Written, June 2017
Until you take a moment to look back, it can be hard to realize how much has changed in your life or the lives around you. Two years ago, I announced my plan to write a memoir and created my website. There was general excitement all around. Since then, each event has given me the push to keep plugging along on my writing. With each step I have taken, affirmations came that this is my life purpose. Things from people being in the right place at the right time to offer me tools, guidance, information, or just encouragement.
During the first year after my decision to put my past onto paper, I did some reading and studying to prepare. If I’m going to do something, I want to do it right. Even though I had loved writing while I was in school, it is a use-it-or-lose-it type of thing. My writing flair and grammar were rusty, so I drafted a few blogs for practice and to post on my website.
However, no matter how much positive feedback I received, I was struggling with where to even begin my story. How do I organize all the pieces of my past? How do I write a memoir without the part about my dad’s disappearance overshadowing the rest of the book? Of everything I’ve been through in life, his contributions are the most intriguing, no doubt.
Last February, with the sun shining and 70-degree temperature, I hit the trails down by the Lake Red Rock dam. Being in nature is said to be a form of meditation. While walking near the river, my mind cleared, and the directive came out of nowhere, “It’s two books, Lisa.”
How did this not come to me before? It seemed so evident because separate books will free up as many pages needed to give the full story justice. Now, I can dive into details like what brought my parents to Iowa; an answer I don’t even know yet.
The narrative of my dad’s vanishing act falls into about seven or eight years. Much of the backstory was in newspapers and court records. Even though I was close to what happened, memories fade, and some are forgotten altogether. Initial, quick searches did not offer me much information. Yes, these were times before the prevalence of the internet, back when newspapers were archived on microfilm at the local library.
The absence of family in my hometown means I only make it back once or twice a year to visit friends. Last summer, I cruised Hwy 92 east to Washington, Iowa so I could see my friend, Pepper who was home from Montana. She asked me how the book was coming along, and I explained I needed to make a plan to spend time at the library going through news articles to capture an accurate timeline. That night, it dawned on me that I could hit the library in the morning.
In 2009, Washington built a beautiful, new public library on the south side of their square. It is modern and spacious with way more than literature to offer the community. Among some of their extra amenities are meeting and study rooms, artwork available for checkout, and a grand piano. When I inquired about the microfilm, a young lady at the circulation desk directed me to the archives room in the basement.
The code and keypad to gain access to the “Charles & Isabelle D. Grayson Archives” room seemed eerily appropriate considering the mysterious circumstances surrounding the disappearance of my dad. It was time to start digging. My dad’s life began to unravel in the fall of 1989, but I wasn’t sure of an exact date.
As I spun film reels carrying Washington’s history through the machine, I was comforted to have the room to myself. What I was not prepared for was the flood of emotions when I started seeing my father’s picture and name as front-page news. So many questions as to why he allowed his life to reach this point. Each 8.5″ x 11″ page I printed cost me a quarter, also an irony which didn’t escape me as my dad owned an amusement business of video games, pool tables, and such. That was his income, twenty-five cents at a time.
Two hours and $2.75 later, I had a headache and had hit a dead point. My dad had two trials going on, and both had continuation dates noted in The Washington Evening Journal, but I wasn’t able to locate where they picked back up on the microfilm. It was time for a break and some food.
Besides whatever happened to my dad, there are a lot of other prior details I don’t know. Unexpectedly finding out he had charges in Marion County Iowa was a sucker punch. I was daddy’s girl, yet he never told me about what he faced. The one thing everyone knew was my father loved his children, and this omission was most certainly a way to protect us from knowing what he was up against.
With a desire to learn more about this, I went to the Clerk of Court’s office at the Marion County Courthouse in Knoxville. At this point, I realize precisely how daunting in-depth research was going to be for all of his court records were boxed up in a storage shed on the edge of town. It became apparent I will need to decide how bad I want each batch of files as I go through this process.
The magnitude of it all was overwhelming: The mass amount of time it was going to take to learn or relearn the history. The emotional roller coaster. The lurking unknowns.
For all those reasons, I came to a complete halt. However, that nagging feeling this story deserves to be told won’t go away. Coincidentally, running into one of my dad’s best friends when I’m back in Washington and other signs continually show themselves. My heart desires to finish this task. Plus, as my dad always said, “It’s no hill for a climber.”
It is with this renewed strength, no matter how long it takes, I will execute my writing plan with the attitude instilled by my father, Dale French. No excuses to reach my goals. My power. My choice. My faith.