About 30 minutes ago I received the message that my dad’s only brother Paul, died after an amazing 98+ years. It is my privilege to share with you how my almost 75 years with him has help shape me. I was with him not a month ago, where once again, I was touched by a man of incredible brilliance, whose memory belied anything you could describe.
From here on out he will be called PO, as that is how he was known for at least the last 65 years. This is not a eulogy, but rather a painful privilege honoring a true “Pumphrey Pig”. No matter where you fell in the family tree we all claimed the title of Pumphrey Pigs (we even welcomed “un—Pumphreys).
Po Pig was born in Bellingham, Washington in 1925, to Paul Pumphrey and Opal (Stout) Pumphrey, both originally from Colorado. My dad Bill. was three years older that PO. They could not have been more opposite. Bill was the consummate extrovert and PO the definition of an introvert. In 1934 they left Bellingham to move back to Colorado. It seems that the bootlegger who lived next door was out to get them. That story, which I have recorded on my phone, I will save for another day. The PUMPHREYS eventually landed in Colorado Springs where both PO and my dad graduated from high school. Po graduated in 1943 and enlisted in the Navy. He was subsequently discharged as they found out he was deaf in one ear—another story for that issue. Not to be left out of doing his duty, he enlisted in the Merchant Marines where he was a cook on a ship that took supplies to the front lines. Ironically, my dad Bill, flew supplies up to the front line in Europe for the Army Air Corps and PO brought them by ship to the troops in the South Pacific.
After “The War” ended, the brothers hooked up in the family business as it expanded to Pueblo in 1947. In the next few years they added eight kids (PO later added two more by adoption). They made Cleaver Carpet Cleaning into “Cleavers”, which at one time was the largest retailer of floor covering in Southern Colorado.
The easiest way to describe their relationship, which my sister Rita affectionally called “Disfunction Junction”, was that Bill was the salesman extrovert and PO was the business genius. PO called Cleavers “a welfare state”, as in most family businesses it took care of a whole lot of people. All I know is that those two brothers did very well as both business men and human beings.
My relationship with PO was to say the least— challenging. In fact, it was filled with a lot of tension and pain. The causes of which have long since gone away. In these last few years I grew to deeply appreciate my uncle PO in many significant ways.
About a year ago my brother Charley died. We held his memorial service last May. PO was there on the front row. A couple of weeks later while driving through Arizona, I got a phone call out in the middle of nowhere, it was PO. He was calling to tell me that he was deeply moved by my leading of that service. He could not have been more effusive. I had probably waited 70+ years for the praise that he so generously gave me. It was not what so much he said, but that he took time to say it.
We will miss you PO and as my son Mateo just texted me, “Give my Grandpa Bill a big hug”.
Onward and Upward,
Your Nephew—Mark
Lyfting Me Up 