Uncle Webb

A faimly event

I received an email about a featured speaker arriving at a banquet without his false teeth. The speaker turned to the man next to him to tell of his error. The man said not to worry and reached into his pocket handed the speaker three pair of teeth to try. One pair fit well enough to eat his dinner and give his speech. After his speech concluded, the speaker found out the man and thanked him for the use of his teeth and asked for the address of his dental office? The man then told him that he wasn’t a dentist but was a funeral director. That story reminded me of a family event.

My great Uncle Webb was toothless but managed to chew meat without missing a beat. His son Bob tried to get him to get some teeth from the dentist and even offered to pay for them. But Uncle Webb refused. Said they would just bother him having all that stuff in his mouth.

I still think Bob was the smartest kid of the bunch. He was the seventh child of nine kids. Bob was his mother’s helper on the farm. He worked in the kitchen and house and was a good cook, canner, garden helper, and house cleaner. Later in life, he told me housework was a lot better work than the plowing and milking on the farm. He said it was cooler in summer and warmer in the winter than being out in the fields walking behind a team of horses. Most of the older boys enlisted in the military during World War 2 to get off the farm. Eventually Bob did too.

After his service, Bob returned and got a job with Chambers Funeral Service to learn to be a Funeral Director. He was a kind, sensitive type man and would have been a good Director had he continued in that field. During his years at Chambers he pickup the dead bodies from their homes, hospitals and or side of the road. Learned to embalm and decorate the dead for viewing and to console family members.

They always removed false teeth from the corps, filled the mouth cavity with cotton, and sewed the mouth shut to make a better presentation. The false teeth went into a cardboard box.

Bob got the idea of filling a box with teeth and Christmas wrap the box for his gift to Uncle Web. That Christmas was monumental. The family still talks about the year Webb got all the teeth he would need for the rest of his life.