A Late Arriving Acknowledgment of Daddy's Mortality

A Certain Elegance of Manner

Prefatory note: I wrote this four years ago but could not think of anywhere to have it published. It is not the usual tone in an obituary. That is reasonable. My father was not right for a standard obituary as the genre evolves. He did not have his family surrounding him as he died. There are two reasons to steer clear of obituary platitudes: 1) I have always had a problem picturing “the surrounding” claim that appears in obituaries. Mark me dubious. And, in the case of Daddy, at death he was confined to a facility with Covid and surrounded by indifference that was impossible to undo. 2) The usual trivia about someone not elected to high office or in possession of literary fame tends to list trivia as their essence—they played cards, they fished, blah blah… My father’s big pastime was variously building things, but I am innocent of the details at this moment. He had an artistic bent, I think.  There is some happenstance to details of any life, and what I wrote four years ago contains happenstance memories and characterizations. I omitted below to say he was looking forward to voting for Biden for President, and I can say now he would be only too pleased to cast a vote for Vice-President Kamala Harris for President this November 2024.

KUYKENDALL
Paul Theodore Kuykendall, age 100, late of Beeville but more recently at risk in a nursing facility in Corpus Christi, died from the effects of a criminal national government as well as the State of Texas.  He succumbed on August 25, 2020, from the effects of Covid-19 passed on to him at the nursing home by a staff member.  Paul (or “Daddy”) left his Beeville home reluctantly, not knowing that he was going to his death by a means other than simple old age.  He had adjusted to the loss of his own home, which was not a small task after nearly 100 years in one castle or another.  Any effort to describe him is likely to founder on the complexity of the matter under discussion. He was a Texan through and through, since what else could he be after 100 years in places like San Antonio (born there February 27, 1920), Cotulla, Artesia Wells, Hondo, Riviera, Three Rivers, Beaumont, Angleton, Fresno, Tomball, Beeville, and Houston—all located, as is proper, in Texas?  He did everything his way, including how to be a Texan. He declined his father’s insistence that be a “cowboy” and stay in LaSalle County. Further to his Texan-ness as license to do as he pleased, he did not hunt and did not care for talk about Texas football rivalries.  He had elegant manners that I suspect no one noticed or appreciated. He read the New Republic and the Wall Street Journal. He loved watching trick dogs in the circus.  He preferred watching Ed Sullivan to Steve Allen. Forget Bing Crosby. The Singing Brakeman was the one. Daddy né Paul was born to parents William and Mae Brobst (Martin) Kuykendall, who were born in 1882 and 1884, respectively, in Texas, by God. He was a descendant of certain early Kuykendall settlers (termed by many the Old 300) involved in the making of the Texas Republic but made little of it.  He had fine ways this kid detected, and he had an artistic side. 

He once shook hands with a street bum in Boston and asked him how the Boston economy was doing.  Not so good, said the man. My father shook his head at the bad news. Though not free of Texas biases, he was for the little man, all of them, and for the women as well. He suffered a loss of hearing as a young man, a loss that was of significance. It made him an exclusive for Mary Ramsey Kuykendall, Daniel Patrick, and Mae (the last two are the kids). Others had not the imagination to talk to someone with imperfect hearing and a courtly manner. Really, they just wouldn’t. He taught us a lot, so much that it would be fruitless to try to pass it on in this obituary. One hint: how to be a Texan. It was not the usual, just a little different.

As many know, Corpus Christi did well in 2020 until the governor of Texas allowed Corpus to be flooded by beach goers and bar patrons.  The influx of revelers and their Covid breath brought Paul Theodore’s days in Texas to an end, an unjust exit for a man who deserved a better goodbye to all things Texan (within his understanding of what that is and was), and to Texas.  As is implied, he is survived by his daughter Mae (Robert Rich) and son Daniel (Laurae) as well as two grandsons, Allan Beals and Bill Kuykendall; one great-granddaughter and one great-grandson; his sister Katherine’s daughter, Judy Winslow Comer (Robert), and his able assistant since 2013, Gloria Arellano Mosqueda (Abel) (Update: Gloria suffered an untimely death a few months ago, leaving Abel behind to mourn Gloria and Daddy, aka Mr. Paul). Daddy would also want to remember my graduate school roommate, Darlene Walker, who had the gumption, later improved by long residence in Texas, to make conversation with a courtly man who had a hearing loss.