I went up to Fort Collins a number of times over the past few weeks to visit my sister Susan, who has been laid low by a combination of the flu and a low sodium condition. We have done a lot of reminiscing during these visits, especially about our grandparents. On our mother's side, our grandparents were Louise and Bill Spillard, seen in the photograph on the left on the occasion of their 50th wedding anniversary back on October 5th, 1958. I wrote about my Grandmother Spillard's family about a week or so ago. My Grandfather Spillard was the black sheep of his family, a very proper clan who lived in Elgin, Illinois. He left home early and became a song plugger in Chicago. Later he worked as a narcotic agent for the government, for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II, and finally as an arson investigator in Chicago.
Grandfather Spillard just loved to schmooze with politicians, and was quite the raconteur. My sister tells me he did a lot of work raising money for what were then called the poor houses. He even wrote a book about his adventures as a narcotic agent called Needle in a Haystack, which I am ashamed to say I have yet to read. But I definitely will - after all, it has only been 65 years. Give me some time. And by he way, the photograph on the right was taken at my grandparents 60th anniversary party, held at our house in South Suburban Country Club Hills, Illinois back in 1968.
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