[dropcap]M[/dropcap]organ Clarke Bier, is my grandfather, my Pap Pap. On Thursday, January 29th, 2015 Pap Pap passed away with his daughters at his side. I want to talk about his life and our relationship, not his death.
Part of me still does and always will see him through the eyes of the little girl who could not wait to see him at the holidays. The girl who stayed so many summers with him and Grandma.
God couldn’t be everywhere so He created Pap Pap
As a young child all of my grandfathers, two great grandfathers and one step great grandfather were alive. Soon my grandparents started to be assigned names. I do not know why I started to call that grandfather Pap Pap, but it fit him well. That was who he was to me.
I never knew any one else called him Pap Pap or Pap until today. It really touched me when reading the Tribute Wall at the Kepner Funeral Home website to see others calling him Pap. So many comments there reinforced what I have always known, Pap Pap was always there for everyone. He still is for me.
Applesauce and Tomatoes
Family dinners with Grandma and Pap Pap, at their home on Hildreth Avenue, would be us sitting at the table in the kitchen by the back breezeway with his laughter filling the room. Almost every meal included applesauce, he loved his applesauce. Fridays were always fish from Coleman’s Fish Market. Whenever possible sliced tomatoes or stewed tomatoes were also served.
At the table there was an order of who could talk and when, a carry over from his childhood. After everyone had a minute or two to talk on their own it became a free for all. When he spoke he always started with work, moved onto daily events, anything scheduled for that night, anything happening in the neighborhood, then family. It was like applesauce, he saved the best for last.
He would tell old family stories and make sure everyone knew all of the new news about everyone in the family. He could talk for hours about everyone and he did. Often the conversations lead to the front porch or back sidewalk where we will sit in fold up rocking chairs and listen to the stories he had started at dinner. He would laugh and smile and his eyes would twinkle. Unless you sat at that wood table on a regular basis you would have no idea how often he talked about his siblings, nieces, nephews and family that had passed on. He was so emotional about it, not the man that many people saw.
Trust me, I’m an engineer
Pap Pap was not just a mechanical engineer who always had blue prints all over the dining room table. Pap Pap was also good at fixing things. He did not just fix things around the house, he could fix anything with a hug. If I fell down the hill, scraped my knee or lost a tooth he made it better. He was the best at removing the splinters I seemed to collect when I was younger. He was always able to dry my tears and get them out better than any one else in the family. Looking up at him and seeing the look of concentration followed by the smile once the splinter is gone are memories I will never forget. They represent him.
He was always so patient with me.I am an only child and Pap had so many relatives who lived near by. It was so amazing to me that someone could have so many siblings, especially from a woman as small as Grandma Bier. I wanted him to drive me to visit with all of his family and Grandmas too, but there was always something even more special about visits with Grandmas Mom, Paps twin Aunt Mina and Grandma Bier.
Pap could have had a bad workday, be broken out in Poison Ivy, or sick as a dog and almost every time he would take me in that old car whose air conditioning was rolling the windows down to go and see family. My life has been enriched by each of those visits to all of our family.
The man who helped raise me
As a general rule Pap Pap did not call me by name to my face. If I called or saw him and said hello he would respond with something like “Hey kid.” If I asked how he was he would tell me “Oh I’m doin’ okay. How are you doin’ kid?”. He along with my other grandparents helped raise me, so kid was fitting in it’s own way. Kid was my name as much as Pap Pap was his.
In March of 2009 my Grandpa Ollie died. Pap Pap came to Willeyville to pay respects to my Dads Dad and get family time. I told Pap I was scared that I would never see him again. He had eye problems and I had time problems. I told him I did not want to go to his funeral and see him that way, I could not bear it. When I told him I did not want to be at his funeral he laughed so hard and told me “Well, I wouldn’t want to be there either kid. It’s okay”.
I am so lucky that he and I had that time to say all of the things that so often go unsaid. Too often in our lives we are left with things we wish we had said to our loved ones. I did not have to go through that with him. I told him all of those things then. Once again he held me and made it better as we said early goodbyes. The last thing he said in that conversation is “I love you too, kid”.
That’s my Pap Pap.
Obituary for Morgan Clarke Bier
BIER, Morgan Clarke, 91, of Wheeling, WV, passed away on Thursday, January 29, 2015 at Wheeling Hospital, Wheeling, WV.
He was born November 18, 1923, in Wheeling, WV, son of the late James Landon Bier, Sr. and Edna Elizabeth Chapline Bier.
Mr. Bier was a graduate of the former Triadelphia High School and a graduate of the WVU College of Engineering, and he was an Army Air Force Veteran having served in the Pacific Theater in WWII.
Morgan loved his work as an Engineer at the West Virginia Department of Highways and retired after having worked for 36 years. He was a member of the Wheeling Lodge #5 AF&AM where he received his 50 year pin; and he was a past member of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church where he was a Senior Deacon and on the Vestry.
In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his wife, Hope Elaine Burgess Bier in 1999; an infant son, Morgan Clarke Bier, Jr.; sisters, Betty Boger, Carol Jobes, his twin sister, Mina Doty, Wilma “Billie” Mollohan, and Virginia Jaynes; and his brother, James Landon “Pat” Bier, Jr.
Surviving are two daughters, Virginia “Gini” Sapp and her husband, Ronald of South Charleston, WV, and Beckie Bier of Wheeling, WV; two sisters, Alice Bruhn and Mary Jones both of Wheeling, WV; a granddaughter, Kellie King and her husband, Thomas J.; two great-grandchildren, Catherine Sapp and Alex King; a great-great-grandson, Joshua High; and his beloved dog, Maggie.
Friends will be received on Saturday, January 31, 2015, from 12 noon until time of service at 2:30 p.m. at the Kepner Funeral Home, 166 Kruger Street, Elm Grove, Wheeling (304-242-2311). Interment in Greenwood Cemetery, Wheeling, WV.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the Osiris Shrine Center, Transportation Fund, Monument Place, 91 Kruger Street, Wheeling, WV 26003.