Remembering My Grandfather
In the animated movie Coco the young protagonist Miguel learns the true lesson of Day of the Dead celebrations when he accidentally crosses over to the other side during the festivities. Memories must be passed down by those who knew you during your life. When no one remembers you and your stories in the land of the living, you disappear from the land of the dead.
I am the last person in my family to have known my grandfather Tom Liss. He died when I was 7, five years before my sister Dianne was born. While there may be a few aging men that remember the barber who rewarded them with a stick of Black Jack chewing gum for holding still as he gave them a crew cut as young boys, I am the one with the stories.
Young Leopold
Tom Liss was a charismatic and complicated man. Born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in April 1890, we always celebrated his birthday on the 11th, although records show his birth date as the 1st. Christened Leopold by his Polish immigrant parents, he spent his adult life as Thomas Paul. His parents Adam and Techla were strict and hardworking; Leo was barbering by age 15. Not long after his apprenticeship he took off with a traveling vaudeville troupe never to live with his family again. He was a musician, good enough to play with the Montana State Band some years after he left the troupe.
By 1917, his World War 1 draft card has him married and living in Butte, Montana. A marriage that was never mentioned by the family. By the 1920 census he is listed as single, and in July of 1921, he married my grandmother Della Nolan. I have told the story of their wedding in an earlier post recounting how the handsome barber won over my young grandmother when she was working in the barber supply. At the time he was the manager of the Rialto Barber Shop, a prominent location in downtown Butte where he would have a shop for over 30 years.
The barber pole is visible, barely, in the lower right hand corner of the photo.
The barber shop
A smart businessman aware of his good looks and charm, he decided to style women's hair—boyish bobs and marcel waves. Even at the height of the depression, women would allow themselves the small treat of a haircut and his beauty shop prospered. When I was a young girl shopping downtown with my mother, women she hardly knew would come up to her. "You’re Tom Liss' daughter. He gave me my first real haircut. Such a lovely man."
Grandma, Uncle Tom and Grandpa on a family outing
Big hearted and generous he shared his success with family and friends. Old home movies from the 1930's, show him driving his big cars filled with friends out to the country for picnics. He had a cabin built at Echo Lake by young men from Butte who worked in the Civilian Conservation Corps. It became the spot for friends to gather for boating, fishing, swimming, and general good times. Food, drink for all with cigars for the men.
The Echo Lake cabin just before completion
Family and friends in the Mary-K, her namesake in the fringed hat
For many years he would host my grandmother’s sisters when they visited from Los Angeles and her cousins from Providence, treating them to dinners at best restaurants. He would buy my grandmother and mother beautiful jewelry, often taking the pieces back to trade them for something finer at his friend Jack Garfield's pawn shop. Today I wear my grandmother's last diamond "wedding" ring while my sister wears one of my mother’s.
Della, her sister Kathryn, Tom, Mary Kay and sister Marion in 1941
For all his magnanimity, he could be controlling. Having been so successful without a high school education, he pushed his son, my Uncle Tom , to pursue a commercial track in school and insisted that my mother go to beauty school so she could take over his shop. He would tap his fingers on the table if my grandmother didn't have his dinner ready when he came home from work. Patience and open-mindedness were not his virtues.
Me and my custom made doll bed.
My personal memories of him are rich and warm. He loved and indulged me in every way. He took photos of me hand-tinting my cheeks pink in his dark room. He made me toys in his basement workshop—a doll bed, a Nancy-sized table and chairs and a four-room doll house. When he was ailing in his last years, I would sit with him and play barber shop, combing his hair and telling him stories.
After he died over the 4th of July weekend in 1956, I missed him terribly. No one ever spoiled me as much as he had—ever again. I hope that these stories keep his memory alive for long years to come. And his spirt alive in the land of the dead.