My grandfather, Glasco Rector, was an amazing man. He kept his head down and worked hard. He was a man of few words. He was a Marine and served in Guadalcanal in WWII, where he survived being shot. He returned from the war to my grandmother Edith and made a family of 4 children, started his own business, and became an expert in geology in the Allegheny’s.

My grandfather had a quiet strength. He never talked about his war experiences. He would, however, if asked, show you his bullet wound scar that went in and out of his shoulder and chest. When he died, I was surprised to find that my grandmother still received the disability/death benefit from this war injury.

On this Veteran’s Day, I wanted to share a few memories of my grandfather:

• What I remember the most about him is that he could make anything; he could fix anything!
• My fondest memories of my grandfather involved fossil hunting, visiting their farm in Southwestern Pennsylvania in the summer, and spending time in his workshop. We spent a lot of time polishing rocks, hunting for fossils, and making the rocks and fossils into jewelry. He did amazing scrimshaw work. I treasure the jewelry he and my grandmother made me!
• He saved everything — rocks, metal, screws, pieces of wood, everything! With scrap pieces of metal that we found in his cave-like basement workshop, I made my mom an owl. The scrap metal that we used was almost perfectly shaped like an owl to begin with. We sawed a wooden block to make a stand for the owl. My mom still has the owl in her vast and varied collection of owls.
• In the summers, while staying with them in Pittsburgh, I learned to color wells of the core samples he took for his geology business. My grandmother did this regularly for him. He kept his original geological maps – which my grandmother gave away after he died. I’m sure some oil company got very lucky.
• My grandfather was frugal beyond belief. He paid off his mortgage in 1987, on schedule, at $149/month. He checked the utility meters everyday and logged the usage. He sold his business in 1987 when he “retired,” for a pittance, for money meant nothing to him. He felt he had enough, so he gave most of the rest of it away. He occasionally taught at Carnegie Mellon, for nothing.
• When he died, I went through all of the finances, paperwork while my mom, brother and aunt went through the things and supported my grandmother. He kept records the way things are in my head. He used a simple bound notebook with a page for each expense – car, utilities, and groceries. My grandparents went out once a week – grocery shopping, movie, dinner, and as a result, had very, very few expenses. I don’t think he bought new clothes except for socks and underwear for thirty years. He thought he had enough.
• He was a child of the depression, who never had a birthday cake until he was in his 20s. My grandmother saved ration coupons to be able to gather 2 dozen eggs to make him an angel food cake for his birthday.

• He always found money where others walked on by (I find $4-5 each year this way, and I always think of him).
• When my grandparents came to visit us when we lived in Indiana, they took over my brother’s room, and would inevitably take us out to dinner. We always went to the same place – a Chinese restaurant (there wasn’t any other kind where we lived at the time except pizza joints) where dinner would cost about $100 for 6 of us and he would leave a tip of $20. And then he would belch like there was no tomorrow, complementing the chef, according to him.
• He loved sweets (I think it was a factor of not having any as a kid). He would stock his desk drawers with butterfingers and other candy bars. I found his stash after he died. My grandmother was/is a health nut focusing on homeopathic remedies of all kinds and frowned upon such things. My grandfather went along with most of it, but kept his sugar stash anyway!
• One of the other things I found in his desk was a birthday card and mother’s day card for my grandmother, his wife of 63 years. When I showed her what I found, she cried. At that moment, I knew how much they loved and appreciated each other. He is pictured below for their 50th wedding anniversary.
• He died with no debts, of any kind. He never used a credit card. He paid cash for everything. He scrutinized the credit card terms of every credit card solicitation ever sent to him. I recycled all of them after he died. (That’s the type of dry stuff
  I write as an attorney, it cracked me up to recycle those agreements.)
• He loved holding babies, he could calm them down in an instant.  He could make all of my kids fall asleep in his arms, including Bryce, shown here.

He died a hero – to me. I know that word isn’t used among those who fought in WWII, but it is a word used by others to describe those who fought. He would say he was just doing what he signed on to do as a marine – what needed to be done, what he was ordered to do, what he needed to do to keep the freedoms that we have. But he did something extraordinary in my eyes. And his family’s.