I wrote this eulogy to my grandpa, Robert Henry "Bob" Glennon, after his death in 1969. It is so unfortunate that it was not until after he was gone that it dawned on me that he was the man of the most powerful influence on me. So profound that I gave my only child his name, Julie Glennon White-Phillips. (I call her Etta Glennon!!) I watched my grandpa in the last years of his life, with slowed steps, walk into the last sunset of a long evening. He watched and waited sunsets for more than three quarters of a century. His days were filled with days of hard work, days of doing, days of deeds, love of life and living and with the strongest determination to go on in the midst of the darkest adversity. There were those periods of his life that he literally walked through the pits of hell and the valleys of death, only to come out on the other side, on top and a better person. He had more faith and grace that I will ever know. He gave me outlooks on life that will be with me as the glow of his memory lingers on and on and on. A soft warm glow that has lit my way many times. Grandpa taught me to be truthful, honest, humble, and to give my neighbor a fair share. Many times I have heard him talking about hard times when a neighbor was sick or down and he gave them a "days worth of work." These were times when money did not speak as loud as good deeds done for a brother. He showed me the meaning of courage and brave living. His first wife died leaving him with three small children. A daughter who had grown up and had children of her own died; six months before his own death, his eldest and only living son passed away at the age of 47. And, I suppose the greatest tragedy of his life was the loss of his two year old son, whom he spoke of some forty years until his own death. In the debacle of the great depression when there was financial failure, sickness and death hovering over, he kept on keeping on. Through storms and draught and Saline River floods, he made it with determination that God does not even grant to kings and angels; with courage not even known to the most daring soldiers of all history. I watched time almost make grandpa a complete invalid. The spirited man of whom I used to follow behind a plow, gather corn, and pick blackberries with became confined to a chair and a front-porch swing to enjoy only the gentle breezes that long hot summer days offered in the Possum Valley forests and farmlands. Even in the last moments of his life, he gave no signs of distress or defeat; although invalid and blind, I did not hear words of dispair or complaint. Man's religions teach him great principles of the ages and they teach him how to grow and live for higher things, and grandpa was no exception. He knew well the charities of each day and a peace of mind known only to those who live well, and know the secret of a personal relationship with God. He and a few other men in our community labored diligently to build the Shiloh Presbyterian Church "from the ground up". His name is still embedded in the front steps of that construction that he worked so hard to build - why? for a cause; a cause that has made an eternal difference in the souls of many who lived in that time. In the late dusk of his evening I could see marks of much labor in years past. And even when his tired and determined hands lay still in death, I could see that he had never abandoned hope by those calloses that were still there, and the fingers still crooked for his hard labors. He lived his life very well, and I have not known anyone who has lived it better. Robert Henry "Bob" Glennon 1888 - 1969