and neither one
of them knew where they were. Apparently, Tom was getting
into the old timers disease. Yeah, apparently she had also. And.
But it was just unusual that both of them were
(23:40):
at Dulles and did not remember where they were. You know,
and I think that may have been part of what
was going through as this change that I hope I
never go through.
S3 (23:53):
Yeah. Yeah. And that was one of my suspicions as well.
Tom Jr is indicated he thought it all came on
pretty quickly and if I do my math right, there
was still a couple of years unless he had early
onset Alzheimer's in like 83 and couldn't remember dates. There
probably was a few lucid years where it just seems
(24:13):
odd to me that both my dad and my grandfather
just kind of moved on. Hmm. Does it surprise you
that your uncle kind of. Was that the kind of
guy he was? Where you go? Yeah. I'm not too
surprised that he was like that.
S2 (24:25):
And. It. It doesn't surprise me that people get all
the time, Richard sees. But I can I can remember
my cousin Tom saying, well, you know, he meets new
people every day, the same people, but they're new to him.
S3 (24:44):
Alzheimer's. Even after I pressed. Marshall Junior stuck with that theory.
All these years. My parents and I were under the
impression that his symptoms arrived suddenly. But my uncle revealed
many more incidents of dementia than we ever knew existed.
I needed clarity. Now that our communication gap had been bridged,
(25:08):
I sent my uncle a text. If anyone would know
when my grandpa Tom's Alzheimer's symptoms first appeared, it would
be him. And I obviously forgot to ask that question.
The response. Took my breath away. Remember that story he
shared about my grandfather getting lost, driving to a holiday
gathering in his own neighborhood? In his text response, my
(25:31):
uncle said this incident transpired in the late 1970s. I
was stunned. So am I understanding you correctly that you
were likely noticing memory lapses and dementia from your dad
in the late 1970s? He answered with one word. Yes.
(25:53):
I had no idea. But how could this be? Is
it even medically possible for someone to show signs of
dementia in the late 1970s and then live all the
way until 1992? Gratefully. My friend Dr. David Fisher is
a family physician and geriatrician in Durham, North Carolina. He
(26:15):
works regularly with Alzheimer's patients in his practice, so I
figured I'd reach out to him for some answers. Hear
our conversation on the next episode of The Grandfather Effect.
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