While technically they just missed out on being from The Greatest Generation (those born in the 1900s and through the 1920s), they most certainly are from our family’s Greatest Generation. Brothers Richard and Hank Mattimore — siblings of beloved Joe, Mary and Dan, and first cousins to Mary, Harry, Jane, Jack, Sally and Kay — are the only two remaining of their generation.

Even while they each are dealing with health struggles and facing their own mortality, 90-year-old Uncle Dick and 86-year-old Uncle Hank have thrived and have given us so much to enrich our lives and families. They are our Mattimore elder statesmen.

Richard lives with his daughter Eileen and her husband in Chicago, while his wife of 66 years, Annie, lives in a facility for Alzheimer’s. Together they have seven children and 15 grandchildren, mostly in the Chicago area. Besides his first cousin Harry Mattimore Jr., Richard is the only other Mattimore of his generation to reach the milestone of 90.

Among my mom’s things, I recently came across copies of some compositions that Uncle Dick wrote for a memoir writing class he once took. He had sent copies to my mom, who kept them. Some of the titles: My First Date, My Favorite Holiday, My Dad’s Occupation, My First Child, Power in My Family and The Person I Admired the Most. So who had the power in the family? Who did he admire most? In both cases that person was his dad, Joseph Mattimore. His writings are a treasure, and we are lucky to have them, these snippets from what seems like a lifetime ago.

Hank is widowed and living in Windsor, California with his son Sean and family. He has two children and four grandchildren. Despite recently learning he has late stage esophageal cancer, he remains an inspiration to us all on what it means to truly live. He likes to sum up his life in the words of an old AfroAmerican friend of his: “Life is a growin’ thing. Ya grows or ya dies.” Hank has certainly done a lot of growin’ — the size of his heart is testament to that.

A passage from Hank’s latest book A Life Lived: Love and the Human Condition by Someone Who Has Been There speaks to me about our ancestry and our connectedness to each other:

We will never get ultimate closure because my story and everyone’s story doesn’t end with death. Our stories continue in our children and families and all those who have been touched by our lives. You may not know the name of your great-great-grandma, but your DNA, your history, was affected by her presence on earth.

Their presence in our lives — these remaining representatives of the Greatest Generation of Mattimores — continues to touch and inspire us. And we are blessed for it.

Note: if anyone would like the address for either of them, let me know.

Share