Ward Lee Buster

Ward Buster was born on November 4, 1903. He was my Sweet Daddy’s father and my Grandpa. When I was very little, I called him PawPaw, but that slipped easily into Grandpa as I got older.

My relationship to him was always that of a granddaughter to her Grandpa. He gave me nickels and told me I was a pretty girl and bought me candy cigarettes at his country store. He had a soft voice and often winked when he told me something. I don’t recall having deep philosophical conversations with him. It was just simple and looking back, very sweet. He loved me and I loved him. That was enough.

It wasn’t until after he died that I came to know more of the man he was. When I went home for his funeral, I had a two- party check in my wallet that I needed to get cashed. I went to the bank and starting explaining away and when I got to the part about my Grandfather, Ward Buster, who had died the teller said, ‘Honey…if you are Ward Buster’s granddaughter, we will cash that check. His word and his name are solid here.’ I don’t know about you, but that hadn’t ever happened to me. I found out by the respect I was given that my Grandpa was an honest man.

I’m told that he was the ‘white sheep’ of his family. He had some brothers who might have been rough fellows, and perhaps on the wrong side of the law on occasion. At the family cemetery once, I asked my Daddy if we were kin to the man on a tombstone that had the Buster name. Daddy laughed and told me that Grandpa would have said, ‘They may be kin to us, but we aren’t kin to them!’

When I was very little, Grandpa and Grandma lived on a small farm in Eugene, Missouri. They had chickens and a horse. They might have had cows at that point, but I only remember the chickens and the horse. And an outside pump for water. I always wanted to pump water from that thing, but was much too little and puny to do it. I remember Grandpa telling me to try again and he pumped the water while I held on. He smiled and put his hand on my head and said, ‘See! You did it.’ Grandpa ran the Shell store and it was an glorious place for a small child to visit! Wonderful smells and textures. Wood floors that creaked and cracked and what seemed to me to be an endlessly long counter. I recall sitting up on that counter and smoking my candy ‘Lucky Strikes’ thinking that I was a very big dog, indeed. I have the cash register from that store and it is one of my prize possessions.

Grandpa was quite a hunter and fisherman. He used to keep a small spiral notebook in his pocket with the number of fish he caught for each day of the summer that he went fishing. I can remember calling a date out to him and he would look it up and tell me how many fish he’d caught that day.

I never once saw him outside without a hat on, even if he was just walking out to the car. He had ball caps and nice hats. I have one that is a London Fog tweed and I wear it on occasion.

He loved baseball, and he especially loved the St. Louis Cardinals. I remember sitting very still and listening to games when I was wee-tiny. We would sit in their living room and listen on the old radio. The last time I saw him, he was watching the World Series. I don’t believe that the Cards had made it, but he was cheering for the National League.

I’m told that he was quite a ball player. I have a picture of his team from the 1930s when they were the Mid-Missouri Champs. I asked my Daddy once what year Grandpa graduated from High School. Daddy laughed and said that Grandpa didn’t graduate from High School, although he went for quite a few years. I asked Daddy what that meant, exactly. The answer I got was that he went until basketball season was over and then he would find work. The next year, he’d do the same thing. I don’t know if that is legend or not, but it is a good story. I do know that Grandpa was a very smart man, even if he didn’t have much in the way of higher education. They tell me that he could add up a column of numbers quicker than I could punch the numbers in to my calculator. What an amazing gift!

My Grandpa, although he was an honest and good man, did not become a Christian until he was in his 60s. I remember going with my Daddy to Jefferson City, Missouri, and watching as Daddy baptized Grandpa. After that, I remember that he kept a Bible on his table beside his chair, along with his Louis L’Amour novels.

While this Generation to Generation blog is mostly about the women of our family, today is a day to honor one of our men. Ward Lee Buster. I miss his quiet ways and his gentle smile. His standard of honesty and integrity is one that I hope I live up to and am able to pass on to my children and grandchildren so that he would be proud of us…and would be willing to say that not only were we kin to him, but also that he was kin to us.