[Granville-Hough] Bonny Hough Miller's Remembrances of Granville Hough

[Trustees and Executors for Granville W. Hough]

This is the text of Bonny's remarks at the celebration of Granville Hough
on March 20:





Most of you present today only knew Granville in Laguna Woods, when
he was mellowed by years of living well. His grandchildren enjoyed a
loving and tolerant grampa. My in-laws remember a kindly gentleman whom
they describe as sweet or nice, but I have a different spin entirely. My
image remains from early childhood of a stern but patient father. As the
youngest of four stair-step children, I grew up as Granville experienced
years of stressful preoccupations and struggle. He practiced his strict
army demeanor even at home. Even though he never spanked me, I was
sometimes afraid of him. To a little girl, he could be a scary guy. I
became known for giving a soft answer to turn away his wrath. After
some misdoing he once began to scold me, but I tried to redirect the
reprimand by whimpering, "But the flowers are beautiful." It became a
classic line in my family to quote whenever someone wished to change
the subject. Granville even liked to use it himself.

My father taught primarily by example, not that he wouldn't give us
a lecture when he thought it was called for. Granville asked us to
stress the Do's rather than the Don't's in his memorial service,
so I want to emphasize the Do's that he directed specifically at
me time and again. First of all, Speak up. He said this because I
was shy and soft-spoken, especially as a little child. The physical
process of speaking loudly hurt my throat; I cringed when my father
told me to speak up. This was usually followed by: Stand up straight. My
siblings and I demonstrate the same round-shouldered and slightly stooped
conformation. By his last years my father's posture came to resemble mine,
rather than vice versa, but his photos as a military man indicate a spine
of steel. I could never match his wonderful physique and upright army
posture. That physical power and endurance came from years of farming
before he ever went into soldiering. When Granville was thirteen, his
father died, so he became the oldest son at home, with three younger
siblings to lead. He needed that backbone.

Finally, as I grew into my teens, Granville often had reason to tell me,
"You've got to learn to use your head." But his voice had that Mississippi
nuance that he never completely lost, so it came out as "You've got to
learn to use your hay-id."

My father never stopped learning. It's to Granville's credit that
his thinking changed substantially in light of facts he learned after
retirement: on the role and rationale of the military, on colonialism
and its evils through the generations, on sex education and population
control, on which side took from whom, and who should inherit the earth.

To his adult children, just as to the Promise Keepers at his church,
Granville presented an inspiring model of a loving husband, wise father,
and caring human being. My father was generous with his time, expertise,
money, and material goods, to anyone who asked, especially in his later
years. I know now that I received sound principles to carry through
life. Speak up for your beliefs and speak out your opinions. Stand up
straight and firm for your principles and what you believe in. And you've
got to use your head.

Thank you, Granville.




Bonny Hough Miller